Should Catholics Call Themselves Gay? (Fr. Cristino)

What does it mean to find our identity as Catholics in today’s culture of labels? In this thoughtful conversation, we explore whether it’s appropriate—or even helpful—for a Catholic to describe themselves using modern identity terms tied to experience, such as “gay Catholic.”

Fr. Cristino offers a charitable and clear Catholic response rooted in Church teaching, human dignity, and the deeper question of what truly defines us.

🔸 Can we separate identity from behavior?

🔸 Do words like “gay” describe who we are—or what we experience?

🔸 What does the Church really say about language, experience, and identity?

This is not a video about condemnation—but about clarity. Join us for an honest, respectful, and faithful dialogue that seeks to elevate how we talk about the human person.

Transcript

when I say that I'm a gay Catholic I'm not identifying with sin I'm identifying with an experience What is the danger of taking on an identity with an experience You can't be your experiences then How do we define our identity So I guess what I'm getting to is like shouldn't our identity come out of not an experience not what we feel but what God has revealed You're not a gay Catholic You are a a son of God That is your fundamental identity

Father Cristino welcome back Thank you Uh today's another one of those times where I came across a video and I thought again what would Father Cristino say And I think what we're going to do with this video is we'll watch it through in its entirety but then get your initial reaction and maybe go line by line to get a more depth response and unpack exactly what's going on here Can I clarify something When I say that I'm a gay Catholic I'm not identifying with sin I'm identifying with an experience Because to say someone's gay only refers to the fact that they're attracted to members of the same sex Now I get it There's often cultural connotations with this word and assumptions that people are making But if somebody says that they're LGBTQ and your mind immediately jumps to their sex life you're kind of reducing them to their sexuality Now I don't care what terms people use You use what resonates with you and best describes your experience I say that I'm gay because I'm attracted to men so I'm gay It takes way too long for me to say that I experience samesex attractions So if you want to talk about redeeming culture then let's use these words for what they mean Not describing somebody's sex life but what they Okay So your initial thoughts to that Uh I don't I don't I don't completely disagree with with what he's saying Uh I think that he's I understand the the push back towards saying something like uh I don't feel like characterizing myself by saying I am a person who experiences samesex attraction if for no other reason that it's a mouthful to say that which is a way I think that we have tried to be a bit more intentional about describing what a person experiences versus associating their identity with something I I think I also agree and appreciate with what he's saying with regard to uh we should not be reducing people to their potential sexual behavior That's also I think absolutely true It's it's unbecoming of the dignity that we owe to another person to hear something about them and assume we now know that I I know what you do We we that that it doesn't pertain just to this topic That has to be uh with regard to to life in general If someone says something about themsel and from that we draw a conclusion about now I know their behavior you just can't know that Uh so I also agree with him in that way Uh what what I struggle with has more to do with the the word the use of the verb to be I am or I'm say well I just say gay because gay just means attracted to men Uh what I would ask is what is the point of saying I'm a gay Catholic Why is how you are a Catholic associated with whatever gender of person you are attracted towards Uh it I think a different thing is being stated by putting those two things together And and that's what I would want to understand is why is the gender of the person you're attracted to even registering in identifying yourself as a Catholic What do those have to do with each other And I would say I think what they have to do with each other is there's something else beneath making that statement that you you probably want to express and that's what I would be interested in trying to understand better Okay Uh the first line that he said is like when I say I'm a gay Catholic I'm not identifying with sin I'm identifying with an experience So again maybe you've touched it already but like what are your thoughts of Catholics identifying as gay That that's their identity I I just don't think that anyone should be identifying their religious faith with their sexual orientation at one and the same time I don't understand how they're related to each other Uh so if you are giving a testimony about what it means to be a person who is attracted to people of the same sex while also being a practicing Catholic okay well that's fine And if you're giving a talk or you're writing a book or something then I can understand why why that would be there In any other context where you would ever be introducing yourself or saying something about yourself and then just throwing that out there those those don't have anything to do with each other Mhm Right A more fundamental experience that we all have multiple times a day is being hungry What would we what would we say if we said I'm a hungry Catholic That doesn't make sense It doesn't sound What does that have anything to do with being Catholic Or or why would being Catholic have anything to do with being hungry They're just not meant to go together with each other unless you're trying to say something else And that's what I'm asking What is the point of even needing to say I'm a gay Catholic Okay Okay He goes on and says because to say someone is gay only refers to the fact that they're attracted to members of the same sex Um is that true when we use that term as well Is does gay only refer to the fact that they're attracted to members of the same sex Again I don't know The terminology these days seems to be a bit of a moving target So lately I feel like we've really landed on LGBTQ plus somehow being this new catchall terminology for apparently everyone who wouldn't call themselves straight Uh but then within that acronym people are experiencing vastly different things from each other And so their common denominator is that they don't claim to experience one other way of being that at least numerically just happens to be the vast majority of the rest of the population So when you say gay I don't even know if we know what we mean by just saying that anymore because it's been subsumed or or taken up completely by the acronym of LGBTQ plus Right Right which he goes on to say later in the video he he switches to LGBTQ right If somebody says that they're LGBTQ plus uh your mind he says if it immediately jumps to their sex life you've kind of reduced them to their sexuality But isn't also the reason why people have come up with these terms is because it's connected to their sexuality Yes I'm sure to some extent and for many people But that is one of the lines that he says that I think I agree with that if a person uses that acronym to describe something about themsel and I automatically assume that that's the sexual behavior that they're entering into that I have reduced them in a way to behavior that I don't even know that they necessarily act out on And I know that that is true because I have spent seven years as a university chaplain and and working with young adults I have journeyied with I don't know how many people who would either call themselves gay or say they experience same-sex attractions who do not act upon their inclinations as a as a as an actual decision in their life And so I appreciate the point that he's making about saying why would you automatically assume you know their behavior just because of the way that they've described themsel So I completely agree with him on that Right Um what is the danger of taking on a an

