Pints With Aquinas - 98: The Church and Homosexuality, with Fr. Mike Schmitz

Episode Date: March 20, 2018

Here's some of the stuff we spoke about in the conversation: Books: Made for Love: Same-Sex Attraction and the Catholic Church by Fr. Mike Schmitz  Why I Don't Call Myself Gay: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Reality and Found Peace by Dan Mattson Groups in the Church: Courage Encourage Videos: The Third Way Desire of the Everlasting Hills Fr. Mike's Video's SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform  

Hey, what's up? Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we're joined around the bar table by Father Mike Schmitz to discuss homosexuality. Yeah, that's right, homosexuality. What does the Church teach about homosexuality? What about homosexual marriage here we go g'day welcome to points of the quietest nice to have you back here this is the show where you and i pull up a bar stool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy as i already

said we're going to be joined by father mike Schmitz. This is over an hour conversation that we've had over a glass of wine. It was just so much fun and you're going to love the episode. I've already done an episode or a couple of episodes on homosexuality in the past, episodes 72 and 73, and I referenced them. And that was with Dan Mattson, who used to live the gay lifestyle and talks about why he doesn't call himself gay anymore and then we also address uh some of the things father james martin's been saying so check out episodes 72 and 73 if you want um because they're fascinating um if if you experience same-sex attraction or you know and love somebody who does this would be a great episode to listen to or to send somebody to listen

to because um father mike Mike Schmitz speaks with both charity and truth. He leads with charity and he speaks truth. And what he says makes a lot of sense. And he's just an awesome dude. He's the most likable guy in the universe. I'm not sure if you knew that or not. There's actually studies that were done and it turns out he's the most likable. So yeah, I didn't even know that. So that's amazing. All right, here we go. Enjoy the show. Hello. G'day. likable so yeah i didn't even know that so that's amazing all right here we go enjoy the show hello good eye good idea how's it going fantastic that's the way it's going great it's going wow i just slipped into scottish

for a second going great there that's pretty good yeah thanks hey do you have do you have headphones because you sound do you have headphones? I do have headphones on, right? Does that sound bad? Yeah, it doesn't sound great. Let me try a different pair of headphones. These are what they refer to as the earpods. Oh, yeah, maybe that is why.

I saw you with them on the... Oh, the Michael Knowles show. Michael Knowles. how does this sound infinitely better wow i'm so glad i said something i did i am too oh man get done with the show and be like that was the worst audio i've ever heard on matt fred's show and people have been like so mad yeah dude i am so happy that you agreed to be on my humble little podcast. Thank you very much. Oh,

I'm like, are you kidding me? This is humble little podcast. You do 300,000. Yeah. Well, it's all relative, isn't it?

I'm sure to some people that's slim pickings, but for me, it's been picking up quickly. It's been real cool. Yeah. This is awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, do you want to lead us in a quick prayer before we begin? Yeah, yeah, definitely. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We ask you to please send your Holy Spirit to be with us this night, be with us during this time. We ask you to please guide our conversation, that it is positive, that it's uplifting, that it brings light and the fire of your love to this topic and to people's minds and hearts. We make this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Listen, Holy Spirit.

All right. I've been practicing this all afternoon with my wife. You ready? Here it is. Hello. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schwintz, and this is Ascension Presents. That's amazing. That's my American accent. It was really good. It's, yeah, it's good to have you on the show. Thanks for being American accent. It was really good. It's good to have you on the show. Thanks for being with us. You just wrote an amazing book, which is going to be the platform or the diving board or the springboard.

I forget the analogy. To dive into, spring into, jump into what it is we want to talk today. Made for Love, Same-Sex Attractions in the Catholic Church. Congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate that because I know that I loved – well, see, I loved your book, The Porn Man. Thank you. And, well, see, you have multiple books now, but like –

No, that's the biggest one, right? Like that took the most effort, yeah. And I remember when I read it, I was like, shoot, this is so good. Like what I've written, I acknowledge and not without any like false humility. Like I acknowledge this is so much more better presented. And well, oh gosh, I loved reading every word. Ah, well, thank you very much. Yeah, those books can be hard to write. No, yeah.

So you get it, right? those books can be hard to write. No, yeah. So, you get it, right? Like, it takes a lot of work. And I'm first a speaker before I'm an author. And so, it was funny when I got the manuscript back from Ignatius, it was definitely bleeding with the red changes that they had made. I'm like, oh my gosh, this sounds intelligible. This is great. Absolutely. No, I'm with you. They had a number of people. I had some focus missionaries read through it who I knew had a keen eye for both grammar as well as theology and just like what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. So, they combed through it. And then Ignatius, yeah, they kind of, they cleaned it up a lot. There was a lot of investment on their part to make sure that it made sense. unless you've got some really reliable people, which they do over at Ignatius. Anyway, I do mean it because, I mean, I haven't read this book,

but I've been reading excerpts of it to my wife tonight. So, the two of us for the last two hours have been sitting out in the lounge room drinking wine and just going through this book and just reading chunks of it. And gosh, it's intriguing. Like, you do a really good job. Okay, a couple of things. Here's what I really think about the book. Like you do a really good job. Okay, a couple of things.

Here's what I really think about the book. I love at one point you make this distinction between love as affective and effective. Because too many people, we rush to the other end. Because for so long we've been saying love is a feeling. And so now as Catholics, we want to rush to the other end of the spectrum and say, no, it's not a feeling. It's just an act of the will. But as you rightly point out, like that wouldn't be in line with Aquinas either love is an emotion it's also a decision right and um so i think that permeates throughout your whole book because you want to tell the truth that is the will to go to the other right the the effective part but you also get uh the the the gosh the the cross i i know that some people with same-sex attraction wouldn't consider it

that way, but a lot of them would. And just wrestling with what it means to be a Christian and am I gay or what does that mean for me? You seem to have really understood that and the stories that you intertwine throughout this book really lead you on. I mean, they're captivating. I was reading that one story about that girl, you say you nearly married, you chose to be a seminarian, and that was really captivating. Anyway, so just, I really hope people, yeah, will get this book, Made for Love. Thanks for that. And that was a real big part of, like you said, when it comes to presenting or speaking. And you can recognize that.

I think more clearly you can recognize when you're speaking to people what is hitting their minds and hearts and what's bouncing off. Like, you know, it's like, no, not at all. And what is actually like, oh, this is what we want to know. Like, this is what people really want spoken to is, okay, you can just lay down the rules again, or you can just kind of say, here's what it is. But can you actually speak to my experience? And that's the big challenge, right? Because for so many of us, in all walks of life, but for people who have experienced the same extraction for their lives, one of the pieces is if you start talking about this, I don't know where you're going to go. I don't know if you're going to yell at me. I don't know if you're going to be angry with me. I don't know if you're going to condemn me or shame me, all these kinds of things.

