The Sins of St. Thomas

In January of 2023, Pope Francis of the Catholic Church gave an interview in which he called for Christians and Catholics around the world to oppose laws criminalizing homosexuality. As you can imagine, people supported that statement, and others were outraged. Beyond the grabbable statement, there was a moment right after where he supposedly reaffirmed that acting upon queerness is still a sin. There is nuance there in the translation and the Socratic questioning he seems to have been giving himself, but even through the “nuance” points I’ve seen people point out, all Pope Francis did is reaffirm the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He is saying that gay people, by the right of our births, are people. We are deserving of respect and protection, of the joys and freedoms of life enjoyed by our cishet counterparts. Being gay is a state of being—a human condition. Yet acting upon it is a sin. That is the position of the Catholic Church.

St. Thomas Aquinas is a Catholic Ministry at the college where I completed undergrad. Several of the friends I made my freshman year found, refound, or reinvigorated their relationship with the religious over the next few years. A good amount of them were or became Catholic. I visited St. Thomas a few times, never during a service, accompanying one of my friends for whatever reason. I liked the space. It’s a pretty building, very modern design on the outside and lovingly spacious on the inside. I want to talk about the Sins of St. Thomas.

Chapter 1: There’s Something About Mary

One of my friends had been a Baptist before college. We talked a lot about his interest in Catholicism, both politically in the sense of less judging liberation his one Catholic family member talked of, and for the sense of consistency with the way Mass functions. I was happy for him that he was finding something that made him happier.

Later on, I befriended someone struggling with their sexuality and their religion. I knew someone else whose boyfriend broke up with them while going through a sort of 90 day masculinity in Christ program that was going on through St. Thomas. That boyfriend, at the time, seemed to be rejecting their own sexuality. I’m not religious. So I approached a mutual friend between us all, let’s call her… Joan. Joan was almost like an idol among some in that freshman friend group, and she definitely played a large, joyful, welcoming part in guiding some of them back into religious and Catholocism. I liked Joan well enough. We’d had fun discussions about art and doubt. Very odd but bright person. I approached her about it. In my mind, she could help the two of them on a front that I couldn’t approach as well. We saw each other briefly in one of the food buildings, and I asked for her help. When asking for it, I said something along the lines of, “and I know you’re not one of the ones who think you have to be celibate to be gay and holy.” Paraphrasing. But she corrected me. My assumptions based on what I knew about her were wrong. She already knew about their struggles. And she agreed that celibacy was the holy, right choice for them, and she would encourage it.

That angered me.

Over the next day or two, I drafted up a text I was going to send her to call her out for being homophobic. But I was worried about it, so I sent it to that former-Baptist friend of mine. He helped me tone down the language. Afterall, no one enjoys being attacked, and I’m glad he did. He didn’t want me to send it at all, though. One of the things he said was, “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.” That stuck with me. It hurt. That wasn’t fair of me, but it furthered the gap between us. I sent the text.

When she responded, she thanked me for “holding her accountable” or something along those lines, and that we should meet up and talk about it. We scheduled a time. I started searching up religious arguments against being gay once again. I wanted to understand her position as much as possible before we talked. That would make for a better talk. I read the section of the Catechism that goes over it. I asked her if she had anything to recommend. She told me to look into Father Mike Schmitz. He is, in her words, one of the most loving and kind. I think she heard him speak at a SEEK conference. So I did.

Schmitz posts on a website called the Bulldog Catholic. In posts arguing against the legalization of gay marriage, he compared gay relationships to incest. His boiling down of the pro-gay argument was “I have a sexual desire for x so x must be good.” Obviously, logically, that’s not true. And that’s the point of him putting it that way. It’s the slippery slope argument. That X of his, to be charitable, sits in place of a family member, as he mentions a few sentences earlier. To be uncharitable, it stands in place of the other slippy slope nonsense: animals or children. I listened to him give a talk where he went on about loving a gay person does not mean affirming that their love is good. I don’t know if his views have changed. Frankly, I don’t really care to go digging to find out. For my own mental health, I can’t.

He was the loving view. Someone opposed to my ability to get married, who found the potential legality of it a threat to family, morality, and church, and who compared my ability to find love with a fellow consenting man the moral equivalent of a brother and sister. To his credit, he’s not the worst you can get. He wrote a book advocating in a way for love and acceptance and gentleness to all humans, regardless of sexuality. At least, that’s what the one positive review I read says. He doesn’t advocate for conversion therapy. I would call him Side Y.

