Homosexuality (Catholic Moral Perspective)

The Psychology Of Seeking Poverty

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Let us not be fooled. ... There is a Christian Psychology, thus a Catholic Psychology. Among others, we see it in St. Francis of Assisi. His father was a wealthy merchant, but St. Francis chose to leave his life of wealth to pursue utter devotion to Christ in poverty. Before Catholic religious, he stripped himself of his clothing and took on a poor man's garb to symbolize his devotion.

The Catholic Church was in need of reformation. That reformation happened not by protesting reformers, but by people like St. Francis of Assisi, who stayed in the Church and created change from the inside as a servant.

He had a dream that God wanted him to repair His Church. St. Francis saw an old church building, and thought this was what God wanted him to repair. He did so, but then realized that perhaps God meant more than simply this.

Then St. Francis asked to see the Pope. Arriving at his door, the man at the door would not let him in, because St. Francis looked like a beggar from the street. The Pope finally let him in, then knew God would use St. Francis to do that very thing. The Roman Catholic reformation that St. Francis influenced has continued to this day.

We do not all need seek utter poverty as powerful ministries to our Lord. However, the principle remains true and has great application in our modern time.

Do you find yourself misrepresented in the things you do and say for others? Are you sometimes taken advantage of in ways that are truly not fair? Is your husband, wife or children sometimes cruel or impatient with ? Does your employer take advantage, or place someone of less skill in your place? God wishes that the spirit that was in St. Francis of Assisi, also be in us who follow Him in these times of persecution. Persecution, although sometimes mild, remain very real none the less, and painful.

Remember what St. Paul wrote under inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

"Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Corinthians 12:10)

How To Love Your Family

Can I ask you a question? Actually two. The first question I wish to ask you is, "Do you think these things are true?" I mean, "The life of Christ as we know it to be through the words of the gospels in the Bible?" ... If your answer to the first question is "yes", then the second question I wish to ask you is, "Do you love Jesus?" - I mean, do you "really" love Jesus?

You see, if we love Jesus, and "really" love Him, then perhaps it is of great importance that we also love His "family".

Yes, I know, this "loving-the-family-of-Christ" can mean many things, and can be acted out on many levels. A few of which are:

(1) Loving the saints, brothers and sisters in the Lord who have gone on before us.

(2) Loving fellow believers, ... men, women and children, who are with us now on this earth at this time.

(3) Loving the family that Christ was born into when He was birthed in the flesh as an infant in Bethlehem.

It is to number "3" I wish to respond at this moment.

Yes, it is true the men and women in these videos only depict events as they believe them to have been at the time of Christ. Yet, there are many truths in the acting of these events by these dear people which are valid. That are personally true historically, because Christ, very God, took on flesh, and like us, dwelt among the human race in human form.

My point is this, "Catholic Psychology" that is particularly relevant for personal application in our modern day, is "To love Christ, the Trinity, and His Church through also loving the family within which Christ Himself was born into in the event of his initial infancy upon earth. I’m referring to our opportunity to discover a very real joyous relationship within the sacred emotional bond that existed and continues to exist between Jesus and His mother Mary.

Great passion was involved in these events for the sake of our salvation. And certainly, Jesus loved his mother, and she loved Him. There can be great healing and growth for you, the more you make real in your life, closeness in the family that included Jesus and His mother Mary. Feel yourself in that family. Share in that family. The beauty, the sacred. The easiness, joy and difficulties. The passion and the glory. ... Cry with them, and laugh with them. See what they see. Feel what they feel and grow by it. ... It is then when we find more to give to our families who are with us now on this earth.

Knowing since ancient times how the words "brother/sister" were culturally interchangeable with "cousins", and that Mary was loved by Jesus in ways that are commonly honorable between a son and his mother, view the following as an invitation for each of us to join intimately with that sacred family, Jesus and Mary, and personally apply that familial relationship to the desires of our hearts, as well as to the personal needs of others in our daily lives. (Together let’s say, "Jesus and Mary, our Lord and our Mother, we love you, and together we will share with you the sacred story of your most holy passion!!!")