And so we have the guard up. And so one of the things I just wanted to make it really clear right off the bat was that A, this is not like a quote unquote issue. For me, this is actually originated with coming into contact with people I love. I was like, I wonder if this is part of their experience. And so it was always driven by a relationship. And then secondly, being able to say that I really believe this. This is not like just kind of a, what's the word, a cliche kind of a thing, or it's really good to say this, but this is all of us. Like there's no one that isn't affected by the fall. There's all consequences of the fall.

And so it's not like, let's pick on people who have this experience. It's more like, well, this is, you guys, this is us. It's not us and them. It's not those people over there who have this experience, it's more like, well, this is, you guys, this is us. It's not us and them. It's not those people over there who experienced this. This is a common experience of humanity. And... Right. No, that's, I've heard you say that before and I've used that ever since hearing it because I think it's excellent. And maybe this is putting it a little harshly. That's why I didn't write this book because I would have offended everybody and not made any impact. But it's this idea like when somebody says like, and I've had someone close to me say to me like, I struggle with same-sex attraction and they look rather down about it. And it turns out that how I responded couldn't have been better. I found out in hindsight because this person told me. But I just looked at him and I went, okay, so what? You think you're special or something? Do you know how much crap I have to deal with? Like, you think you're the only one dealing with, you know, like distortions in your sexuality? Now, I'm sure nine

times out of 10, that would have been the absolutely wrong response. But I knew this person somewhat and felt led to say that. And yeah, I just gave him a big bear hug. And, but as you say, this isn't about us versus them. This is just about us dealing with distortions in our sexuality. Now already there, just the word distortion is going to be problematic, but I want to, I want you to keep speaking about this, but I want to, the introduction to your book's really great because you talk about somebody, you say it's the most important person in your life gave you a call and basically said that they were gay. Tell us about that experience. Yeah, actually, it gave me a call and said, hey, I'm coming up to Duluth.

I want to meet with you. I'm like, well, okay, sure. Yeah, when? Well, I'm coming up tomorrow. Oh, okay. And drove up, you know, two and a half hours from the Twin Cities. And I was like, oh, you want to talk to me about something? Um, and I was like, Oh, you want to talk to me about something?

So we're out for a walk on, on a lake walk, Nick, next to the lakes, Lake Superior. And, uh, yeah, I just started walking and like 10 steps into the walk, he just turns and says, so, uh, I'm gay. And I go, okay. So we just stopped and I, you know, I gave him a hug just like you said with, with your friend and he gave him a hug, just like you said with your friend, and he gave me a hug and told him I loved him. But yeah, the experience then, interiorly, was just of that sense of, okay, now I know something that I've wondered. And it was more of a matter of this, how do I honor him in this moment, as well as how do I communicate to him that I love him? And so that was the first thing. I realized that for 27 years or however long you've experienced

this, 27 years of your life, this is something you've never shared with anybody. And I guess, in this case, I was the second person he had told. The first person he had told was a gay man who kind of called him out and said, hey, dude, you're gay. And, um, and he's like, no, I'm not. And then he kind of kept calling him out kind of a thing. And, and it was that experience of just kind of, um, acknowledging it public or out loud. And then, um, he said, well, I'm going to, he called me up and wanted to talk. But the interesting thing is then his, the next step was he said, yeah, well, you know, we kept walking. Like, that's a good thing to do when you're out for a walk. And, uh...

Were you a priest at the time? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't too long ago. Um, and, uh, he said, uh, so do you have any questions? I thought it was funny. It was so funny because it's kind of like a... You're like, no, I understand what it means. Yeah. And I was like well i mean what do you mean and he said well you know do you want to know how uh how long have i felt this way do you want to you know all these kind of things like i think it was partly a um he was prepared to kind of have to argue with me i think a little bit like well he's he's going to the representative

of the catholic church maybe in his mind right, for him, this is probably a bigger deal than telling his friend Joe over a beer. He's going to someone in a collar who he respects. And who he's heard, you know, preach on this topic many times before he had come out, you know? So, it's kind of that sense of, like, I'm sharing this with you, and, you know, do you have anything to say about this or questions about this? Like, where did it start? How long have I felt this way? And I think he was prepared to like defend that, which makes sense. Yeah, you could see somebody rushing in and saying, well, what was your relationship with your mom like or your dad like? Right, yeah, exactly. Which can be a really insensitive thing to say, because you're trying to pigeonhole that person's experience and say, well, I understand you.

So you're trying to pigeonhole that person's experience and say, well, I understand you. And so that's one of the reasons why in the book, like, I don't go down the route of the origins of, there are possible origins of a person experiencing same-sex attraction because, A, the jury's out. There's no definitive anything. There's people who have theories that have to do with nature. People have theories that have to do with nurture. And ultimately, what I want to say is, again, I'm ultimately, while they're very important and some of those theories are very sound and very compelling and hopefully helpful for people. Like, for example, if someone begins developing feelings of same-sex attraction because of poor experiences, poor self-identity or, you know, these kinds of self-perception. Well, getting to the root of that can heal some of that. And that's, people have testified to that. I'm not going to argue against their testimony. But others will maintain that,

no, I've never had anything like this. And so, I also can't argue against their testimony. I have to just kind of trust that people are going to be telling me the truth when they talk about it. That was Dan Mattson's experience who we've had on the show before, right? Yeah. Why I Don't Call Myself Gay was a book he wrote with Ignatius Press, and that was his point. Like, ever since he can remember, he found himself being more attracted to men and not to the ladies. Yeah. And to try to track down, again, even the church in the Catechism says, the origin is largely unexplained. Andism says the origin is largely unexplained.

