A Gripping Reality of Marginalized Populations, In and Outside the Church

Last updated on: October 17, 2022 at 10:18 am by Julie Nichols

A Gripping Reality of Marginalized Populations, In and Outside the Church 2022-10-17T10:18:55-05:00 Julie Nichols

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Since I became a LBGTQIA+ affirming Catholic practitioner, many people of faith question and even reject me for it. I can understand the questions.

But what I cannot understand is the rejection and callous dismissal of LBGTQIA+ lives, especially LBGTQIA+ children.

My journey of becoming an affirming LBGTQIA+ Catholic practioner was a very difficult yet liberating journey. Many events and experiences painfully opened my eyes to a reality that I didn’t comprehend previously due to my ultra-conservative religious background. In short, exponential rates of suicide and permanent damage of LBGTQIA+, Neurodivergent, and clinically marginalized people and their families are not Fruits of the Spirit, nor are they compatible with the Consistent Life Ethic, or any real authentic faith. After researching mainstream science for a year while working a year in LBGTQIA+ religious trauma recovery, I finally understood some horrible realities as a practioner. The Church has gravely mishandled marginalized people and their families for two millennia, both inside and outside the Church. I am not saying that the Church must conduct LBGTQIA+ weddings although I admire the moves of German and Flemish Bishops. I am saying that large parts of the Church have exponentially increased the rate of suicide, damage, marginalization, has ripped LBGTQIA+ and Neurodiverse families apart, and destroyed countless numbers of LBGTQIA+ people and neurodiverse families for 2000 years. Until very recently, parents of LBGTQIA+ children and Neurodiverse children have had to choose between their child’s right-to-life or stay in the Church. I am finally understanding why I seemed to get regularly injured and angered by ultra-strict clergy as a person with Parkinson’s Disease and ADHD over a period of 25 years. I didn’t take their malpractice sitting down either. Their pastoral practices were/are not in alignment with science or even the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The Church is finally waking up to this grim reality, must reform, and repent of unspeakable damage to marginalized populations by those ministers who refuse to align their pastoral practices with science for the sake of life and human dignity of others.

In order to follow science, I took great efforts as a practitioner because lives depend on it, and the sanctity of life is not a negotiable faith tenet for me. It’s not a negotiable faith tenet for the Catholic Church either. After going through an examination of conscience, studying the Double-effect in Catholic Teaching, working in religious trauma recovery, and following the science of every major medical association in the world, I concur with the statement from the Hogg Foundation who is also in alignment with science.

“The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health states that every word and action of love, affirmation or acceptance can between the difference life and death for LGBTQ people.”

My first publication summarized the journey I took to becoming an affirming practioner. As I stated in my article co-authored with Father James Martin, “Overall, the church must move to reconcile with the LGBTQ community and provide safe and affirming pastoral ministry that aligns with current science. Anything else will continue to endanger and disrupt the lives of LGBTQ people and their families.”

You can read both articles right here. Accepting and including LBGTQIA+ people and their families isn’t about “accepting an alternative lifestyle.” It’s about life, death, human dignity, keeping the nuclear family intact, and real family values to make space at the table for everyone.

https://outreach.faith/2022/09/how-can-the-church-repair-its-relationship-with-neurodiverse-people-and-the-lgbtq-community

https://daily.faithonview.com/2022/03/29/affirming-lgbtqi-youth-is-pro-life/

Here is some Catholic teaching from my Patheos article titled “I Choose Life” for those trads who want to use sexual doctrine as a weapon to destroy the LBGTQIA+ people and families. If they want to get technical with Catholic Teaching, by advocating for LBGTQIA + acceptance and inclusion, we are following Catholic Social Teaching which honors the Sanctity of life and Dignity of the Human Person, The Call to Family, Community, and Participation by keeping the family intact, which includes the LBGTQIA person. I am following Pope Francis’s directive in his Encyclical titled Amoris Laetitia and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to give appropriate pastoral care to the LBGTQIA person. This would include him/her within the life of the Church and family because it’s life and death, and I’m following Jesus’s 2nd greatest commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So other trad Catholics can call me a Cafeteria Catholic all they want, but by excluding and rejecting the LBGTQIA and even the Neurodiverse person who cannot live up to Catholic Teaching, that is destroying the person and their family to which they belong, and that’s less Catholic teaching than allowing the LBGTQIA+ person to be a practicing homosexual in a life-long committed relationship included within their family which is life and death. Most people cannot handle a life of celibacy without permanent damage to themselves and exponentially increasing the rate of suicide. To practice life-long celibacy is a unique and rare calling which typically happens within consecrated religious life although not always. Debating someone’s right-to-life and human dignity are not negotiable. The Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity always come first in the Catholic Church. God doesn’t make junk, nor does He make mistakes.

I choose life.

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