A quick vocabulary lesson. In broad stroke, there are four categories of belief about sexual orientation in Christian circles. Side X is your died in the wool homophobia. Being gay is a sin. Experiencing any queer thoughts is a sin. X believes in conversion therapy. Then a step away, you have Side Y. Being gay in and of itself isn’t a sin, but you should either be celibate or get into a straight marriage anyway. Also, don’t identify as gay. That’s where you get all of this constant use of “those who experience/struggle with same-sex attraction.” You see them use SSA instead of gay or queer. Take another step and you’ll find Side B. Side B believers view gay sex and relationships sinful, and belive we should all be celibate. Some of them think gay-straight marriages, called mixed-orientation marriages, can be the right call instead of celibacy, but not all of them. The biggest difference between Y and B is that on Side B, you can call yourself gay. You can say you’re a gay Christian, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Then you have Side A. On Side A, you can be gay. You can get gay married. God made you that way. If you’re called to celibacy, cool. If you’re not, cool.

TL;DR: Side X is for EX-gay. Side A is for affirming. Side Y is for Y-dly terrible. And Side B is for bullshit.

Schmitz is Side Y. The Catholic Catechism calls homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered.” It presents homosexuality as a trial. The inclination towards it is “objectively disordered.” I’m inclined to believe the official stance of the Church leans towards Y, especially given the amount of Catholics who use the SSA acronym. Part of the Church lean Side B. Individual members might be A or X.

Mary, when I first met her, was Side A. I think, by the time we had our falling out, she was likely Side Y. One of the two friends I knew was suddenly Side B. The other was Side Y, or trying to be, though he kept it to an internal struggle rather than one to be put upon others.

We met that night in my car, parked overlooking a beautiful view of the city. She was late because she was off playing on a nearby playground. Mary had a wonderfully childlike heart. We met. We joked. We sat in silence. Neither of us wanted to be the one to bring it up. I think we both knew that when she left my car, we would no longer be friends.

We were right.

Mary had talked to her priest before our talk. It was her way of preparing. I suppose it weighed heavily. Supposedly he told her that it will be a difficult conversation, and all she can really do is listen to my pain, because he knew there would be a lot of hurt.

He was right, too.

When I told her my understanding of the Catechism–that my love is wrong and, therefore, I, on some level, am wrong–she angrily insisted that my reading was wrong. But she refused to tell me the correct form. I don’t know what she thought about that passage, or where she disagreed with my interpretation of her beliefs. We talked a lot about my past with homophobic Christians who believed they were acting out of holy love when they injured me over and over. We talked about LGBT suicide rates and how non-affirming beliefs influence that. We both cried. We cried and cried, and we talked. It became clear that there was a second purpose to what the priest told her, perhaps unintended: she was to listen to my pain, but not to consider it. Not to understand it. Not to examine how her beliefs and how she taught and influenced others contribute to that pain. She was just to listen to it.

Mary made it clear she would remain non-affirming and continue to believe it the holy route for all LGBT christians. I made it clear that it’s a horrible belief to have. We talked about mental health. I told her how her joy was something I wanted to emulate. My mental health was terrible at the time. She told me I could be. Anyone could be. She has her own struggles with mental health, but being Catholic brought her joy. If only I was Catholic, I could be happy.

The underlying statement was never said outloud: if I stopped being gay, or at least embraced Catholic celibacy, I could be happy.

Suffering, in her mind, is something holy. To struggle and suffer and deny oneself is to be closer to God. It brought to mind that masculinity program those other two friends of mine were involved in. They took cold and short showers. They weren’t to watch TV or be on the computer if they could help it. There were some dietary things involved. I think it’s why the one broke up with his boyfriend. It was a form of self-denial. Ascteticism. I don’t necessarily think all self-denial is suffering, but I believe they derive from the same place: that pleasure found outside of God is wrong. And suffering is holy.

She left my car. We both sometimes talked in a group chat with the other friends. I don’t think I ever talked to her again after that. The friendship ended. I don’t have any idea what’s going on in her life any longer. Her social media has been dead for a long while.

Speaking of social media:

Chapter 2: Prayers for Bobby

I was on friendly terms with another Catholic of my year. We didn’t really share any circles or classes, but we ran into each other now and then. He was dorky and excited. I found him oddly endearing, and I always enjoyed our brief interactions. For my purposes here, let’s call him Bobby. Bobby was also friends with Mary.