And so the Genesis is largely unexplained. And so I thought, well, in that case, I'm leaving it alone because that's not the point. The point is, and this is what happened, it came down to it when he said, do you have any questions? I said, I guess the only question I have is, what are you going to do now? And he looked at me and he said, well, what do you mean? I just told you I'm gay. And I said, no, no, you just, well, I mean, I understand, but you just told me an experience you have of an attraction. But that doesn't mean you have to act on that in a certain way. And that was kind of, that began a long conversation that's lasted for years.

that began a long conversation that's lasted for years. Um, but it's, uh, but that's, that's the reality. What comes down to it is, can I acknowledge that there are some things in me that are, whether it be wounds or whether they be just my experience, what do you want? If you want to kind of make it non-moral, um, that like, okay, this is, this is what I find when I look inside, what am I going to do with it? Cause it's not a foregone conclusion that I have to act on this. And that's one of the pieces that I think the culture will say, if you don't act on that, you are going to be miserable. And you'll be miserable and lonely. And if there's anything that all humanity fears is suffering and loneliness. Pete I imagine as a priest, I'm just thinking of this now, in some ways,

it might be more helpful that you're a celibate man who goes to sleep in a bed with no other person. And is that, does that hurt or hinder you when you're engaging with people who are telling you why they don't want to be alone? Yeah. You know, so when it comes down to the loneliness piece, then it can be helpful. But when it comes to like as a way to try to explain like, no, no, it's okay. You can do it. And what I get a lot of times, especially whether it's simply as an argument or whether it's someone kind of lashing back is, well, you chose this or you chose that. You chose to be celibate, that kind of thing. Well, that's a good point chose this, or you chose that. You chose to be celibate, that kind of thing. Well, that's a good point. Yeah, I could see that. It is. But at the same time, I would have to testify to my experience, and my experience is

kind of in the sense that I also responded to a call that was from outside of me that I wouldn't have chosen on my own. There you go, which is analogous to what you said to your friend, what will you do now, essentially inviting him to also make a choice. Yeah, and so that's when it comes down to this, is I keep saying, it's more similar than it is dissimilar, because, yeah, I didn't give myself a call. I had a choice to respond to it or not. And you didn't give yourself, you didn't make yourself gay, but you do have a choice whether you're going to respond to Christ or not in this way. And

that's the thing is, I find this is a massive issue. And I try to discuss it in the book, but it really comes down to, it's so far away from mere morality or mere sexual morality. I mean, that is involved, obviously. But when it comes down to it is, especially as a Christian, what gets to be the Lord of your life? And so, this actually comes down to, in so many ways, my experience, to idolatry, not sexual morality. And what I mean by that is, what's the one defining thing that is the umbrella over every other thing in my life that gives its definition? So, like, as an example, I could say that, yeah, my desire for money and power is the thing that defines everything. It defines my relationships with my

loved ones. It defines my day, my time. It defines how I follow Jesus. And so, Jesus would want me to have as much money, as much power as possible. So, that desire for money and power will then actually define how I follow Jesus. Another person says, you know, okay, my same-sex attraction, that defines everything else. And so, now, that is the umbrella over everything in my life, including how I will follow Jesus. So, in fact, my Christianity gets conformed to this experience rather than my experience must be conformed to Jesus. That's sort of like, you know, people will prefix certain words to Catholic, right? They'll say, I'm an American Catholic, which might, you know, that might

influence whether or not you think the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima was moral or not. Or they might say, well, I'm a traditional Catholic, where it's like everything about your Christianity has to be bent towards some particular end. And I'm not saying you can't use different prefixes in appropriate ways in certain circumstances, but just to get to your point that there's this sort of umbrella term to which everything else has to fit. Yeah. And so, that's why I would say that when it comes, I mean, that's why you have someone like Matthew Vines, who writes, you know, the book God and the Gay Christian. It was, I mean, and I guess here's the description, it was his attempt to justify his behavior, his decisions in light of the Bible and trying to find essentially,

oh, the Bible says this, but it doesn't mean this. And in going against essentially 2,000 years of Christianity and 4,000 years of Judeo-Christianity, saying that, no, this is not behavior that those in the covenant act on, you know, and trying to rewrite their religion, rewrite the scriptures according to, again, it's redefining how I follow Jesus according to my attraction or my desire. Again, we can all be guilty of this at any time. Someone says, you know, I can't stay with my spouse. And so, well, Jesus wasn't really serious when he said that if one divorces their wife and marries another, they commit adultery. I mean, they only lived for 60 years back then. Now we live so much longer. And so,

it's different times. And you realize, okay, I think what's happening is I'm conforming everything to this one experience or this one desire as opposed to conforming all my desires and experiences to the Lordship of Jesus. You know, before we go further, I'd like to take a step back and just ask you, because we have atheist listeners and evangelical listeners, what is the Catholic Church? We probably should have said this at the start and hopefully it would be self-evident, but what is the Catholic Church's position on not those who experience sexist attraction, which is going to take out the majority of the show, but like homosexual relationships, right? Like men having sex with men, women having sex with women, like what is

the Catholic Church's position on that? Right, I would say that all sexual actions need to be oriented towards two things. One is the unity of the two and oriented towards procreation. It doesn't mean to say that all sexual acts have to result in conception, but they have to be the kind of sexual acts that are oriented towards that where a human life could arise. And so if a Catholic practices engages in sexual actions, there has to be free and total and faithful, meaning in the context of matrimony, the whole self is given and it's freely chosen. So, someone's not coerced into the action or into the permanent relationship, but then also that's unitive, but then also it has to be open to life. So, it has to be oriented towards fruitfulness. And so, if I'm working against any of those in the sexual action, in the sexual act, if I'm working against unity by coercing someone into the sexual act or by withholding myself or whatnot, or if I'm acting against procreation, then I'm essentially

distorting the what-it-is-ness of the sexual action. And I can't, if I work against it. Now, again, a couple of years trying to conceive, they might not be really interested in the unitive experience of sexual embrace at that moment, but they're not working against the unitive experience of the sexual embrace at that moment. Yeah, that's really good. And I think this is where and why a lot of Protestant groups are going to cave to this issue of homosexuality like Matthew Vines, because if you don't have natural law, right? Like, if you don't have Aquinas and just the thought of the church about certain functions have certain ends that ought not to be thwarted. Like, so, for Aquinas,

like the point of speech is to tell the truth. And so, that's why for Aquinas, any lie whatsoever under any circumstances is always wrong. Whether you agree with that or not, that's his view. The same thing could be said with different functions. uh oneself as a male uh and uh getting a vasectomy there's a right there's a one of them is mutilation the other isn't and the reason one of them's mutilation is because it it destroys the function one of the functions of that thing and i what are you what's your thoughts on that i mean do you see um unless because the problem is like if you don't have natural law and you're a christian you just, it's like you keep going back to the Bible and you can interpret however you want. That might be a little unfair. I'm sure there's some Protestants who would have a beef with what I just said there. But what's your thought on that? Well, no, I think that there's, because, well, even stepping back a little bit from that, too, as I would say, that practically speaking, there's a consistency.

