A Mass hosted by Outreach ministry for LGBT/same-sex attracted Catholics.

I’m gay/same-sex attracted

Estimated read time: 10 minutes

Your stories are inspiring. I can hear the hurt in people’s voices when they share their experiences. Especially when someone thinks they have to choose between being Catholic and being authentic. One of the most important elements of discernment is learning how to be totally honest. We’ve become biased and accustomed to a culture of secrecy in many parish settings. But preaching truth and also being (painfully) honest before God have to go together.

This reflection will focus a bit more on history and pastoral mission since theology is extensively discussed in the upcoming book Theology for the Unwanted. This is a difficult topic for so many, and so you are encouraged to take your time. However, we can be completely sure that you are called to live your life exactly, precisely as God created you. If we can agree on that, then allow yourself the next many years to figure out precisely what that means.

It really does not matter whether you identify as gay or prefer the even more recent term same-sex attracted. The Catholic Church has always held a biblical assumption about same-sex acts, but the negative views about same-sex relations historically stemmed from assumptions that this attraction—what we now call gay— was a choice, or deliberate attempt to break down society, and even a rebellion against the way a person was created. And it is often linked to wider cultural debates and whether the community even believes sexual orientation itself is real.

But in your unique dignity, given by God, you are never a political or cultural pawn.

What is most important is that you are able to find a Catholic community that provides you with the tools to slowly and patiently discern exactly how you are called to live your life. There is no easy path for anyone.

Spend time in front of the Eucharist in silent prayer if you can. I never tell someone to avoid groups that only use the term “same-sex attraction” particularly if they are finding a healthy community there. The important thing is to find a place where you maintain full freedom to talk about what you are experiencing, that you are never pressured to hide something you have felt, and that you are learning new tools to discover Christ in your life.

Parishes should take great care to teach Catholics how to avoid becoming vulnerable because they shared their secrets at church. With great sadness, there has been a long history of people taking advantage of shame and embarrassment to harass vulnerable people.

If someone is afraid of “outing” themselves, they will also be afraid of speaking up when a boundary has been crossed. So many stories people have shared with me reflect this problem.

You can ask yourself, does the vocabulary my fellow parishioners use seek authenticity or damage the reputation of entire groups of people? Does a homilist choose the most extreme examples to call attention to his point, maybe getting caught up in the rhetoric, or even ignoring how the same problems are facing other couples too? The armed or disarmed tone often signals whether the person preaching is actually secure and confident in what they are preaching.

When the Church critiques the lives of people it doesn’t agree with, I don’t demand it changes its teaching. I ask that the Church be fair and honest, even when that challenges our assumptions. I insist that we set our walls down just long enough to meet the realities of countless Catholics who have dramatically improved their mental and physical health after being committed in a positive, stable, and permanent relationship.

An enormous number of these individuals volunteer weekly at their parish—including at the Traditional Latin Mass. Many long term committed couples are active parishioners and some even enroll their child in the parochial school. Even in the Church’s critique of these families, if we want to be credible in the modern world we have to acknowledge what elements of virtue and charity are clearly present.

Being Honest about Changing Expectations in Relationships

It is astounding how much our expectations of relationships have changed over the centuries. For example, Saint Augustine (as a 31-year-old man) was clearly not happy it was his duty to be engaged to a 10-year-old girl. But the law and culture of his time didn’t fully support the values we do today.

In Augustine’s time, the Church was still warming up to the idea of marriage as an equal vocation to celibacy. It was approximately 500 years before weddings started happening inside churches or as part of a Mass. Our culture, our law, and to an extent our Christian tradition were learning how to grow deeper to understand the fullness of human dignity and how we discover God through different relationships with one another.

In a much more modern sense, the best source on the life of Saint Thomas More (who lived from 1478-1535) should make us laugh because his biographer feels the need to keep explaining that he enjoyed being around his wife. It wasn’t just some detached societal duty. She made him happy! (Roper’s biography of More). Clearly, it was unusual for his time.