"Then one said to Him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’ But He answered and said to the one who told Him, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother."
(Matthew 12:47-50)

Events Greater Than Our Own

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It helps us to remember that there are events happening in the universe far greater than the casual activities of our ordinary daily lives. Actually, there is a war raging all around us. A war that is fought between spiritual forces far greater than our human intellect can now conceive. A Christian Psychology, thus a Catholic psychology, takes into account the entire picture of human existance and history. It places into perspective mankind's petty relational contentions, and views them in the context of all creation.
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"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)
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These forces are envious because very God in Christ took on human flesh, thereby welcoming and paving the way for the human race to become God's very family for those who will be His disciples. ... So now Satan, and one third of the angels that he brought down with him with vicious lies and defiance against God, jealously battle to destroy we of flesh who are made in the Creator's image.
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This is our psychology, our thinking, our manner of inter-relating in this great war that goes beyond just ourselves:
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"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (of the flesh) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, " (II Corinthians 10:4-5)
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*The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 2)*

There was another psychologist of high acclaim at the time Rogers and Coulson were pumping philosophies of relativism into the minds of a large number of American Catholic nuns and priests. His name was Dr. Abraham Maslow. Coulson said Dr. Maslow warned both of them (He and Rogers) that their problem was their "total confusion with evil". However, the documented research on innate evil by Maslow, a humanist himself, and the father of "Hierarchy Of Needs", was not published in journals until 1979. By then the damage had already be done.

Among other activities, Rogers and Coulson had distributed a teaching tape promulgating that "when people do what they deeply want to do, it isn't immoral." About this Dr. Coulson later stated that it became obvious to both he and Rogers that they had not waited long enough for the results of their pilot testing. "The lesbian nuns' book, for example, hadn't come out yet; and we hadn't gotten the reports of seductions in psychotherapy, which became virtually routine in California."

Regarding the intervention teams of therapists that were intitiated under his direct supervision, that eventually dotted parts of the nation, Coulson replied in an interview, "We had trained people who didn't have Rogers' innate discipline from his own fundamentalist Protestant background, people who thought that being themselves meant unleashing libido." ... "Maslow saw that we failed to understand the reality of evil in human life. When we implied to people that they could trust their impulses, they also understood us to mean that they could trust their evil impulses, that they weren't really evil." ... "But they were really evil."

"We did similar programs for the Jesuits, for the Franciscans, for the Sisters of Providence, Sisters of Charity, and the Mercy Sisters. We did dozens of Catholic religious organizations, because as you recall, in the excitement following Vatican II, everybody wanted to update, everybody wanted to renew; and we offered a way for people to renew, without having to bother to study. We said, we'll help you look within. After all, is not God in your heart? Is it not sufficient to be yourself, and wouldn't that make you a good Catholic? And if it doesn't, then perhaps you shouldn't have been a Catholic in the first place. Well, after a while there weren't many Catholics left."

One example of the negative effect of this "Therapy For Normals" presented as Truth to Catholic Religious, was in the Summer of 1965 when Dr. Rogers and Dr. Coulson did a workshop at a Jesuit University. One young Jesuit, about to be ordained, wrote a letter. Here are the words of that letter in verbatim:

"It seemed like a beautiful birth to a new existence. It was as if so many of the things that I valued in word, were now becoming true for me in fact. It is extremely difficult to describe the experience. I had not known how unaware I was of my deepest feelings, nor how valuable they might be to other people. Only when I began to express what was rising somewhere deep within the center of me, and saw the tears in the eyes of the other group members because I was saying something so true for them, too - only then did I begin to really feel that I was deeply a part of the human race. Never in my life before that group experience, had I experienced me so intently; ..."

Dr. Coulson, again I remind you, the supervisor of the entire Rogerian encounter group program at the time, said later the following in response to this letter by the soon to be ordained Jesuit priest: "The proof of authenticity on the humanistic psychology model is to go against what you were trained to be, to call all of that phoniness, and to say what is deepest within you. What's deepest within you, however, are certain unrequited longings, including sexual longings. ... We provoked an epidemic of sexual misconduct among clergy and therapists."