And there's a consistency in, okay, here's how we approach you. Let me say, we believe that things have a nature. And part of what I walk through in the book, and probably what your listeners are very familiar with, knowing Aquinas, is the nature of a thing is what you might say, the what-it-is-ness of a thing. So, what is this thing? I don't know what's good for this thing if I don't know what it is. I don't know how to use this thing if I don't know what it is. And so, it's highly important,

if we believe in objective reality, to be able to step back from the world and say that the universe is not infinitely malleable and I can just use anything according to my own wishes or my own purposes, but I need to use it for the purpose for which it's intended. And so, a lot of times, I mention this in the book, is we can discover the nature or the what-it-is-ness of a thing by asking the what-is-it-for-ness. So, it's like, okay, what is this for? So, what is the sexual act for? And we discover that, pretty quickly, that it's oriented always, it's oriented in its most what it is-ness, what it's for-ness is,

is for that unity of the couple. Even biologically, as you know, chemically speaking, the body releases certain chemicals that are bonding chemicals between this individual and the other individual. But it's also for procreation, obviously. So that's the what it's for. And it's okay, that's what it is. And so if I work against the what it's for,

and it's if I violate, essentially violate the nature of the thing, I can't violate the nature and simultaneously expect that um the human the humanity of the action is going to remain intact if that makes any sense i don't know if that makes any sense it does make sense i think an analogy we could use is to eating right and so even if it was discovered or could be argued that bulimia uh't do any damage, we would still say, well, it's kind of wrong. And you'd say, well, why? Well, I said, well, the purpose of eating

isn't pleasure, just like the purpose of sex isn't pleasure. That's a byproduct of the act, which incentivizes us to do it and thank God or else the species would die. You know, like, if sex was as exciting as eating hummus and carrots. However, you know, when you forcibly make yourself throw up, you're thwarting the end of that act. And likewise, when it comes to the sexual act. And this is why what you said about consistency, I think is so crucial here. I mean, it's not like there's a war on homosexuals. It's like, no, the Catholic Church, like as a Catholic, I'm also against like in vitro fertilization. I'm also against contraception. I'm also against like oral sex that ends in climax. I'm against

masturbation. I'm against pornography, you know, and in saying that I'm against these particular things does not for a moment imply that I hate these particular people or wish them not to be fulfilled. And I think that leads us to a point I want to bring up, and that has to do with terminology. Do you use the word gay and lesbian, or do you think that they're helpful, or do you think we should be using different terms? Yeah, that's a great question because I, when it comes, when I first wrote the original manuscript or even began writing, I almost exclusively used the phrase or the terminology, those who experience same-sex attraction. In the past, I had used the phrasing, those who suffer from same-sex attraction. And then some people had said, well, that's, or you're already imposing a value judgment on that.

And so I'm like, okay, well, I can let that go and say those who experience. And then a young man who is a faithful Catholic but who also experienced the same-sex attraction, I gave a talk at a university a couple years ago. And he said, you know, um, a lot of my friends didn't come to the, come to the talk because it said specifically, uh, the Catholic church and same-sex attraction, not the Catholic church and LGBTQ or whatever, or gay and lesbian life. And he said that, cause that's the word he said, those are the words we use. And so if you already on your advertisement, aren't using the words that we use, what you're telling us is you're kind of intimating that you're not planning on respecting us essentially. Right, yes. Because, yeah, you're not even respecting the terminology we would like to use.

Yeah. And so what I did, I started changing that. I started changing that. I started, so I had a little asterisk in the first draft and said, you know, I'll be using the terms occasionally gay and lesbian throughout this. And here's what I mean. Because I think it's really important to, A, honor people and try to, I want to use the terms you use. But at the same time, you know, I hesitate with anything that reduces a person's identity to their experience. And that's why there's a section in the book on that. is if what we're talking about is not just your experience, but we're talking about this is you,

then not only is it very difficult for someone to be around the church, around Christians, or any religion that maintains that same-sex actions are evil and not feel like you're telling me that I'm evil. Well, no, because we're saying that you're not your experience. Yes, it's a part of what contributes to how you see yourself and how you see the world and how you relate to others. But to reduce your identity to even a very powerful experience is to reduce you to something that's less than you. And then beyond that, then to have a discussion is like, wow, there's a lot of hostility or resistance to that because this is me. And also, I just want to add this last piece. Years ago, I remember I might have been in college or in seminary, and Father John Harvey, who is the founder of Courage, which is a group for Catholic men and

women who experience same-sex attraction, but who desire to live chaste lives. He had said, he gave you the scenario. He said, and I thought it just stuck with me. He said, imagine two 15-year-old boys, and they're curious. So, you know, one day they go behind the woodshed or whatever, and they sneak some cigarettes because they're curious. They just want to know what it's like. He says, afterwards, you don't say, oh my gosh, you just discovered who you are. You're a smoker. But he says, but take those same 15-year-old boys, and they're curious, so they go behind the woodshed, and they are out of curiosity. They kind of experiment sexually with each other. He says, our culture, as it is right now, says, oh, my gosh, congratulations. This is who you are.

And in a world that's already in an age like an age of adolescence, that's already super confusing in a world that is incredibly confused about the point of sexuality to then all of a sudden tell someone who maybe is just confused at that moment, no, this is who you are, can do a lot of damage. And it's one of the reasons why, like in the original question, one of the reasons why I hesitate to use the terms gay and lesbian, unless someone is asking me to do that out of respect for them. terms gay and lesbian, unless someone is asking me to do that out of respect for them, but because I think that people are more than their sexual attractions. Right. Well, thanks for that. Yeah. And like you were saying, if you identify as gay, and we adopt this terminology, then when you criticize homosexual acts, you're criticizing the person. And, you know, I listed off that litany of other things the Catholic Church is against because they thwart one of the primary ends of

sex, such as adultery or pornography, right? And suppose we began to say, well, look, I'm a pornosexual. And this might sound like I'm mocking, and I really am not. That's not what I mean. In fact, somebody just recently came out and said the reason that they have to commit adultery is that they have that as their basic inclination, right? Right. But if I say, well, I'm a pornosexual, like that's who I am, like that's how I feel fulfilled, and you can't argue with my experience. If we all agree with me and say, but pornography is wrong, then what you're saying is I am wrong. And so, I agree with you. I think for the most part, I think it's more helpful to use that language of experience, same-sex attraction, unless somebody is right in front of you and they're telling you to please use this because they feel offended or something.

