Bill Scholl is the archdiocesan consultant for social justice. You can email him at: socialjustice@archkck.org.
by Bill Scholl
Soon in Kansas, despite the majority who voted to ban same-sex “marriage,” a few judges may compel our great state to legally sanction same-sex unions. Such a ruling will be a gut check for all Christians as we resolve how we listen to and love those who self-identify as gay and lesbian.
As Catholics, we are called to love all people. However, we also know that you can never love a person by confirming him or her in a sin. Sin always turns us away from God, bringing misery and death. Jesus loved and dialogued with the woman at the well despite her promiscuity, but he loved her by calling her away from that lifestyle. As Christians, we can’t bless a homosexual union any more than Christ would have blessed that woman or her “marriages” as polysexual.
However, it is not enough to say to the same-sex attracted, “That kind of sex is a yucky sin, so don’t do it.” Always, there are deep emotional and spiritual wounds that underlie a same-sex attraction. And guess what? They are the same kinds of emotional and spiritual wounds that lead most of us into sin and dysfunction in our relationships.
Thus, we are pleased to bring the Living Waters program to a Catholic parish in Kansas City. Living Waters is an intense 20-week program that helps persons restore their relational integrity through the broken body of Christ. It is a cross-centered pastoral care opportunity for all Christians seeking to overcome obstacles to offering themselves as good gifts in chaste, healthy relationships.
Drawing upon the Divine Mercy encounters of St. Faustina, St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, and a host of transformed lives, the group seeks wholeness together through honest admission of brokenness.
This confidential, in-depth prayer/teaching group is for men and women, those married and single. Living Waters includes persons facing sexual addiction, unwanted same-sex attraction, a history of sexual abuse and other relational wounds, or family members impacted by these problems.
Living Waters’ author Andrew Comiskey will lead a team of eight persons running this group. Living Waters will run for 20 weeks on Wednesday evenings from 7 – 9:30 p.m., starting Jan. 14, 2015 at St. Thomas More Parish in Kansas City, Missouri. Interested in applying? Send an email to Comiskey at: More livingwaters@gmail.com, or call Becky at (816) 550-3655. They will set up a one-time meeting with you to see if Living Waters is right for you.
Like the woman at the well, Christ, through the sacraments and the prayerful support of his body, the church, offers us living waters. These healing waters flow into all our brokenness so that we may be restored. Come to the water.
