I’m a Catholic, and I think the Catholic church is out of touch

I grew up, and have remained for my entire life, a Catholic.

The teachings are nice, and it’s great to be involved with a church. Everyone around you is just there to try and be a good person. It is almost impossible to see that as a ‘bad’ thing.

However, there is something about Catholicism that baffles me – namely that they are still attempting to impose rules created 2,000 years ago on a modern society.

I’m gay, and my parents have been really supportive. But growing up in a Catholic environment, I always felt like there was something wrong with me. When the Pope speaks about homosexuality, his message is less about acceptance and more about tolerance. And this really isn’t good enough.

Last week, Pope Francis released a document on marriage and family issues, in which he said that people with same sex attractions “should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.”

Gay people, along with the divorced and other people with whom the church has previously taken issue, are not just a problem to be ‘tolerated’, alongside some repentance. It’s not fair to treat things like sexuality as a cross to bear.

The Church’s continuous discrimination against people who are divorced, gay people, and women, is often used by others to further discriminate against these people, justifying their actions with little more than “the Bible says so”.

Do the priests and bishops who are against gay marriage still think it’s a choice people make purely to be evil? I can say right here and now that no one has ever ‘chosen’ to be gay. They may be happy with it, but they have not ‘chosen’ it. My question to any Catholic who is offended by homosexuality is, why? What possible effect could somebody being gay have on your life?

It’s not just homosexuality. In society at large, at last, women are recognised as equals, who deserve equal opportunities. Yet women still can’t get ordained within the Catholic Church. This must be one of the only positions in the western world in which gender is a valid requirement. But why? Surely women wanting to be priests simply shows that there are more people, of both genders, who want to be close to God.

The church is supposed to be a place where people can feel safe and free from judgement, yet its teachings have been perverted into somehow giving a reason to judge others. The Catholic faith can be an inspiring one that brings people together and teaches the rights and wrongs of the world. But the Church itself needs to get with the times.