I was at work on an ordinary Monday morning when I received a text from my mother with an article link. The headline read: “Pope Francis Allows Priests to Bless Same-Sex Couples.”
My fiancé texted me moments later. “Does this mean a change in plans?” he asked. We were in the throes of planning our wedding, and he knew what it would mean for me to possibly have a Catholic priest bless us.
Briefly, I allowed myself to feel a sense of excitement. I opened social media and watched the online discussion commence, eager to share this moment with others. But I was then quickly exhausted by the punditry and analysis. “I don’t think so,” I typed back. I was certain that our union would be blessed by an Episcopalian priest, but unsure about what (if anything) the Vatican declaration might mean for our future.
I can look back and see the divine in many aspects of my young life, but it’s almost never where I was looking.
Whenever I’m waiting for clarity, it often helps me to look backwards. If I crack open a journal and revisit where the Holy Spirit has already been at work in my life, it helps me to trust in the consolations I have received and to remember that even if I can’t see it in the moment, God is always at work in some way.
I grew up in a large Catholic family where belief in God was a given. We went to Sunday Mass, prayed before meals and said a Hail Mary when we couldn’t find a parking spot at the grocery store. I can look back and see the divine in many aspects of my young life, but it’s almost never where I was looking. As one example, I don’t remember having any deep spiritual moments staring at the statue of Saint Francis with a bird perched on his hand in our front yard.
Instead, my early experiences of God were more natural, unassuming consolations. I can remember sitting in my room with my brother and listening to intermittent outbursts of laughter as a family party raged below. The house was full of love, history and uncontrollable chaos, and I knew that my little world was being held together by some divine light.
Still, I’m not sure I would have used the word “God” at the time. The moment that word entered the scene, I started to look over there—in church, in prayer cards and in the ideas that my family argued about at the dinner table.
I found myself going to confession compulsively to seek relief from my scruples, many of which sprung from knowing that my sexuality was different.
I was born with an anxious disposition and felt drawn to the sense of order that our rituals and ideas provided. When I hit my teenage years, my worrying turned towards religion. I was obsessed with the rules, which gave me a sense of control over a scary, invisible part of myself beginning to emerge.
I found myself going to confession compulsively to seek relief from my scruples, many of which sprung from knowing that my sexuality was different. I developed a distorted view of mercy as something to be fought for and earned with self-control and achievements.
My inner life unfolded in a loving and fiercely dedicated extended family that seemed to understand God as a talking point. They were the type of Catholics who defended the doctrine of consubstantiation at the dinner table. A conversation about God almost always led to a debate about politics. Their ideological opponents were not seated next to them but out there somewhere, looming.
Ours was a religion of the mind, or at least that’s how I experienced it as a child overhearing the adults in their intellectual tit-for-tats. I internalized faith as a clear set of ideals that you could feel good about defending. In this context, I took for granted that my sexuality was a private cross to bear.
In my 20s, there was a split. I moved to New York City and lived a life of creativity and freedom, but I was still sneaking out of my Manhattan office to seek confession. Exhausted, I finally admitted to a therapist that I was gay. For me, this didn’t mean it was time to sign up for a dating site. True to the hyper-rational faith of my childhood, I hit the books.
I internalized faith as a clear set of ideals that you could feel good about defending. In this context, I took for granted that my sexuality was a private cross to bear.
I read about the “clobber passages” from Scripture that are often used to defend church teaching on homosexuality. I took an online course from Yale on the history of the Bible. I began to examine the lens through which I viewed Scripture, which usually involved looking for clues to justify my own shame. I was surprised to discover a variety of opinions on sexuality within the institution of the church. I read theologians who interpreted Scripture in ways that opened up the texts to me, and helped me to discover new layers and meanings.
I was preparing to defend myself, but in the process I discovered a deep spirituality lying beneath the externals of my childhood, filling them with new dimensions and life. I discovered that while my faith was a source of anxiety, it could also be a source of infinite love and mercy. I didn’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water.
My budding spirituality led me to step outside the world of ideas. I went on retreats; I learned to get quiet. I didn’t just read the Gospels, I prayed with them. I discovered Ignatian spirituality, which taught me to find God in all things and to pray using my experiences. I began to work with a spiritual director, who helped me to discover distorted beliefs that crippled my prayer life: the beliefs that God was demanding and unreliable, that grace could come and go based on my slightest actions.