identity with an experience like isn't because our experiences are unending right so to say that I am a because I experienced this yes doesn't that lead us to an infinite amount of I am this I am this I am this because our experiences are constantly changing is isn't there Isn't that a danger to identify ourselves as by an experience And isn't there a better way to find our identity Well first and foremost this is fundamentally a problem with English In English we do not convey adequately what we need to convey as human beings So let's contrast English with other romance languages I'll I'll use Italian Okay we have two different verbs for being in Italian You have the verb esere and you have the verb stare Esser means being on your what we would call your ontological level It is the essence of your identity It's actually connected to the word essence And so I would say I am a priest because that is the essence of my being The verbare means a transitory being something that you know is subject to change So I could say I am here and I am saying I am here because later I'll be there It will change So in the moment I am here two different verbs sono and sto I am a priest I am here So we already are trying to differentiate between being something that will change and being something that is permanent and essential We don't do that in English It's I am everything And then moreover in Italian you do not use experiences with the verb to be You use the experiences with the verb to have And so you would say I have hunger It's the same in French In Spanish you say "I have hunger." You do not say "I am hungry." Because that well that sounds ridiculous in in to the ears of someone who speaks a romance language because how can you be hungry You can't be your experiences So the way in which we speak actually helps us better understand what we're thinking And in English we don't make those kinds of distinctions And so when you say I'm gay that sounds right to us because we are trying to convey something about my identity when you say that But then to turn around like this gentleman is saying and talking about his it's it's actually an experience and not his behavior Okay Well then you can't be your experiences You have experiences But we don't express that properly in the English language And so that's when we get all confused about turning our experiences into something that actually pertains to the essence of my being Okay Well I know nothing about Italian but then how would someone in Italian would they make what's the kind of verb that they're using when they say I am gay Would it be in Italian the equivalent I have or I am I am And that's where I'm saying that something different is going on here You're trying to convey something other than your experience You are creating an identity for yourself out of the experience because now that is how they would say it in Italian Okay yay I am gay and and you're trying to say something else than this is what I experience because in any other way that you talk about your experience you would use the verb to have And so this is this is what I think we need to get to the bottom of Is it legitimate for us to make for ourselves an identity out of the experiences that we have It can impact our identity for sure But you're not a gay Catholic You are a son of God That is your fundamental identity That's even what being Catholic means And so we we need to we need to get to the root of what should pertain to our being and the experiences that we have While certainly impactful it's it's another kind of reduction He's saying that you're reducing someone to their sexual behavior if you assume you know what they do by saying that they're LGBTQ plus And I agree with him But it's it's exactly the same thing to then turn around and say I'm a gay Catholic because now you're trying to qualify your Catholicism based on an experience that you have Uh to that uh previous point uh not reducing somebody to their sexual behavior Would you mind jumping there I would suspect though however though if you went to the LGBTQ plus community and said from now on gay has nothing to do with one's sexual activity there would be less people identifying as gay Well I imagine you'd actually meet with a lot of people who would disagree with you right They