Yeah, or just because, you know, it's funny because when I talk to our students here and they're in classes to become nurses or they're doing some kind of clinical work. One of the things they always get instructed is to use person-first language. And person-first language is, okay, we're going down the hallway to the broken leg. We're going to go see the cancer patient. And they're like, no, no, no. We're going to see the young man with the broken leg. Or we're going to see the young woman who has cancer. And it gets drilled into them, person-first language always, because they're more than just, you know, the issue that they're presenting here in the hospital. And I think, man, that is, yes,

I can endorse that, heartily endorse that, because the church also wants to use person-first language. Ultimately, in the book, I use experience, same-sex attraction, and then when it comes to using the terms gay and lesbian, we kind of make compromise and say those who identify as gay or lesbian. try to bridge a gap, but at the same time, really, really wanting not to make an argument against someone as much as it is an argument for someone in that person-first language. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about homosexual marriage. So, we might be able to say or we might be able to argue that we think that homosexual acts are disordered. Actually, let me ask you that question before we go any further, because I've had some questions about this, and one particular Jesuit priest is fond of saying that, well, maybe not fond, but he said it at least once or twice, that the catechism should change its language about disordered. I don't think it should. I think the act is disordered,

just like masturbation is disordered. But what's your take? Yeah, no, I want to be sensitive to people's experience. And so, one of the things, this is also in the book, one of the things I want to be really sensitive of is if I've been raised, let me, here's an example. There is a story of a mom that she related. She said that when her son came out in his late twenties, she said, all of a sudden it made so much sense. A number of conversations we had when he was in high school and college, because she said, I remember, I mean, many times sitting on the edge

of his bed as he's just crying, saying, mom, no one, no one loves me. No one cares about me. And she was like, why are you kidding me? You're handsome and you are smart and everyone loves you. We love you. You have a whole family that loves you. And his response was, I mean, from the depth of his heart, he said, no, if you really knew me, you wouldn't even love me. And what he was referring to was because I, you know, same-sex attracted. And so when he came out, she was like, oh my gosh, that's how he's been feeling his entire life. And there's something about that that just makes, hopefully it makes us kind of pause a bit and go, okay, so we got to be really careful. If this person has felt this way their entire life, that if you really, if you knew this about me, you would,

even the people who love me the most would stop loving me. And actually, I even know this family and this young man had gone to the youth conferences and he had encountered Jesus. I mean, really in a real way, many times. And he knows the Blessed Mother loves him, and it's really, really powerful. But there was always that nagging voice, even in the best of moments in his prayer, the best of moments of encountering God was, but, but if this is known, or if I acknowledge this, or if I admit this, or if I have to deal with this, then I'll no longer be loved or no longer be lovable. And I always want to start from there and then say, okay, so if then you read the catechism and it says, you know, this is disordered, that your interpretation or this person's interpretation of the word disordered is going to be really different than your and mine, Matt. We're going to read it and go like, yeah, that's just a description. It's a

description of like, we're made for truth. And so, every desire to lie is a disordered desire. Because for us, it's kind of more objective. That makes sense. It's sort of like, let's use the analogy of hunger and say gluttony. Like, there's a way you could speak about the sin of gluttony. But suppose you were to meet somebody who felt terrible about themselves and often overate and didn't really want to, or maybe they did, you certainly wouldn't talk to them the way you would describe gluttony, because in one sense, you're trying to speak objectively about something,

which is the catechism's goal, right? It needs to be precise. But I see what you mean when you're actually dealing with an individual. You have to understand how they're interpreting things. That reminds me of Father Bishop Robert Barron, who I think said, and this was a great line, I thought he said, if those with same-sex attraction, if all they heard from us was, you're disordered, then in a sense, we were the disordered ones. And I thought, that could be interpreted all sorts of ways. But I think there's a real nugget of truth there. Like, if all we've been saying is that, then it's like, well, we need to adjust our language. And yeah.

And so, in that, that's all, you know, preface to, I think that the term is really useful. And so it might be interpreted the way we don't want it to be interpreted or received the way we don't want it to be received. At the same time, it is a really useful and accurate word that we describe for any desire that is not in line with the nature of what is good for a human being. So, like gluttony. So, this ordered desire for more food than is good for me. You know, or again, the desire to lie sometimes is a disordered desire because you're made for truth. And so, like pornography is a a disordered desire that, because we're made to

be gifts of ourselves, not to, you know, take from another. And so, yes, it's accurate. I think it's helpful, but I also want to recognize that for some people, it is not the word I'm going to use in their presence because, yeah, it's not going to be helpful in that moment. Yeah, that's a really great point. Thanks for that. Okay, homosexual marriage, what the heck is your problem, father? I mean, people just want to love each other, right? And you're standing in the way, like love is love and people should be able to marry who they want. And even if you disagree with that, who are you to tell the rest of society that they're not allowed to do this?

Just mind your own business. It doesn't affect you anyway. Yeah, those are all great slogans. Thank you. It's like you just, in 2012, in the state of Minnesota. It's like I read a t-shirt in Portland. Here are the different... It's like I read a t-shirt in Portland. Here are the different... Honestly, in 2012, the state of Minnesota had this as a vote, a statewide vote on redefining marriage or keeping the traditional definition. And all over the place, there were lawn signs or bumper stickers as well that had all of those slogans.

Love is love. had all of those slogans, love is love, that, yeah, who are you to say who can and who cannot get married and whatnot, which makes sense. But I would stop and say, well, are you saying that there should be no regulation as far as who can and who cannot get married? Let's play devil's advocate. This will be fun. So I'll be the interlocutor. Okay. All right, let's go. So should you be able to get married to whomever you are attracted to or whomever you love?

Okay, so what if Jack is married to Jill, but he's also attracted to Jane? Can the three of them get married to each other? And so Jane is attracted to Jill as well. You know what's sad is that three years ago, the majority of people get married to each other? And so, Jane attracted to Jill as well. You know what's sad is that three years ago, the majority of people would have said no. But today... Yeah, but now it's changed. Right.

I love what you said on the Michael Knowles show. And I want you to speak about this. You said when people say, let's redefine marriage, you said... Well, you tell us what you said. No, I said... So, it comes from having a number of discussions with people who say, you know, we should be able to redefine marriage. And I ask them, before you redefine it, can you just define it? Like, how would you define marriage?

And honestly, and I'm sure there's some smart people out there who could probably offer some very good and well-worded definitions. I have not been able to encounter anybody who's able to give me a definition of marriage that is simultaneously accurate while at the same time being exclusive to the marriage itself. exclusive to the marriage itself. So what I mean by that is someone would say, well, you know, it's a relationship that's for life. Like, well, I'll always be my sister's brother. Is that, that's a relationship that's for life? Okay, no, no. It's a relationship that is built on love and mutual respect.

Like, oh, well, my best friend, I have a relationship that I love him and we respect each other. Okay, no, but it's a relationship that two people, or people, not just two people, right? Because you can't. It's a relationship where people, they support each other, they're committed to each other for life,

and they love each other. I was like, well, that makes sense. But right up the road from me, there's a Benedictine monastery and about 100 or so nuns who love each other and are committed to each other for life and assist each other. So how is that? So can we give a definition that's accurate? Because if I can't define a thing, any attempt to redefine it will ultimately undefine it.