Bobby, much like Mary, was a very smart person. Studious and good at it. Generous and kind. He wasn’t nearly as wild-hearted as she, but he had his moments of wild mania. Like with her, I think that drew people in.

Sometime between my talk with Mary and a year after graduating, I can’t quite recall when, Bobby posted on social media. It was a short post, along the lines of, “I’m gay.” There was more to it, but I can’t recall, and I don’t want to invent anything. I was happy for Bobby when I saw that. How could I not be? Coming out can be hard and scary, but it’s always brave and wonderful when someone does.

When I got back on later that day, he’d deleted the post. Supposedly, someone hacked into his profile. Maybe someone borrowed something he’d not logged out of. I don’t know. I won’t speculate. But Bobby deleted the post, and he posted an update. He let us know he was pranked, and that it was gross. Which it is. No one should be outed against their will and no one should be ascribed a sexuality which isn’t theirs. If he was hacked, that was a cruel thing for the hacker to do. But Bobby went a step further. He clarified that he is a good Christian. He said either Christian or Catholic, I can’t recall.

That stuck with me. He didn’t say he was straight. He didn’t say his sexuality was his own business. No. He called the post gross and said he’s a good Christian as a rebuttal to it, a reassurance to everyone that he would never post that.

Because, in his eyes, identifying as queer is shameful. Sinful. Against God.

It made me think of Mary. Of the young college kids she was ushering towards this belief. This Side Y decision that even calling oneself gay is wrong. You experience same-sex attraction. You are not gay. Being gay is wrong. Being in a gay relationship is doubly wrong. It is gross.

Chapter 3: Hallowed be His Name

“Gross.”

Of the two people I asked Mary about, one was my age. It wasn’t the first time he’d struggled with this debate, I gathered from other friends of us. He’d likely make it out the other side once again believing in himself and that it is perfectly possible to be queer and Christian. As far as I know, he eventually did. The other was younger. He was sweet, talented, fun to be around. We liked to talk about writing. We’d make music. He’s a good guy. For this video, let’s call him Hallowed.

I won’t share the details of Hallowed’s story. That’s his to tell, not mine. So I’ll leave that there. But he struggled. And Mary was there to talk to him. The priest was there to talk to him. The Catechism was there to talk to him. We got into a fight once. We’d seen a day of theatre together. He came to support me and some other people who were performing in our own pieces. After he left, one of the pieces was about being trans. Some of Hallowed’s friends from St. Thomas were there to support a girl that we’ll call Joan. I sat behind those girls from St. Thomas. I don’t remember the details vividly, but I know they laughed and giggled. They whispered about it. It was a good piece, well written and acted, but it wasn’t funny. Me and a friend knew they were St. Thomas girls. But we weren’t confident in our interpretations until we talked about it after the show. So in our anger, we called up Hallowed.

In a way, he was a strand-in. It was him and not them we had access to, whom we could complain to. And so we did. On some levels, I regret that night. On others, it had to happen. Hallowed promised to talk to the girls. He assumed it was a misunderstanding, but would check for us. Either way, he’d mention theatre etiquette. They eventually apologized, though for what I don’t recall.

During the talk, we talked about St. Thomas. We talked about how they were non-affirming, either of gay people or trans people. We talked about how that wasn’t love and how they were hurting him. I think, in some ways, it was too much. It was a hard conversations. Everyone said harsh things. We all hurt each other. While we talked, he defended the idea of St. Thomas’s love. The being non-affirming could be love. He said that his Catholic friends, his St. Thomas friends, might find parts of him disgusting, they still love him. He said they found parts of him disgusting. Parts. The gay parts. The queerness. His ability to love and form relationship. They made it clear to him they found that “gross.”

And he called their disgust love.

Perhaps it was because we were in Kentucky. Maybe it was because we were all young when gay marriage was legalized. Maybe that’s where the “gross” label came from. But in two separate occasions it appeared. Bobby called it a disgusting lie. Hallowed said those who portended to walk with him found his gayness disgusting. Maybe it was a St. Thomas thing. Maybe calling the “act” intrinsically disordered led to a view of the person as seperable, as a thing to be chopped into pieces easier to swallow and discard. When you hate the sin but love the sinner, you simply end up hating both.