would they would just say "No that's not true." So he can say what he wants in his video for its own purposes But I actually don't think that the vast majority of people who are in alignment with his identity his declared identity would even actually agree that it has nothing to do with your behavior Okay So going to then how do we define our identity Um let's take something I feel like I'm a loser cuz that's been my experience People have treated me like trash equals therefore I am trash So our experiences can not convey the truth to us They can we can come out of an experience with a lie Mhm So I guess what I'm getting to is like shouldn't our identity come out of not an experience not what we feel but what God has revealed It's not my identity is I feel therefore I am right but I am what I am because what God has revealed to be true Our feelings flow from experiencing what it means to be what we are Think of St Katherine of Sienna and that beautiful quote If you were all that you were meant to be you would set the world ablaze So in other words she's she's pointing to the fact that there's a deficit in our being That we are not all of what we were meant to be Because if we were all of what we were meant to be we would set the world on fire The love of God So there's always an a process of becoming We we are in a process of becoming all of what we are meant to be But if we think we've arrived at the thing by saying I am gay I'm LGBTQ plus I I'm any I'm a loser If you think that you have now arrived you're neglecting to appreciate what is meant to still continue to evolve in your life as a human being being and becoming that we we have the capacity to become more ourselves to become more human and so we shouldn't stop and now rest in this experience that I have and say that it has the capacity to summarize my being One of the lines he says is "I don't care what terms people use unless they resonate with you and best describes your experience Shouldn't we care what kind of terms people use?" Well his his comment I think speaks to just one of the major issues of our time which is our flippency with words Words matter Words mean things That's how we convey meaning That's how we communicate with each other So anyone who says "I don't care what words you use," has already missed the point of why we're speaking in the first place If what words I use don't matter then you also shouldn't be taking issue with me saying that you should use the phrase experience samesex attraction instead of gay If words don't matter then don't argue with people who use words you don't like So words do matter and we need to learn to be more precise in trying to convey the meaning behind what we are thinking That's the that's the why that's why we have words That's what we say to our children Use your words We're trying to get them to speak and to put into speech what is only just a thought in their mind That's why sometimes children get get frustrated because they don't know how to say what they're thinking and feeling And so becoming more human involves going through the process of actually learning how to convey with words what it is that I am thinking what I understand to be the truth And that's how we can enter into dialogue So our words matter very much So I don't want people to confuse this commentary with hating on this guy right So of course not So I want to give you the last word here on what words of encouragement would you say to this gentleman Well I began by saying that I think he's making some important points that I actually agree with and can get behind And I wouldn't be surprised if in the Catholic social media world all sorts of Catholics have just piled hate on top of him because unfortunately that's what comment boxes seem to be reduced to is giving people some outlet to spew their uh anger or their frustration often we just aren't listening to each other And so I would say to this man that I'm grateful for his willingness to put his thoughts into words that he has sent out into wherever it's gone I hope that he would be open to receiving the reaction and feedback of someone else and that we could enter into a respectful and meaningful dialogue by listening to each other Thanks for your thoughts Thank you

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