He went further, "... I'll tell you what Rogers came to see, and he came to see it pretty quickly, because he really loved those women (the nuns of "The Immaculate Heart of Mary"). They were a wonderful order, unconventional in the best sense, for example going around in their old habits playing Mozart for Catholic school kids; and that doesn't exist any more. Rogers came to call it, "this damned thing." I'm going to quote him in a tape that he and I made in '76:" ... (Thus the words of Dr. Carl Rogers himself:) ... "I left there feeling, well, I started this damned thing, and look where it's taking us; I don't even know where it's taking me. I don't have any idea what's going to happen next. And I woke up the next morning feeling so depressed, that I could hardly stand it. And then I realized what was wrong." ... "did I start something that is in some fundamental way mistaken, and will lead us off into paths that we will regret?"

Regarding more history in the movement of relative psychology into American leadership of the Catholic Church, Dr. Coulson stated: "Well, actually we started with the Jesuits before we started with the nuns. We did our first Jesuit workshop in '65. Rogers got two honorary doctorates from Jesuit universities. They thought we were saviors." ... "I don't know whether you remember, but in '67 the Jesuits had a big conference at Santa Clara, and there was a lot of talk about the"Third Way" among the Jesuits." ... "The first two ways are faithful marriage and faithful celibacy. But now there was this more humane way, a more human way - all too human as I see it today. The idea was that priests could date. One priest, for example, defined his celibacy for me as, "It means I don't have to marry the girl." (This was not a Jesuit priest. Dr. Coulson believed that at least the Jesuits could rebound from the teaching of relativism, because at list their history was immersed in strong Catholic tradition.) ... [Note: A "Father Becker" wrote a book on "the collapse of Jesuit training" between 1965 and 1975, documenting what he referred to as influences of Rogerian teaching.]

To conclude this post on "The Perverting of Catholic Religious", read the following two excepts as short recent examples of where the aforementioned Rogerian humanist relativism has taken some IHM's:

From "Turning Chapters" ... "The IHM Sisters began in 1845 steeped in Christianity within the Catholic Church. Now, we know we are rooted also in a much older story - that of the universe itself. Integrating the older universe story into our familiar IHM history and faith will play an important part of our next six years. Using the UN Earth Charter as a resource will inform our conversations, decisions and actions."

From "The Universe Story" ... "the universe story reveals that we carry within us the very energy that fashioned the stars, that we are related to all creation, that our ancestry is a family tree inclusive of all life forms, a family much larger than we have ever imagined possible." ... "We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that we are only fellow voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow creatures; a wish to live and let live..." ... "The IHM Sisters and many religious have begun to study the universe story through the lens of the Gospel." ... "The Body of Christ, rather than simply being a group of like-minded human beings, includes all of life" ... "The revelation in and through Jesus was not intended to be an end in itself, but instead was meant to usher in a new age of connectedness that Jesus called the "Kingdom of God," ... "This reign of God would unfold as the human species embraced a new way of living. The keeping of the memory and mission of Jesus is not about making him the object of our worship, but about making ourselves the locus of the reign of God."

All I will say now as the writer of this post, when I was a child, I attended a traditional Catholic school." The nuns there were Godly and they did me good. The above quotes "do not" represent those nuns, neither the Catholic Church governed by the Vatican in worship of Christ as He revealed Himself! ... I understand not all nuns of the Church, not even all IHM's, believe what is quoted above. However, I say for the increasing numbers of Religious who believe this is our mission, those who promote this gross distortion of our Lord's very words, they truly do not represent, nor do they deserve the title, the "Immaculate Heart of Mary"!

*The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 1)*

The year was 1966. Psychologists Dr. Carl Rogers and Dr. William Coulson requested to conduct a "pilot study" of a new emerging therapy with nuns of the order of the "Immaculate Heart of Mary". The nunship, desiring to do a good deed, agreed to allow their schools to be the first to experience Dr. Rogers' "Therapy For Normals" (TFN).

Dr. Rogers and Dr. Coulson arrived at the initial "testing-of-nuns-to-improve-them" location to begin their therapeutic intervention, well funded from the "National Institutes of MentalHealth". Eventually they brought with them a total of 58 additional psychological testers and group facilitators. Dr. Coulson himself described years later in his own words, "We inundated that system with humanistic psychology." ... "They agreed to let us come into their schools and work with their normal faculty, and with their normal students, and influence the development of normal Catholic life."