And that's what I just find so much. Like you said, you just pointed it out. If I can't define the thing, any attempt to redefine it will undefine it. That's what we're seeing. Three years ago, you said, dude, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not saying that you should be able to marry anyone, like five people. But now it's like, well, I guess if it's been redefined, it's ultimately been undefined, and we don't even know what it is anymore. It's just, I guess, I want you to acknowledge my relationship by the state and publicly and in your media. I mean, that's kind of what it comes down to. I feel like since the redefinition has occurred um that it's become easier to talk about this topic

i felt i felt like during you know the whole debate about it if you came out and said anything like you were shot down and you were you were totally ostracized whereas now that my now that you know to put it whatever crassly my side has lost i'm much less of a threat. And it's almost kind of, I feel like I can talk a little more openly about this again. I don't know what you think. Yeah, that makes sense. I would say something similar because, yeah, there's a, and maybe there's a, you know, power differential kind of a thing where there's an underdog goodness. But, you know, even in during the debate, because we, again, as I said, we had the debate in Minnesota that was actually, well, that wasn't actually a debate, but I

was part of some debates, um, multiple times that, that really talked about this and they were very, for me, like revelatory. Um, and they, they just, they, they showed a lot. For example, this is one of the moments in this, the discussion, the discussion that I just thought was, it just illuminated so much to me. And there's a moment where the man who's a theology professor, and he's openly gay, and he's in a relationship, where he made this statement. He said, well, I'm not defined by my biology. not defined by my biology. And I remember I just, oh my gosh, I had this look in my eye that the moderator of the debate must have recognized because I don't have a good poker face. And she said, Father Schmitz, do you have something to say? And I said, yes. I said, oh my gosh, I just realized now that this whole discussion, like the entire thing, is not about sexual morality. It's not about morality. It's all about a worldview.

And the worldview is essentially Christianity or Judeo-Christianity or Gnosticism. It's the idea of like, no, you are your body, so what you do with your body matters. Or you're not your body. You're not defined by your body in any way, shape, or form. And so whatever you do with that shell, that's not you, is really irrelevant because you're not defined by your biology, which was really funny because I got back from the debate, you know, and it's just kind of reeling. And one of our students, he's an engineer now. So, very, you know, analytical and process oriented. And he said, how'd it go? And I said, I shared with him that piece. And he said, huh, that's funny. I was like,

what do you mean? He said, well, if he's not defined by his biology, tell him to not eat for the next four weeks and see what happens. Wow, good response. That biology would define him pretty quickly. That's smart. Yeah. Let's take some questions. I've asked some folks on Patreon if they wouldn't mind writing in a question. We won't get to all of them and some of them we've already answered throughout the course of this. I'm also not going to read their names just in case some of them are sensitive. But I like some of these questions, I think, on the minds of a lot of people. So, one person says, how do you begin the discussion with people who are very emotional towards the topic, friends who are extremely pro-gay, who are very emotionally invested as far as their justifications? Where do you begin and end the conversation with people like this who engage you on it? you on it? Yeah, I always, um, I always want to affirm and assert that again, I'm not coming at this as a, as a quote unquote issue or quote unquote topic. Like I'm coming at this, uh, as,

as a person who has been like my heart, my life has been affected by men and women who have been affected. Um, that this is part of their experiences as part is part of their reality. And so, that's why I want to come across right away. The second thing I always want to do is keep in mind those things that I was mentioning before, which are, okay, for many, many people, even the Catechism says this. It says, this constitutes for most of them a trial. And I don't know how many people I've spoken with who have said that exact thing, but in different language, like, do you think I chose this? Or I never would have chosen this if someone had given me the option. Like, yeah, what that means is your

experience, and even if you say, you know, constitutes a trial, they might say, no, no, no. But like, no, you just told me that you never would have chosen this because it's made things difficult for you. It's a cross that you don't, or, you know, whether you want to call it a cross or not, it's your experience. antagonistic or this person who I'm talking with right now, I have to understand that they have a lifetime of either feeling shame or feeling embarrassment, struggling with this. And now that it's at the surface, if they're, quote unquote, throwing it in my face, or if they're, quote unquote, making an angry appeal at me, the first thing I have to understand is this right now might be something I just learned about them, but they've been carrying this for years. And I just,

if all I can do right now in this moment as a representative of a church that says you're worth loving, if all I can do is kind of take it and meaning just, you know, receive that, then that's a good start, I think. Yeah, what a beautiful thing. Yeah. Thanks. Another question here. This person says, this is one I've been wondering about when same-sex attraction arguments come up. If someone has same-sex attraction and has chosen to not act on those impulses to remain chaste, and has chosen to not act on those impulses to remain chaste, is it all right for them to be in an abstaining romantic relationship? Basically, is a romantic relationship a possibility for same-sex attracted individuals, or are they asked to stay in the realm of other forms of love in

their lives, like friendship? Right. That's a great question, too, because it's a real question. And it's a real part of a lot of people's experience. I would say, and I would echo what courage, the mission of courage. And they talk about a thing called detached friendship or maybe not detached, disinterested friendship. And what they mean is not we don't care about each other. What they mean is they strive not to introduce a romantic element into those friendships. And this is going to be a big reality or a big desire. I would think about it in terms of this way.

What if, say you have a priest. Maybe he's physically chaste, but he has a romantic friendship that's still chaste physically with a woman. Would you be okay with that? And you say, well, no. Why? They're not doing anything. Because it's problematic at the least. I would say, exactly. It's problematic at the least. Now, at the same time, can there be committed same-sex friendships, like true friendships? I would say there have to be. I mean, sorry, there have to be

committed same-sex friendships because you have people who are heterosexual or homosexual who have friendships with each other. They're committed to each other and supporting each other. But to be able to say that here's Jack and Joe, they're both same-sex attracted and they find in the other a great friend, I say, well, yeah, keep pursuing that. I say, well, yeah, keep pursuing that. There was a conversation that I had with a young woman. It was after I had given at a university, and she stood up and she said, I want to tell you about my relationship with my girlfriend. And she described all these things. She's super caring. She helps me become more generous and more patient, all these kind of things.