But that is a really important lesson Thomas More can teach the modern world. Despite his status as one of the most important people in England, he recognized his incompleteness. There was something about being Thomas More that despite the power and fame, by himself he was incomplete. And for him the Christian encounter was met through his wife. It was a sort of mutual respect for the other’s dignity that the world widely wasn’t ready for— even if they were happy for them. The unity, completeness, and holiness found in Thomas More’s personal life no doubt inspired Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI who often described their search for truth as a “theology of nuptials.”

Don’t get me wrong. It is unlikely that Thomas More would talk with a gay man in 2025, and encourage him to date. But it is worth pondering what that discussion would sound like.

It’s good to be happy with some of the ways the world has changed. For one, I like that we now think of a wedding as a religious occasion. For nine centuries of Christianity it was largely just a legal affair. Even much later it still involved an exchange of money and land. And as marriage finally became recognized as a sacrament—thanks to Saint Thomas Aquinas— the Church began to regulate it like a legal affair. As theologians like Fr. Martin Lintner have pointed out, we regulate the body and the relationship significantly more than we think about the theology of living in relationship (Spendier 2024). And the theology of living in relationship is key to understanding the likeness of God.

Theologian James Alison has given talks on why most of western society totally missed the fact that people have same-sex attraction. Until just a few hundred years ago, boys and girls would largely socialize separately until they were prepared for marriage. And so secret same-sex bonds were to an extent tolerated because that was the only outlet. But as men and women started to be educated together, people started to notice…some people choose — even prefer— that same-sex bond? (Alison 2022)

In her book chronicling relationships in Medieval England, Kathryn Warner highlights how common and normal it was for people of the same gender to share a bed (Warner 2022). So it is not really until the modern era, when people stop sharing beds out of necessity, where we suspiciously start to realize that some people preferred intimate friendships with those of the same sex.

This was very curious for social scientists. It seemed so unnatural at first. For the first time, they had to start considering that sexuality —as an identity— might be a part of the human condition. And so you can imagine why and how many people thought it was curable for decades.

A Subtle Shift in the Church

The realization that there were (and still are) an enormous number of secret relationships that people have been asked to keep hidden from the parish community has serious implications for theology. From my personal experiences, I know this is still a prevalent issue in 2025.

If we believe we have the truth, we must also be honest.

In 1975, the Catholic Church noted in the document Persona Humana, “According to contemporary scientific research, the human person is so profoundly affected by sexuality that it must be considered as one of the factors which give to each individual's life the principal traits that distinguish it. In fact it is from sex that the human person receives the characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her progress towards maturity and insertion into society.”

But there has been a lot of cultural pushback. Particularly in English-speaking countries, the Church has had a serious reluctance to revisit the idea that sexual orientation is a thing.

There is even more reluctance to admit good data into the discussion. The Church unfortunately has a tendency to impose ideas over top of the realities they are living, by making them out to be a hyper-sexualized group of individuals. One question that is asked of me a lot is, “How can I believe the Catholic Church is true if it paints such an incorrect picture about my life.”

Inevitably, if a parish dares to go minister to the people at Pride events, they will learn that most floats are family friendly and that many churches figured this out long before us Catholics. But of course, the float that features the most immodesty will often be the one circulated on the internet by Catholics opposing Pride.

Considering that the duty of the Church is to help people live exactly, precisely as God made them, there has been a growing demand for ministries that (in some cases affirm) focus on Christianizing the experiences of gay Catholics without judgement.

We cannot lose another generation of Christians due to our fears of ministering to people the Church considers different.

Evaluating Evidence

A common misconception I encounter is that homosexual persons are not capable of monogamous relationships. This perspective often stems from a very limited understanding of lived experiences. After overhearing someone imply this at church once, I asked that individual if they had spent too much time on college campuses recently? No, seriously! There isn’t a lot of monogamy there. Many parishes have at least one committed gay couple that have been together for decades —and even one of the partners often attending daily Mass and volunteering— but have shied away from sharing their stories because of the judgement.