The large team of well funded Rogerian psychologists, under the inventor and master of Rogerianism himself, Dr. Carl Rogers (shown on the right), began their TFN intervention with certain enthusiasm. What did Dr. William Coulson later conclude regarding the work of the psychological teams he personally supervised? ... He said, "It was a disaster!"

In a personal well documented interview he stated regarding the "Immaculate Heart Of Mary" order of nuns, "The IHM's had some 60 schools when we started; at the end, they had "one". There were some 615 nuns when we began. Within a year after our first interventions, 300 of them were petitioning Rome to get out of their vows. They did not want to be under anyone's authority, except the authority of their imperial inner selves."

In the summer of 1966 a "Sister Mary Benjamin, IHM" got involved with the Rogerian therapists. Dr. Coulson explained later in a book written by him, that Sister Mary Benjamin "... became the victim of a lesbian seduction. An older nun in the group, ‘freeing herself to be more expressive of who she really was internally,' decided that she wanted to make love with Sister Mary Benjamin. Well, Sister Mary Benjamin engaged in this; and then she was stricken with guilt, and wondered, to quote from her (own) book, ‘Was I doing something wrong, was I doing something terrible? I talked to a priest.' (Dr. Coulson interjects: "Unfortunately we spoke to the priest first!") ... ‘I talked to a priest,' she says, ‘who refused to pass judgment on my actions. He said it was up to me to decide if they were right or wrong. He opened a door, and I walked through the door, realizing I was on my own.'"

So how exactly did all this get started in the Catholic Church of America, the "destruction of tradition, break from the Vatican, defying original vows made by nuns?" ... Dr. Coulson goes on. ... "As I said, the IHM's were pretty progressive, but some of the leadership was a little bit nervous about the secular psychologist from LaJolla coming in, so I met with the whole community, some 600 nuns gathered in the Immaculate Heart High School gymnasium, in Hollywood, on an April day in 1967. ‘We've already done the pilot study.' we told them, ‘Now we want to get everybody in the system involved in no directive self-exploration. We call it encounter groups, but if that name doesn't please you, we'll call it something else. We'll call it the "person group".' So they went along with us, and that is partly my responsibility, because they thought, ‘These people wouldn't hurt us; the project coordinator is a Catholic. ..."

"Rogers, however, was the principal investigator. He was the brains behind the project, and he was probably anti-Catholic; at the time I didn't recognize it because I probably was, too. We both had a bias against hierarchy. I was flush with Vatican II, and I thought, ‘I am the Church, I am as Catholic as the Pope. Didn't Pope John XIII want us to open the windows and let in the fresh air? Here we come!' And we did, and within a year those nuns wanted out of their vows."

But once the 600 nuns were broken down into "encounter groups" (to make them better nuns, you know, ... psychologically) precisely how long did it take for most of those dedicated nuns to turn their backs on everything they previously held sacred? The project coordinator himself went further:

"Well, in the summer of 1967 the IHM's were having their chapter. They had been
called, as religious orders were, to re-evaluate their mode of living, and to bring it more in line with the charisms of their founder. So they were ready for us. They were ready for an intensive look at themselves with the help of humanistic psychologists. We overcame their traditions, we overcame their faith. ..."

In this same interview Dr. Coulson explained that there was a Father Elwood "Bud" Kaiser in the vicinity of this psychological implosion. He was a Paulist priest, who also wrote a book, it was called "Hollywood". In one of the chapters of that book the priest describes a "romantic involvement" he had with one of the IHM nuns afterwards. He explained in writing regarding the nun that "... she got in the spirit of Rogerian non-directive encounter," and "she propositioned him sexually." Further explanation of the event documents that the priest refused her sexual advances, but that "she got sexually involved with her Rogerian therapist."

Dr. Coulson explained further in the interview: "He (the therapist) got her (the nun) involved in sex games, in therapy. Rogers (Dr. Carl Rogers) didn't get people involved in sex games, but he couldn't prevent his followers from doing it, because all he could say was, ‘Well, I don't do that.' Then his followers would say, ‘Well, of course you don't do that, because you grew up in an earlier era; but we do, and its marvelous: you have set us free to be ourselves and not (be) carbon copies of you."

So how many years did it take to destroy the "Immaculate Heart of Mary" order, or at least drastically change it from what sacrificial, traditional devotion it was? And what came of the 615 nuns?