She helps me become more generous and more patient, all these kind of things. And at the end of it, I said, well, I mean, what you just described, the church affirms. Like, you didn't say anything that the church would say, don't have a relationship with someone who makes you more generous or who makes you more patient. The church says, it's the stuff you didn't mention, which is that the acting out in a sexual way on your friendship, because this is introducing something that is not going to be helpful or not conducive even to either happiness, wholeness, and real friendship and holiness. So, I would be really cautious against someone who would say we're having a committed or any kind of romantic relationship that's quote-unquote chaste because the very nature of it is just opening a door for pain, essentially. That's a great, great answer. This next question is something I've been

wondering. I'm sure a lot of others have been wondering. He says, my parents never really had to address the topic of homosexuality with me growing up. I have a two-year-old daughter and I'm wondering at what point and how do I even try to explain to her that marriage is only for one man and one woman. This may be even more challenging if she grows up with friends who are raised by same-sex, quote-unquote, married couples. I want to kind of extend this question to pertain not just to homosexual marriage, quote-unquote, but also just like addressing the issue in general. Like I was at the beach the other day with my family. And as we were walking back, there was a couple, you know, two girls who are being somewhat intimate with each other. It was very clear. And this isn't something that our parents had to address,

but it seems like something we just have to address sort of in a way, maybe in our grandparents' generation, it was very taboo to see two people living together outside of marriage. And you think, gosh, how am I ever going to explain this to the kids? Well, now that's just sort of part of life and part of what you have to explain. Is that the same thing now, do you think, with homosexual relationships and our children? Yeah, I think so. And I think one of the things, you know, the APA came out with a report a couple of years ago, maybe 2014, that was on the hypersexualization of young children or young girls, in fact. And I think you might have cited that in your book. But that talks about that younger and younger, not only are children, in this case, that the APA talked about girls being sexualized, they're being hyper-sexualized. And so we're living in this culture where everything is sexualized, including themselves at a young age.

And so they're being exposed at an earlier and earlier time. And so people like the person who wrote in and asked the question of, what am I going to do with this two-year-old? I mean, it's the problem that I think J.K. rowling did after she got done with the whole harry potter series and then like two years later however long it was uh she's doing a press conference and she says you know well gandalf is gay like wait wait what you know record scratch what do you mean do you mean gandalf because you're sorry i meant to say uh that other bloke that's okay yeah yeah dumbledore yeah not gandalf my bad uh dumbledore oh so she she decided so she kind of sort of retrospectively decided he was gay?

Yeah. Yeah, and so then it's kind of been in the newer movies and books or whatever. But this idea, I was reading something about that that said, you know, why would that be a problem? that if this is a book for children, adults in children's books aren't sexualized. That they're just simply, you know, even if this is a, you know, Joe has a mom and dad. Okay, fine. But mom and dad aren't sexualized. They're simply they're just mom and dad. So even like in the Harry Potter books that, you know, they become teens and whatnot. They might be snogging

right is the word um sure but but it but it's the it's the teens themselves who are part of the book that are this but the adults themselves the adults themselves aren't sexualized and so when we begin sexualizing adults to to young people um at an earlier earlier age, there's something that is off. And so one of the things I will always counsel people is as long as you can, it's okay to protect your child from the darker parts or the more confusing parts or, you know, those elements of our culture and our world that are, they're not ready for and like well no i need to prepare them i would say it's okay if you prepare them to be um to make good decisions but they don't need to know about all of the right things that are out there i imagine you know when you speak to your

child about those who are living a homosexual lifestyle might have to come a whole lot sooner say in portland or california than where i live here in north georgia you know and i think a general rule of thumb is if they're ready to ask the question they're ready to hear the answer at least some form of the answer well yeah and there's that sense too of like you can you can imagine someone saying oh that you know that's that's Uncle Tim's, let's call him Tim's friend. Oh, okay, Uncle Tim's friend Joe. Okay, great. I don't need to know anything more than that.

And then now here's the kid. He's like 15, 16. He's like, oh, he's noticing some things. Wait, is Uncle Tim? I don't know. They're like, okay. They're like Bert and Ernie. They're Bert and Ernie.

Oh, man. All right. Well, hey, two more questions. One, had a debate at the dinner table with a father about this last night. He says, where in the four Gospels does Christ Jesus say homosexuality is a sin? So, there you are, Father. Jesus doesn't speak about this, so it's not an issue. Clearly.

sin. So there you are, Father. Jesus doesn't speak about this, so it's not an issue. Clearly. Neither is, neither are nuclear weapons or any recycling environment. Didn't say anything about, I mean, there's the argument from silence. You know this as the philosophy master, the argument from silence is not a good argument in any way, shape, or form, there are so many things that Jesus didn't say when it came to how we know the right way to live. Why? Because here's Jesus as a faithful Jew who would have wholeheartedly embraced and did wholeheartedly embrace the morality of the Jewish people and the Hebrew scriptures, the Jewish people and the Hebrew scriptures, which is abundantly and eminently sex belongs in one dimension, and that is in the relations between a husband and a wife, and essentially nowhere else. That the whole Bible itself testifies to marital reunion, beginning of the Bible, Adam and

Eve, the end of the Bible, Christ and the church as the bridegroom and the bride, and all throughout this being incredibly consistent that it would be... Now, it was same-sex attraction and same-sex actions were very well known, despite what so many people argue. I mean, they just argue like, well, we now know more that, you know, this is the deep commitment. Like, okay, we're not talking about commitment, we're talking about the actions themselves. And the actions themselves were known by the people who are in the Bible times, as well as Jesus, and they were universally, universally condemned condemned and not approved of in by the Judeo-Christian community thoroughly.

And so, you think like, well, did Jesus ever say something like, again, like, don't beat your wife? No. Is that because it was okay to do that? Don't masturbate. Right. It's because like, no, it's already been said. We already all know this.

Therefore, you know, that argument. Mary Healy has a great book on this, on the topic of Scripture. I think it's called Mercy, Homosexuality, and Scripture or something like that. But Dr. Mary Healy, and she just, I mean, she's a scripture scholar herself, and so she goes through it and makes it, like, abundantly clear that any argument that tries to appeal to either a reinterpretation of scripture or the lack of Jesus himself speaking about this as being a false thing. And last thing about this, if you don't mind me. Please.

A man had written to me about this and said, you know, Jesus, he was saying, you know, he was in a committed same-sex relationship for years and X, Y, and Z. And he had said that if you can show me where Jesus talked about this, then I'll not, you know, I'll change. And I said, okay, well, Jesus doesn't, but St. Paul does in Romans chapter one and the other parts of scripture that reference this all, every time it comes up, it's not approved of, it's disapproved of, condemned. And he's like, well, no, but Jesus didn't say it. And his three major issues, really interesting, were same-sex actions, masturbation, and divorce and remarriage. And I was like, in the communication back and forth, I was like, it's interesting that all three of the things you disagree with the Catholic Church about all have to do with sex.

And that's funny. I mean, just kind of like, think about that, please, my friend. And the other thing was, I said, okay, well, if Jesus had said something specifically about any one of those things, would you accept it? He said, well, yeah. So, I said, well, you know, here's Jesus specifically addressing divorce and remarriage and calling it adultery. And it was one of these kinds of things that he just went scrambling to find a way out of that. Pete Right. We all do it, don't we? When we're invested in a particular position.

