“Look at the face of the other.… Discover that he has a soul, a history, and a life, that he is a person, and that God loves this person.” – Benedict XVI
God has a plan for every human person: a plan for their life and their love. Every person is invited to discover their deepest identity in being a child of God, infinitely loved and willed into existence. Persons who experience same-sex attraction are called to live their identity as beloved children and to lead lives of holiness by responding to the grace of chastity.
“The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life” (P. 16). - Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual persons
COURAGE Portland Chaplain: Fr. Tim Furlow - pdxcourage(at)gmail.com
EnCOURAGE Portland Chaplain: Fr. Eric Andersen - pdxencourage(at)gmail.com