Dr. Coulson: "It took about a year and a half." ... " There might be a couple of dozen left all together, apart from whom, they're gone. The college campus was sold. There is no more "Immaculate Heart College". ... "One mother pulled her daughter out before it closed, saying, ‘Listen, she can lose her faith for free at the state college.' ... Our grant had been for three years, but we called off the study after two, because we were alarmed about the results. We thought we could make the IHM's better than they were, and we destroyed them."


Dr. William (Bill) Coulson went on to lecture, speak on interviews, write articles and a book. He's done whatever he could do to assuage the guilt and shame he felt for having created what he clearly has referred to as the destruction of Catholic Tradition and Sacramental Devotion among many Religious.


Dr. Coulson has a three tape series on the topic of what this post has merely touched on, but even more directly addressing humanistic psychological in both Catholic and Public schools. As you see, to the left the lecture series is entitled "". PSYCHOLOGY IN EDUCATION, FRIEND OR FOE

Please note that more will be said in future posts on this vital topic on CatholicPsychology.Blogspot. This post, "The Perverting Of Catholic Religious", is the first in a series of posts. Part Two will arrive soon.

(Comments, positive or negative, are welcome. If anyone wish to argue from the opposing side of this issue, feel free to do so. Only expect that what I refer to as the true "Catholic Psychology" will be staunchly defended.)

*Early Church Psychology*

So much for getting mad because your toaster stopped working this morning.
Or being "upset" and "holding a grudge" because someone spoke to you in the wrong tone of voice.
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The above picture depicts a day when all Christians were Catholics. Just the mere "thought" of the Church dividing into factions in dispute against one another was deplorable and considered "heresy". ... How today we've grown accustomed to divisions and disagreements. Differences of opinion, or "Your-truth-being-your-truth,-and-my-truth-being-my-truth."
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And then the world was without "psychology". ... Or was it?
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** I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
** And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
** For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
** For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.
** Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them; if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation, he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
** Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.
** Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
** Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
** Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
** Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
** Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.
** Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." (Romans chapter 12)
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(Note: The "coals of fire" mentioned in this scripture, refers to a neighbor giving "extra burning coals" to another neighbor who needed a warm fire in his home. The neighbor receiving the coals would then carry the "coals of fire" in a basket safely on his head to his home to start a fire for the benefit of he and his family. ... The illustration meant nothing that was negative or harmful.)
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The Rosary (Part 3)

Often we use the phrase, "Knock on wood" - and proceed to do just that: knock on a table or a door or whatever wood is handy. Most do not know that the origin of the phrase and practice comes from the rosary. Rosaries in the old days were made of oak wood and were fingered in time of distress or trouble. Thus, holding on to or rubbing the wooden rosary or its wooden crucifix when danger was near became a common way for Christians to deal with hardships and difficulties. The practice slipped into common use as "Knock on wood." ... : http://www.rosaryworkshop.com/HistoriesIndex.htm

In the substance abuse/drug addiction recovery field, 12 step recovery programs encourage the keeping of a "chip" in the pocket of the participant wishing to stop using drugs. The chip represents the number of months the recovering addict has abstained from his or her addictive substance. When feeling the desire to use that substance, the person in recovery is to take the chip in hand, feel the chip's solid presence, then instinctively recall all that recovery represents. In some ways the same is done with the Catholic Rosary. Only the exercise in experience began centuries before, and with even greater meaning than touching a metal coin in 12 step recovery programs.

When Saint Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, visiting the Holy Land and seeking the True Cross upon which Jesus was crucified, found the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, the Cross was venerated by all the faithful in many public processions. Many faithful would come to touch the Holy Cross for blesssing and healing. It was customary to touch the Wood of Life three times (as a confession of faith in the Holy Trinity). This act of touching the True Cross became the earliest recorded histories of "knocking on wood." This history, alas, has nothing to do with the Rosary since the Rosary is a much later innovation. Whenever the Holy Cross was put forth for public veneration, touching it, or as English translations render it "knocking," became common liturgical practice. Once the Holy Cross was transferred to Constantinople and placed in the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom (aka Saint Sophia), Christians continued this piety by touching or knocking on any cross or crucifix ..." http://www.rosaryworkshop.com/HistoriesIndex.htm )