But it was like, no, no, no. If you can show me where Jesus said this, I will completely. And here it is. He says it multiple times, you know, across the Gospels. And it was like, no, no, no, no. I found someone who was able to interpret that away. And I'm like, ah, that's, as he said, we kind of all do that. Yeah, which gets us back to natural law and why that's so important, like we talked about earlier. All right, finally, I just want to talk about resources. So, no doubt there are maybe young

men and young women who are experiencing same-sex attraction listening to this, and there are also some parents of younger or older children who they believe are experiencing this or know they are. What do you say to them? What are some resources that they can look to? Yeah, the first thing I really have been trying to say again and again is, if someone recognizes this about themselves, about their experience, or this is my son, my daughter, my brother, my sister, whoever who comes out, first, this is not a death sentence. Like we said at the beginning of this time is, yeah, if it wasn't this, it'd be something else. But this is not a death sentence.

This does not mean you have to be lonely the rest of your life. It does not mean you have to live half a life the rest of your life without any love. What this means is, okay, this is part of your experience, but you're still made for love and you're still made for relationship that relate. Those relationships will be chased, but you're still so made for love. So that's the first thing I just want to encourage every person who's listening to this or whoever will that that this is not a death sentence. And again, truly not to make light of it, but if this wasn't this, it would be some other experience that would be difficult to bring to the Lord and decided to live chaste lives with disinterested friendship, real friendship, appealing to the sacraments, regular prayer and fellowship and real full lives. For family members and friends of those who experience same-sex attraction, there's a

group called Encourage, E-N-C-c-o-u-r-h-e so encourage is um for men and women who uh or for a family of men and women who experience same-sex attraction who just like we want to you know process this and we want to kind of understand this better how do we love our sons or daughters or brothers or sisters how do we um what how do we toe the line you know when it comes to uh yeah we accept you and love you. We also can't celebrate every one of your decisions. Like, how do we find that line? Which is sometimes really difficult. So, courage and encourage are two of the best, like, living, not just books or not just, you know, podcasts. And as somebody who spoke at their summer conference last year, I was honored to. I just was so refreshed by their joy. You know, like just this

joyful heroism and just beautiful people. And then as far as the books, though, people have got to get your beautiful book, Made for Love, and then they've got to get Dan Mattson's book. Dan Mattson's, yeah. Who, as I say to everybody, we've had Dan on the show. So, if you go to pineswithaquinas.com in the search bar, just type in Dan or Gay, find that episode as well it's a it's a beautiful man yeah i just want to drink whiskey with him whenever i see him on twitter i'm like he's just like one of the most amazing people ever i just want to like drink whiskey and talk philosophy with that guy no that book i just it's so good. And people like Dan and people like the people at the Courage conferences and whatnot, who more people need to know about.

They need to know that there are men and women who experience some subtraction, who are living lives of joy and holiness, and who say, yeah, no, I belong in the Catholic Church. Of course. I know I'm loved here and I belong here, and so do you if this is your experience as well. Okay, and then finally, just very finally, what about The Third Way was a fantastic video on Vimeo, correct? Yes, it was. Actually, so I had come up with that notion of The Third Way. Did you?

So I had come up with that notion of the third way. Did you? Yeah, because I was sharing the story of a man was presenting to me this scenario where basically it was either I endorse and celebrate everything he chooses as a gay man or I hate him. And when he got done with his presentation, I was like, dude, are those my only two options? Because a real relationship is one where those aren't the only two options. It's not either you have to love everything I do or you hate me. There's a third way, and that way is the way of Christ. So I shared that in the video, and then they named it that, and I'm like, shoot, I wanted to call my book that. I was like, dang it. So the book was going to be called The Third Way in my head.

That is so funny. Is that why you didn't recommend it as a resource? You're totally better? Oh, I just didn't even think about it. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. The Third Way and the other documentary, The Desire of the Everlasting Hills is another one. So dear every listener out there, I am going to be diligent in putting up all these links in the show notes so they will bless you and they will bless those that you love.

Father, I am so, I'm not just saying this because it's a nice way to wrap up a podcast. I want to thank you as, you know, your spiritual son, as a brother in Christ, that you have committed a lot of time and energy to this topic because it's desperately needed. You've written it with such love and with such truth that I know it is going to be such a blessing and even a balm for the wounds of many people out there. I think, I feel like a fitting way to end might be to reference, I believe it's the eighth chapter of John's Gospel where Christ encounters the woman caught in adultery. And He does what you've striven to do and have done so well in this book,

and that's to bring together both truth and mercy, right? So, Jesus says to her, go and sin no more. Like, there's the truth, right? I'm not going to pretend that the way you've been living is fine, you know, go and sin no more. But He also says prior to that, and maybe it's important to point out that this was prior, he says, does no one here condemn you? Neither do I. So, it's almost like that's how you're going to be, that sounds to me like that's how you're beginning these discussions. Even in our conversation, Father, I feel like I came off a little blunt and you would gently show me, yeah, but let's lead with mercy. Neither do I condemn you. And then there's the truth. And I think that is just a thing we can all learn from.

Amen. Thanks for that. It's beautiful to say. I appreciate that. Yeah. All right. Well, hey, bless you. And I mean, tell us about just real quickly, how do people find you online? I mean, I know you've got your videos and... Yeah, no, thanks. There's the Twitter. I think it's frmikeschmitz. And then online we have the videos at Ascension Presents as well as homilypodcasts at bulldogcatholic.org or iTunes. Just look up – I think it's umdnewman is that – or maybe you just type in my name. I'm not sure. Yeah, they'll find out.

But yeah, we have a weekly homily podcast as well. All right. Well, God bless you and thanks so much, mate. Thanks, Matt. Oh'll find out. But yeah, we have a weekly homily podcast as well. All right. Well, God bless you. And thanks so much, mate. Thanks, Matt. Oh, my gosh. That was amazing. That was both informative and just refreshing.

I hope you really enjoyed it. Hey, I want to invite you, if you haven't already begun supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon, if you listen to this week after week and it actually blesses you, if it enriches your life and you want to give back, you can do that. Go to pintswithaquinas.com and click support. If you give for 10 bucks a month, here's what I'm going to give you. You'll get my free book, Does God Exist? The Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas, which I will sign and send to you. You'll also get the e-version of that book. You'll get a weekly exclusive video. You'll get access to an ever-growing

library of audio books like Papal Encyclicals, Workspace on Thomas Aquinas. They keep coming. You'll have early access to Points with Aquinas comic strips. You'll have access to a bi-monthly live stream. There's a whole exclusive audio library. I actually mentioned Dan Matheson at the beginning of the show. I recorded his story, just him and me, and it's on Patreon just for you listeners. You can check that out. You'll also have access to our private Patreon community forum, and you'll also just be supporting a great, you know, hopefully like a good podcast that's doing good work. And that would really mean a lot to me and my family. So again, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support,

and that's how you can get involved. Thanks so much. Chat with you next week. Too many grains of salt and sugar