In the Feb. 10, 2004, Windy City Times reportedly exclusively on Francis Cardinal George's appearance at the Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach [AGLO] mass Feb. 8. We included excerpts of his speech, read from a script during the mass. What follows is the entire speech relating to gays and lesbians.
I have come tonight, the second time in the last few years that I have been principal celebrant for the Sunday evening AGLO mass, because I have heard from a good number of those in the AGLO community and also from some of the priests who serve you of concerns you have, some of which were the subject of my recent conversation with the elected officers of AGLO. I appreciate their dedication, and I want to make clear again the Church's concern for all those created and loved by God. All men and women are welcome in the Church, but all are welcome on the same terms: conversion of heart and mind and a commitment to one's life journey as a journey of discipleship. With St. Peter and the other apostles, we call Jesus, our teacher, our Master, our Lord and our God. Many of you are publicly part of the gay community here in Chicago; you are also, in your worshiping here, publicly part of the Catholic community. The Catholic faith has its own integrity and its moral teachings founded in Christ's teaching as interpreted authoritatively through the ages. AGLO was begun as a way to assure gays and lesbians the spiritual gifts, the means of grace, necessary to live chastely in the Church, in conformity with Christian morality. That remains AGLO's purpose.
Is it working? When I see real generosity to others reflected in the accountability with funds recorded in the AGLO minutes I receive regularly, I see a sign of God's grace working among you. I made that point at the tenth anniversary Mass on Trinity Sunday some years ago—God is love; a merciful Father, a self-sacrificing Son, a self-effacing Spirit, the Triune God is pure generosity; and any echo of that generosity in the lives of God's sons and daughters encourages all those striving to live as Christ's disciples. For that encouragement and for that generosity in your lives, I thank God and I thank you.
Your concern for one another also edifies and helps to build up the body of Christ. Friendship is a gift necessary for any human being, any human life. Friendship calls us out of ourselves to serve another; it rescues us from self-centeredness and egotism. It brings stability to one's life. What Christ and his Church teach, even as we praise genuine friendship, is that not every friendship, not every love, can be expressed erotically. That is a hard teaching, especially in our day and age, but it is constant over the ages and will not change. It is a teaching that can be lived with the help of God's grace, even at a cost of much personal sacrifice. It is a teaching that can be lived if we recognize that we are never alone, that the risen Christ accompanies us constantly and tells us not to be afraid. For your own integrity of life, if you are to be both Catholic and gay, you have to integrate that teaching into your own life project. For your good efforts to do so, and to live joyfully and freely as witnesses to Christ, I am grateful.
Lastly, I would like to comment on the relationship between the Catholic Church and the gay community. In recent years, the Church in Illinois has reiterated the conviction that sexual orientation should not become a civil rights category. In itself, sexual orientation is not directly comparable to race and religion; in its effects, such legal categorization would change the Church's relation to civil law and to society itself. Our freedom of action as a Church would be diminished. This position of the Catholic Church in Illinois causes alienation between the Church and some of the gay community.
Again, the Church very insistently reiterates that the nature of marriage as a life long union of a man and woman for the sake of family is not something the State can change. Marriage is a natural institution; it is the same among Confucian Chinese as it is among Irish Catholics. The Church's resolute opposition to State institution of a completely new sense of marriage causes tension between the Church and some of the gay community.
On another issue, the Church describes homosexual actions in terms that are offensive to many in the gay community. I believe such descriptions are valid on their own terms, even as they are unacceptable in public conversation here; if I personally did not accept the Church's understanding of the gift of human sexuality and how it is to be used to be true, I would resign as Archbishop, as a matter of my own integrity. Nevertheless, language which gives offense, even if unintended, creates tensions between the Church and the gay community. Our use of the term 'community' indicates that something is at stake in all these issues beyond individual rights. The nature of life itself, of marriage and of faith cannot be simply subsumed into the language of individual rights. What the Church sees at issue here and in other legal matters today is her own right to exist as a community of faith, free to teach and to live as she believes Christ demands, and to do so without harassment and hostility. The gay community demands the same. Can it find a language other than that of individual rights to address adequately the differences between the Church and itself? I do not know. Members of AGLO must feel these tensions in a particularly acute way. I recognize that, and I ask you to bring the issues to prayer and to ever deeper reflection. I would also ask you to address, as best you can, the falsehoods sometimes propagated about the Church in the gay community. ...
Francis Cardinal George, omi
Archbishop of Chicago
