An Appointment With Hypocrisy?

I pity any gay or lesbian person who tries to get help from Father Peter J. Liuzzi (“Extending an Olive Branch,” Oct. 27).

The Catholic Church’s position is that the only good gay is the celibate gay.

Like the Clinton Administration’s cowardly “Don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy, the church’s view is “Be it, but don’t do it.”

The whole idea of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony appointing a priest to minister to the gay community is revolting and hypocritical.

RAY MUNGO

Fullerton

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First, Father Liuzzi says that genital sexual expression is holy because it starts the possibility of new life. He states also that this is the basis for the church’s teaching that gay or lesbian sexual expression is sinful.

I immediately think of heterosexual married couples when one or both are sterile. Does the church teach that their genital sexual expression is also sinful, since they cannot conceive new life? Are they also admonished to forgo sexual activity?

Father Liuzzi goes on to say that if your conscience does not condemn you, then it’s probably OK for gays and lesbians to have sex in a committed relationship, provided they don’t say anything against the teaching of the church. Just sit there on Sundays and hear the teaching that what you are doing is wrong, and let the guilt pile up.

All this shows that the teaching of the church regarding gays and lesbians is still a guilt-fostering, hateful doctrine, and illustrates once again the truly sinful consequences of men’s vain attempts to articulate the mind of God.

I hope gay and lesbian former Catholics, such as I am, will see through Father Liuzzi’s barrage of verbiage, and see that the church’s position on homosexuality is just as out of step and incorrect today as it was in the Dark Ages.

D.G. FRASER

Gardena

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Peter J. Liuzzi’s directorship of the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s pastoral ministry to the gay community is a positive step toward healing the wounds and tensions.

But as a gay man and former Catholic, I think the positive message of acceptance offered by Father Liuzzi is clouded by the church’s stodgy position on sexuality.

It is fine and fair of the Catholic Church to accept homosexuals as human beings, but is absolutely unacceptable to demand we refrain from any expression of physical love, denying us our full potential.

Though Father Liuzzi’s contention is true, that the Catholic Church cannot be lumped together with the religious zealots of the fundamentalist right wing, they are in the same ballpark--and playing the same game.

TONY SPANO JR.

Los Angeles