At another church, someone mentioned that the studies prove children who are adopted by same-sex couples don’t fare well. But we have to be honest. The Catholic Church is not a political party, we are held to a higher standard of preaching what is true. That means acknowledging uncomfortable information. Here is a Cornell University link to 79 peer reviewed studies on this topic. 75 of them say there ends up being no difference. Theology for the Unwanted does not expect the Church to endorse this model of adoption, but if we want to discern the truth we do have to be realistic.

While the Vatican has been very clear, no part of Sacred Scriptures addresses sexual orientation (as no one really knew what that was), there are references to same-sex acts as sin. “It should be noted immediately that the Bible does not speak of erotic inclination toward a person of the same sex, but only of homosexual acts.” (Pontifical Bible Commission, 2019). That is hardly a green light. But in light of new information, we have the ability to slowly and painfully sort out the tensions and help all of us grow in Christ.

With the increasing understanding that sexual orientation is real (and in America not all priests acknowledge this yet, still referring to sexuality as just acts), it seems very inconsistent with moral theology for the Church to immediately dismiss that this element of someone’s creation is only valuable when sacrificed through celibacy. That is far too simplistic and does not grapple enough with the tension of theology as a lived experience. Chastity is for everyone equally, and so we have to go deeper than we ever have to understand what that means.

In the modern world, where the lack of encounter and authentic relationship is the new theological landscape, we should also try to understand how virtue is built through finding a proper harmony in relation to others. It is like a mosaic. No one tile reflects back the image of God entirely in itself. To successfully do this, we have to look for the differently-colored tiles and work to create harmony.

On the other hand, vice is when a set of mosaic tiles call attention to themselves as if they reflect the entire picture the artist intended. Self-possession, or overpowering tiles (including treating them as worthless) could lead to vice. It’s a two-way street.

And so the Church is taking it’s time answering what this looks like for gay individuals. For those who are gay or experiencing same-sex attraction, your mission is to slowly and prayerfully discern how God is calling you to live in relationship. The Church itself is learning how to understand your value as a tile that helps reflect back the greater mosaic of a loving Creator.

Upcoming book on the theology of this topic

The theology and methods I recommend for discernment (both for you and for our Church) are discussed heavily in the upcoming book Theology for the Unwanted.

A special thank you to Bishop Felix Gmür who wrote this for people considering reading the book. “At a time when the Catholic Church is balancing its rich traditions with the demands of modernity, Daniel Tillson offers an insightful word of encouragement. With great sensitivity, he sheds light on the challenges of living as a queer Christian. This book can accompany anyone who wants to reconcile their faith and their identity and is looking for a home and acceptance in the church.

It is my conviction, that every person who is searching for God - even if they may not yet have the courage to talk about certain parts of their life - is a valuable gift for the Catholic community. It is a moment of joy. No one needs to be afraid of the tension that arises when one begins to seek Jesus Christ in his or her life. Those who strive for holiness sometimes take a great personal risk, and the Church is slowly learning to support this search and accompany people on this lifelong journey.”

Sources:

Roper, William. "The Life of Sir Thomas More." Internet Modern History Sourcebook, compiled by Paul Halsall, Fordham University, Aug. 1998

Spendier, Madeleine. "Lintner: Church Has Made People's Lives Unnecessarily Difficult." Katholisch.de, 4 Jan. 2024, english.katholisch.de/artikel/50052-lintner-church-has-made-peoples-lives-unnecessarily-difficult.

Alison, James. "Learning the Truth About Matters LGBTQ+ and Organic Christianity with James Alison." YouTube, uploaded by Immanuel Presbyterian Church Tacoma, 10 May 2022

Warner, Kathryn. Sex & Sexuality in Medieval England. Pen & Sword History, 2022. Page 125.

Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Persona Humana: Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics. Holy See, 1975.

"What Does the Scholarly Research Say About the Well-Being of Children with Gay or Lesbian Parents?" What We Know, Cornell University

Pontifical Biblical Commission. "What Is Man?" (Ps 8:5): An Itinerary of Biblical Anthropology. Vatican.va, Holy See, 30 Sept. 2019