Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Part One

August 19th, 2010 by Mary Kochan

http://catholicexchange.com/2010/08/19/133457/

I have said all that to introduce an email that I received a little over a month ago.

I read with great interest your posts of a year ago on the subject of deception and transsexualism.  In the interests of openness, I'll share that I am transsexual, having undergone vaginoplasty in Oct 2009 under the care of a surgeon who is herself transsexual and not making much money off the practice.  The likely medical cause of my transsexuality was massive doses of estradiol and progesterone my Mom took, as prescribed by her physician because he didn't believe she was really pregnant and he wanted to stimulate a period, when I was 5 weeks gestational.  I am Catholic by birth, growing up in the Church and meeting the woman I eventually married while serving together at the altar.  My wife and I, at least from the perspective of the rest of the world, may be the only single-sex Church wedded couple in the US.  That wedding, a glorious event cherished in our memory, took place 20 years ago come Sept 14 of this year.  It has resulted in two beautiful children, of whom a prouder father I could not be.

Part 2 http://catholicexchange.com/2010/08/20/133461/

What can one say about this article? I'm sure quite a lot would come to most minds here. Myself, I'll simply offer that I find it disturbing and that the laughable willingness of the blind faithful to be without understanding and compassion or to be unassuming is at best reprehensible. However, we are talking about a system of control that could not possibly allow for variance, being at risk of exposing the fallacies of 1500 years of indoctrination.

One point the letter writer made about being the only "one sex married couple" in the Catholic church, would be in err. They've been married for twenty years. My wife and I were married in the Catholic Church more than thirty years ago. Everything else about what this person wrote was eerily similar to my life! So much so, that the response made me feel as the author of the article was speaking directly to me. In taking it in this way, my emotions were very shaken at the response the author gave when suggesting that her and her wife should live separated from each other. Truly, a sickening thought for myself, and I know it would be equally unthinkable for my wife.


Dawn

The crux of the reply is breaking God's law.

There are 10 commandments. And only 10. Even Jesus didn't make any more.

The only commandment dealing with any matters sexual is the prohibition on adultry.

The respondent claims she has deprived her children of their father. utter tosh. The children have their father, the person who fathered them. Duh!

The best that can be said for this and many other churches, is they tend to take a long time to accept new things. Since they haven't even accepted condom use yet, I suppose it will take them a while to accept gender reassignment surgery.

I try to be as tolerant as possible about the beliefs of others. But it burns me up when people, who claim to be preaching and practicing the Gospels, make up new commandments to suit them.

QuoteBut to say he gave you a particular kind of body purposely to facilitate your breaking of His law is as nonsensical as for a cat burglar to say that God gave him nimble fingers and sharp ears for picking locks

Who can say what the will of God is? Perhaps he meant to humble the rich by putting a burglar on the earth.

QuoteNo, the Church will not embrace you "as a woman," but the Church will embrace you and weep with you and for you as a man

This strikes home, because I heard the same thing in my own church. "If someone who know is breaking the law of Christ, stay with them but do not support the sin."

I'd rather have a real friend who respects my choices then a fake friend who only wants me to go to church again.

And that's really the only issue I have with pretty much any church. "Jesus loves everyone. We're all his children, and he suff-Oh, you're gay? Yeah, you're going to hell."

Doesn't sound like a loving God to me.

Quote from: spacial on August 25, 2010, 02:20:52 PM
The crux of the reply is breaking God's law.

There are 10 commandments. And only 10. Even Jesus didn't make any more.

That's not quite true. Jesus fufilled the law and made it two simple rules: Love God. Love your neighbor. Follow those two laws, BAM, that's the ten commandments and following Jesus all rolled into one.

Quote from: Astarielle on August 25, 2010, 03:00:28 PM
.
That's not quite true. Jesus fufilled the law and made it two simple rules: Love God. Love your neighbor. Follow those two laws, BAM, that's the ten commandments and following Jesus all rolled into one.

I accept your point and must say I also took that message.

But I noticed that when I read the Gospels for myself, casting out the preconceptions I had learnt, I realised that what He was doing was clarifying and emphasising the Commandments.

He also taught that thinking about something is the same as doing it, you will recall. I don't take this as a new commandment, but rather an emphasis of the existing commandments and perhaps a clarification, even an expansion of the 10th, Don't covet.

He certainly clarified the 5th, honor your parents. Several times he clarifiied that the 3rd does not mean we need to attend any church or perform any rituals, rather that we must rest, once every 7 days.

His absolute injunction not to judge others is perhaps a clarification of the 1st and 3rd, since only God can judge us.

I do hope you won't take this as any challange. I sure that all thinking people, who bother to read the Gospels, will take something a little different.

Equally, I hope you will feel free to discuss your own perspectives.