Lisa Hendey Interviews Me About “Gay and Catholic”

here you go!

…Q: Your book offers some very practical and helpful advice for gay Catholics who desire a full and fruitful relationship with the Church. If you could offer one major point of advice (along with my advice that they BUY the BOOK!), what would it be.

You can kind of hear it in my answer above: honesty. It’s really hard to be honest with yourself and with God. We often confuse self-criticism and even self-hatred with humility and honesty. But in fact self-loathing is self-*centered*, and often based in fantasy, in unrealistic demands of perfection. So to me honesty is just acknowledging what you’re really thinking, feeling, and experiencing–not what you think you *should* think or feel–and offering that to God to do with it what He will.

Sharing that with another person is also so important and life-giving; if you possibly can, find someone whom you trust, who is living out their faith in a way you admire, and be honest with that person as well.

That’s at least somewhat action-oriented advice. But the underlying message of the book is even more basic: The book’s thesis is that gay Christians are called to give and receive love; our task in life, like everyone else’s, is to find ways to love and be loved, to increase the tenderness and beauty in the world.

more