Chapter 4: The Side B of It All

There’s this trend among homophobes, transphobes, and racists where they simply hate to be called that. They will use their moral judgement to pass their hatred, but they cannot stand to be judged in turn. After all, calling someone a homophobe is passing judgement. It was calling them wrong. Bigoted. Cruel. They don’t mind people thinking that they’re wrong or disagreeing with them, but being seen as anything but loving is a horrid blow. We tend to not be able to see our own cruelty. We cannot swallow being evil. So we play semantics. “I am not scared of gay people,” they will say, “so I do not have a phobia.” That person knows what homophobia means. They know they’re being obtuse. But they have to be. Because elsewise they will accepting a label that paints them as cruel, and that would be intolerable. “I do not hate gay people; I think being gay is wrong. Homophobia is hate/fear/disgust. I love gay people. So I tell them the ‘truth.’”

My friend said people are entitled to their opinions.

Every now and then, I’ll go on twitter and I’ll search up “Side B Chritian.” Most people who identify as Side B will themselves be queer, and they’ll readily tell you that. They are gay. They did not choose to be gay. They have no belief that one can be ex-gay and they oppose that theology. They accept queer identity and push for that level of acceptance amongst their religious, non-affirming fellows.

The true crux of Side B theology is their belief in a tradition sexual ethic. In other words, gay sex is wrong. Gay people are called to celibacy by the nature of their existence, not through any self-discernment. Some will allow for chaste partnership. Some will not. Some believe that some gay people will, rather than celibacy, be called to enter so-called mixed-orientation marriages. That’s a bit of a weird name in that it sounds like it could be any mixture of sexualities. As such, let me be clear, for our purposes, and the purposes of most who talk about it, a mixed-orientation marriage is a marriage between two incompatible sexualities, specifically a homosexual person marrying a heterosexual person. I don’t want to waste much time on this aspect. Those who believe in and push mixed-orientation marriages as viable, loving options for gay people, as the only possibility for loving romantic and/or sexual relationships for gay people, are conversion therapists. They are ex-gay ministers who can’t bear to be looked at with the same scorn we give their more honest counterparts. If you tell a gay man that they can only marry a woman, you are a homophobe. You may call yourself Side B, but you are Side X, and I treat you with the scorn that warrants.

There is a split among Side B people. There are those who feel a personal calling to celibacy based on their understanding of scripture, and there are those who believe that all gay people are called to celibacy based on scripture. I don’t personally understand the underlying philosophical difference that causes that schism, but I think it more or less boils down to political advocacy and whether or not you’re okay with secular people getting into relationships or married and the like. The uniting belief, though, is that gay sex is sinful.

Side B people often recieve a lot of hate. There are those more conservative minded of the church that view them as disgusting queers, even if they don’t engage with their sexuality. Many of them have a lack of support in their journey with celibacy. It can be difficult. Then, on the other side, you have Side A and secular affirming people calling them self-hating homophobes.

When the Church of England announced their… very limited movement towards acceptance of queer people, some Side B Christians cried out. If their church becomes affirming, then what did they suffer for? If they allow marriage, then their call to celibacy will be challenged. They’ll face temptation. They feel, in a way, abandoned. I think those who felt that way have a crisis more engrained than debate over sexuality: If their church embraces and accepts queer joy and love, then there was no reason for them to suffer. If they don’t feel the personal call to celibacy in an affirming congregation, then maybe they were never called to it. Maybe it was time wasted. Maybe the suffering was not holy struggle. It was only pain. And if it was only pain, then suffering isn’t holy. Joy is.

What are you meant to do when you learn that joy and love was the better option?

Rather than that pain and crisis of faith, they would rather stop it. Perhaps argue for that supposed middle ground, let queer liberation only go so far as to allow us to exist in the theoretical. Call us all to celibacy. Fight against our rights to marriage and adoption. Fight against pride and affirmation. At the same time, fighting more extreme versions of homophobia. You might catch on that I said more.

Side B theology is a deeply homophobic ideology. If you are Side B, even if you are queer, you are homophobic. If you believe you are called to celibacy not because that is your personal discernment but because scripture commands it of you, then your beliefs are homophobic. You did not make a free choice. You were coerced by a homophobic belief system that views you and your love as lesser. No amount of sweet words or avoidance of the f-slur can take away that taste. I’m not making a theological argument. I will not have one with you. But the core of your belief set on queer identity and behavior is unaffirming homophobia.

Hate the sin, love the sinner only results in hating both, regardless of whether or not you have blinded yourself to your own hatred.

Side B theology, like all un-affirming ideology, leads to the only place it can: shame. Dune got it wrong. Shame is the mind killer. Shame is what builds the closet, and it is what hangs the noose. The shame engrained upon queer people by the unaffirming is what causes high rates of mental illnesses and suicide attempts. What are the fruits of your teaching? Side B, Side Y, and Side X can only bear a single fruit. That fruit is self-hatred. It is a corpse.

