If you are confused by Pope Francis' latest soundbites on homosexuality, it's not you, it's us, Catholics, who currently cling to an incoherent theological anthropology that satisfies pretty much no one—logically or pastorally.
1/
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/04/01/pope-francis-says-homosexual-tendencies-are-not-a-sin/

If you're like, "Why doesn't Pope Francis just say what he really means?" my best guess is... he's trying to.

This is the almost-inevitable argle bargle that flows from insisting that LGBT persons "suffer from disordered tendencies" even as you tell them how loved they are

2/

Any youth minister or Confirmation catechist has had the task of trying to communicate the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality to a room full of confused, confounded, and ultimately discontented listeners.

3/

The Church insists that LGBT persons are fearfully and wonderfully made by an all-knowing, all-loving God who imbues every human with the Imago Dei. And then goes on to tell them that a core component of their identity is "disordered" and leads to sin, if acted upon. (Huh?)

4/

So then the person explaining Church teaching has to grasp for analogues. Almost inevitably, it turns to the comparison of an alcoholic or heroin addict, who may have been born with a congenital tendency... but the loving thing to do is not to hand that person a bottle/needle

5/

This is about the point in the conversation when the person articulating Church teaching loses pretty much American under the age of 35 (and many over it), who reject the comparison of LGBT persons to heroin addicts, with its built-in implication of destructive effects

6/

Now the pastoral person is doing somersaults to try and convince everyone that all truly are welcome in the Church, and that we, Christians, are called to love each person, ultimately with some version of a "love the sinner, hate the sin" formulation.

7/

Usually, the person guiding the discussion will invoke Jesus' suffering on the cross and suggest that each of us has our own cross to bear. (Also noting that our sexual identity does not *define* us in the way that American culture insists it should.)

8/

The Church's theological understanding of, pastoral language about, and actual in-person treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals is THE generationally defining issue of our current moment, as a Christian community. Full stop. For Americans 35 and under, in particular.

9/

With every statement the Pope makes, there are two camps of Catholics who are scrutinizing his sentences to see if he's indicating that the Church should change its Magisterial teaching and offer full, explicit support for same-sex relationships

10/

Catholics who support the Church's traditional teaching against same-sex relationships think Pope Francis is subtly moving the conversation away from doctrine and sneaking in a surreptitious theological shift by employing non-judgmental pastoral language. This unsettles them

11/

Catholics who dissent from the Church's teaching against same-sex relationships are waiting, with baited breath, to hear the very sort of statement that these traditional Catholics fear... Neither camp has gotten what they desire. Both remain frustrated by this pontificate

12/

The thing is: Pope Francis can't just give an interview or write an encyclical changing the Church's teaching on homosexuality. I mean, he COULD. But it would lead to immediate, enduring, ugly schism. It would lead to the biggest split in Christianity since the Reformation.

13/

We are witnessing and dissecting the developing understanding of an issue that will take the Church decades, if not centuries, to work through. Quanta Cura to Dignitatis Humanae was over 100 years in the making. We who live in the era of Twitter are used to immediacy.

14/

By the way, in my experience, there are many, many bishops, priests, and lay Church staffers who privately talk about the incoherence of the current moment, but few will say so publicly, because it "invites confusion." (Even my thread will get attacked from all angles.)

15/

So most of the reasoned voices in the Church remain quiet, publicly, on the LGBTQ question. And the discussion, like so many, becomes dominated by the loudest, most extreme voices on either end of the spectrum. Even if they're covered in a hip veneer for a youtube video.

16/

And folks who do try to build bridges between the camps end up getting pilloried. Internet mobs try to get people fired. Meanwhile, an entire generation of young Catholics watches all of this with disgust and cynicism—particularly against the backdrop of the abuse scandal

17/

So if you're reading Pope Francis' words, and you're like, "What does this mean?" It means that, as a global Church, the Christian community is working through the LGBTQ question in real time, and this is currently where we're at. (And most folks are dissatisfied with it.)

18/18