The Catholic Church sometimes refers to itself metaphorically as "holy mother church." Leaving aside the telling fact that the Church admits no women to positions of influence or authority, the hierarchy might find it enlightening to learn what real mothers with children can teach us, what real parental love can mean as far as gay women and men are concerned.
Mother and fathers react in different ways when they learn that their child is homosexual. Some are saddened or shocked by the news. Being gay is not necessarily something they would have wanted for their child or expected. Perhaps they don't understand why or what it means. Some may wish that it were not true. Incredibly in 2013, there are even some parents who reject the child for religious, social or other reasons.
But after the initial confusion or shock, many parents respond to their gay child with love. And since love is, among other things, a way of knowing it can lead to new understanding. It can allow parents to learn from their daughters and sons, to see the world through their eyes and their experience. It prompts them to question old assumptions and values. Love has the power to transform them.
The same is true for other family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues. Knowing and caring about someone who is gay changes you. That is because you know in the deepest way possible that your sister or friend or uncle is a good, decent person because you know them through love. You know them as a human being and understand that being gay is part of who they are.
This explains the big change in attitudes towards homosexuality and gay marriage. The whole conversation shifts radially when it's my brother, daughter or friend that you are talking about. Judgments about being "intrinsically disordered" or "evil" or a "threat to traditional marriage" are seen to be the neurotic projections or cruel distortions that they are.
The people who honor the humanity of gay people are doing so not because they are being trendy or have succumbed to relativistic morals. They do so because they themselves have become more human in the very finest sense of the word.
And so when a religious leader says in reference to gay people as New York's Cardinal Dolan did recently on television, "I love you, too," it's hard to know what he means. In the context of his Church's teaching and actions that cause real pain and damage to gay people, that statement sounds grotesque. In this context, Holy Mother Church is a mean mother.
But it makes you wonder. Are any of the bishops close to someone who is gay? Do they love a gay woman or man as a friend? Could they look such a person in the eyes and say, "I love you. But it is sinful for you to show your love to someone with your full humanity, to express it sexually with tenderness and affection?"
And this is the essential fault in the Church's teaching about homosexuality: It is heartless and inhuman. And now many people, including many Catholics, know and understand this.
The hierarchy and priests take a solemn vow to live a life without physical affection, romantic love or intimacy. Perhaps this void in their human experience explains whey they can only talk about gay sex but never about gay love. In seeing homosexuals as being "intrinsically disordered," they are denying the possibility that there can be such a thing as gay love. In this respect, the Church is heartless and dehumanizes homosexuals.
The good cardinal and his fellow prelates look at gay men and women and see intrinsic disorder and talk about sinful sex. Happily, real mothers and fathers and more and more people look at this same group and see fellow human beings and talk about love and equality.
Holy Mother Church needs to love the way real mothers do.