Homophobia and transphobia are wrong. They are deadly. They are shameful.

The Catchism calls for celibacy. The Catholic Church calls for celibacy. St. Thomas calls for celibacy. Mary called for it. And in their teaching were the seeds of shame felt by Hallowed. The disgust expressed by his friends and by Bobby. It is wrong. It is a sin.

The Pope called for the decriminalization of homosexuality. That’s great. That is a win.

His Church still bears bad fruit.

Calling same-sex sexual activity a sin, even in loving marriages, is a teaching that walks people to stakes, and it has them set themselves on fire. While they burn, the Church and its acsteticism says, “To suffer is to be closer to God.”

Chapter 5: Joan d’Arc

Joan was another one of those people filled with the sort of joy that makes you stop and wonder if religion might be worth looking into once again. She had a sort of graceful innocence to her and a smile that she carried that never failed to lighten my day whenever I saw her. We worked together a few times. She was smart, talented, a hard worker, and pleasure to be around. For a long time, I quite liked her. When we first met, apparently she was intimidated by me. That went away when we got to know each other. In a way, we were friends.

Joan went to St. Thomas. It was her friends who snickered at the performance about being trans. She never talked about politics, but she hung out with people in MAGA hats. I didn’t want to draw conclusions based on that. She never said anything to me, afterall, and I was clearly gay. It was well known. I thought, perhaps, in her innocence, she was simply being. I didn’t want to ascribe any beliefs in her. That was belittling of me.

After I graduated, I texted with Joan a couple of times. Always brief. We talked about life, checked in on each other, talked about art. I told her about some romantic struggles I was having at the time. She ignored any talk I made about my love life.

Before I graduated, I wrote, composed, and directed a theatre for young audience’s musical called Three Wolves Howling. Side note, directing your own stuff in the theatre is maybe a bad call. Anywho, I wrote Three Wolves because I wanted to put on a musical, and I wanted it to be queer. I didn’t know about New Play Exchange at the time, and the sites I was looking through didn’t have any shows that matched what I wanted to do. So I wrote my own. And we put it on. The script was available before auditions. I’d talked about it with people. Everyone knew it was gay. Two wolf siblings set out to restore a wolf prince to his forest throne. When they first meet him, he’s asleep. He’s woken by the brother delivering true love’s kiss. At the end, they’re married and adopt a family. She never said anything to me about it. As far as I know, there was no homophobic murmuring or protest. This was in 2019. I wonder if now, people would be labeling me a groomer for making that show. It wasn’t the best, but it is better now, and I am proud of it.

So, fool be to me, I didn’t think her homophobic. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. I thought it odd she glossed over anytime I brought up my love life when we talked, but maybe she was just…

After I graduated, I heard of several instances. I won’t share the details. There’s no point in that. But it turned out she was homophobic. She was against gay marriage, gay expression, trans identity. From what I gathered, she was perhaps the most St. Thomas of all the people I’d met in college. She decided to be bold in her faith and beliefs after I graduated. We haven’t talked since then.

Joan did have one other interesting thing happen, though. She was part of a Students for Life organization on campus. It was part of her religious forwardness with her faith. During the 2020 election, there was the duel runoffs in the Georgia senate. After college, I moved to Georgia, so I was in the state and voting during that time. I’m proud to have voted for Warnock and Ossoff and hope to continue to vote for both of them. Joan and other chapters around the country came to Georgia to campaign for Perdue and Loeffler, who both lost, thankfully. Perdue and Loeffler, two anti-gay candidates, two MAGA conservatives calling into question the election, supposedly because they were pro-life. The students were canvassing and campaigning. Several posted photos of them grouped together in the middle of the pandemic without masks.

I think that connects. There’s a disconnect. Potentially spreading a deadly virus in the name of pro-life politicking connects, in my mind, to labelling oneself pro-life whilst spreading an ideology that results in queer graves.

Chapter 6: The Sin

I’m going to end on dramatic terms. I am a man of the theatre, after all. That is the charge that will be levied at me for these statements, so I’m going to go ahead and agree with them. I am being dramatic. This is a form of theatre. Life is performance. That does not mean it is not true.

The sin of St. Thomas, of Joan and Bobby and Mary, of the Pope and Sides X, Y, and B, is that of murder.

May they repent.