(Vatican Radio) Welcoming hundreds of thousands of young people from across the globe,
the World Youth Day programme foresees a vast number of events especially conceived
and organised to engage and involve the participants. The highlights of the week-long
programme of course are the events which see Pope Francis’ presence, but during the
rest of the day the young people can listen to guest speakers, participate in workshops,
and take part in catechesis sessions given around the city by bishops from all over
the world. Vatican Radio’s Sean Patrick Lovett dropped into to listen to one
such catechesis and was particularly intrigued and interested at what he heard. The
catechesis in question was led by the Bishop of Darwin in Australia, Eugene Hurley,
who had answers for a young woman with a difficult question. The young woman described
herself as Catholic and homosexual. She asked Bishop Hurley why the Church marginalises
and appears not to love homosexual people…
To hear what he replied listen
to the interview…
Bishop
Hurley says he was very grateful for the question which obviously sprung from a very
hurt part of the person’s soul “because she loves God and she loves the Church and
finds herself being marginalised by what is commonly thought to be the position of
the Catholic Church in regard to homosexuality”.
He says he was happy to respond
to the question as it is one that is on the minds of many people, especially young
people, because homosexuality and transgender is a reality for many people across
the world”.
“What they want to know is where does this reality fit within the
Catholic Church”.
Bishop Hurley says he explained to her that “God doesn’t
make mistakes, that God doesn’t make junk, that God only makes beautiful things, and
that she is one of them.”
The bishop explains it is part of his role in his
position as Chair of Commission at the Australian Bishops Conference to work with
homosexual people and to listen carefully to their reality and to “discover ways in
which God is calling the Church to engage with those people and the reality of their
lives”.
Bishop Hurley reveals that he shared with the young woman a recent
talk he had with a young man who said he would have loved to be heterosexual, but
as much as he would have loved it, he is not”. This young man – he said – “wanted
to know where does that leave him in the mind of God, in the mind of the Church, in
his relationship with people?”
The bishop says he asked the young woman to
gift the Church by speak candidly, transparently and genuinely to the leaders of the
Church wherever she is “so that we might have a new way of understanding God’s call
to the Church to embrace every aspect of sexuality, and more particularly at this
time, homosexuality and transsexuals” so that “we must find a way because God loves
everybody and we must find a way of expressing that in the Church”.
He concluded
saying that whilst we may not have all the answers and “to some degree that does not
worry me, what does excite me is that we can walk together prayerfully and lovingly
to discover the answer”.