Review of Beyond Gay by Perth Record

by Paul Gray

Sex -- it's what makes Catholics different. That is the view of many people outside the Church, and at times, it looks very much like they're right.

Not that Catholics are any different when it comes to sexual urges. But the Catholic Church's teachings on sex have always marked the Church out in a special way.

The issue has erupted often, over recent decades, on the issue of the Church's teaching that contraceptive acts are never morally justified. More recently, the Church's teachings have come under fire with regard to homosexuality.

At times, loyal Catholics can feel themselves under siege, with critics baying against the "harsh restrictiveness" and "intolerant bigotry" of Catholic sexual teaching.

How radical, then, to discover a brand new book which not only praises the Church's sexuality teachings for being true, but also warmly endorses and recommends them as personally liberating for everybody -- including homosexual people.

What makes this especially convincing is it is written by a former gay activist -- a young man, still in his 30s today, who lived an active homosexual lifestyle for many years. It's called Beyond Gay by David Morrison (Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1999).

David's life story is a truly moving one -- and very much one for our times. Not religious by upbringing, he had several homosexual experiences as a youth, followed by a series of relationships with other men when he went to university.

At university, he often ridiculed Christians in debate (interestingly, he still believes Christians should learn to put the case for their own view on sexuality better.) He later converted to Christianity, joining a non-Catholic church.

Pivotal to his Christian conversion was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran priest martyred by the Nazis in 1945. Bonhoeffer's comment that "cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church -- we are fighting today for costly grace" pierced him like an arrow.

At this stage in his spiritual journey, David was still living in a sexual relationship with another man, and soon had signed up with a "gay Christian" network which endorsed his continuing active gay lifestyle.

Yet increasingly, David began to feel that he was selling himself and his friends short by allowing sex to determine his, and their, identity.

This led him, gently, to feeling that if he truly loved the man he lived with, he needed to curtail the sex side of their friendship, and embrace chastity, which he subsequently did.

David concludes this section with a moving recollection that "in a graced moment, we concluded that we experienced so much of life together that our relationship meant far more than merely what happened in the bedroom.

"For better or worse, for then and now, we remained and remain very close friends, akin to brothers, and I feel grateful for his presence in my life."

Conversion to Catholicism followed closely after conversion to chastity for David Morrison.

This was because, as he himself puts it, "the Catholic Church is the only Christian body .... which addresses questions of sexual morality not merely from the perspective of actions but also from the deeper questions of the nature of men, women and love."

The Catholic Church, with its deep-reaching teaching on the nuptial meaning of the human body -- a symbol of the fertile, liberating love that Christ holds for his Church, the bride for whom He gives his body -- has come to feel like home for this young man.

Not that his life is free of temptation, or the burden of carrying the Christian cross. However, with the aid of good Catholic friends and the Sacrament of Penance, he is continuing his struggle.

Beyond Gay makes informative, and frequently inspiring spiritual reading. It's appropriate not just for homosexual people and the families of homosexual people, but for anyone coming to terms with the Church's mysterious but majestic teachings on sex.