After weeks of listening to me rehash what I needed to change to get better, he finally threw his hands up in exhaustion: “Who is this God?”
It was a good question.
As I came out to myself and others, I discovered the power of letting God into the most vulnerable aspects of my life. I began to feel known and understood. There was no “aha” moment or argument that made everything click. It happened slowly, over time and revealed itself more in the search than in any simple answer.
As I came out to myself and others, I discovered the power of letting God into the most vulnerable aspects of my life.
Gradually, I began to realize that beneath all of my striving, there was a silent presence waiting for me. My image of God evolved from an accountant tallying my sins to a steady, parental force of love in my life. Knowing that this presence is already there, even if I can’t experience it on some days, contextualizes everything else.
It was around this time that Pope Francis was elected. I remember reading his words in an interview with America: “I see the church as a field hospital after battle.” I understood that language and felt compelled to engage with my local church. I joined a book club for young adults and participated in community events.
The church, for me, started to evolve from a set of abstractions to a living, breathing body of real people. I didn’t need to have it “all together” to take part. I developed connections with people who knew and understood my struggles and strengths, anchoring my experience of God in relationships.
For the first time, I began to see myself as being as much a part of the church as the priests I encountered in confession. This required me to engage rather than simply comply. It meant that I had to take responsibility for my choices and my place in the church. I began to understand the role of my conscience in a new way.
My growing trust in a loving God gave me the freedom to start dating. For years, I perceived this as lowering the bar. In time, I realized that what I perceived as lowering the bar was actually raising the bar for what God could be.
For the first time, I began to see myself as being as much a part of the church as the priests I encountered in confession.
On our first date, Rahul and I walked along the river in my home town and talked for four hours. The conversation came easily. We discovered a shared love of travel and family. Rahul told me that he had left India for the United States because he wanted a family. As a gay man, this meant leaving home. I was impressed. Family was still my first access point to God. My greatest consolations involve a full house and people I love gathered around a table. As I got to know Rahul, I could see us building a home together.
The big, sudden feelings were there, but I have a tendency to mistrust them. It was time that showed me what our relationship could really be. We learned what the other needs after a hard day at work. We learned to talk to one another, stick with each other through family deaths and dramas and build a trust in our shared ability to overcome challenges together.
We realized that our relationship was bigger than the two of us. We talked about this third thing that was more than our separate selves, this us, a tree that we could water and nurture. Three years in, we made a commitment to take care of it together.
It’s an odd thing. Now that my most intimate relationship is able to receive some form of external recognition from the institution that first opened my heart to God, I feel less and less that I need it. Years of thinking with the church has taught me to look beyond what’s on the page to focus on that mysterious presence that I encounter in my everyday life. Rahul is a big part of that.
Three years later, I can see that God is at work in our relationship as we learn to love each other. Failing to acknowledge that would be like putting God in a box.
After a few days of revisiting my own consolations and reading analyses of the text from others, I realized that I had not really taken the time to engage with “Fiducia Supplicans” itself. I needed time to process my confused feelings of excitement and frustration, and to manage my expectations that the document would be full of moral gymnastics or legalism. I was tempted to put on my old, legalistic hat and read the document in search of some certainty, but I don’t really know enough about theology to do that. Plus, I’ve reached a point where if I think I have God figured out, it isn’t God. It’s just me.
I can see that God is at work in our relationship as we learn to love each other. Failing to acknowledge that would be like putting God in a box.
Once I left the theology to the scholars, I was happy to discover many words of great beauty. The text conceptualizes the church as the “sacrament of God’s infinite love” whose blessings can never “be reduced to rules or norms.” It was moving to see aspects of my personal re-conversion mirrored in a document that in many ways represents the church’s ongoing communal renewal.
The church is changing. It’s not happening so fast that I need to call my wedding coordinator, but my own experiences have taught me that urgency can rush things that need time. My relationship to the church evolved over decades, not days. From what I’ve experienced thus far with long-term relationships, it’s best not to give too much weight to any one moment or issue.
I wonder how we will look back on this moment in 20 or 100 years from now. It may not be the moment when the Catholic Church changed doctrine on same-sex relationships, but I hope it will represent a time when we evolved in our understanding of church and its role in the biggest decisions of our lives. In the meantime, it helps me to take the long view, trusting in the slow work of God.
