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Into the Light

**Courage and Encourage new outreaches for the Diocese of Wichita

By Sara Splichal, Diocesan Office of Family Life, and the Rev. Donald Timone, Archdiocese of New York
Courage, a spiritual and pastoral outreach that supports men and women who experience same-sex attraction to live in accordance with the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality and the virtue of chastity, is being established in the Diocese of Wichita. A related spiritual outreach, Encourage, for families and friends who have a loved one struggling with same-sex attraction is also being established.
Small group meetings to begin in January
The Courage and Encourage chapters in the Diocese of Wichita will begin regularly scheduled small group meetings beginning in January. The identity of Courage and Encourage members as well as their meetings times and locations are kept strictly confidential. One-on-one counseling may be recommended in some instances, prior to or in addition to attending the small group meetings.
The two organizations fit the Pastoral Priorities of the Third Synod of the Diocese of Wichita to give the faithful a clarion call to “Build hope that holiness is accessible for everyone through participation in the community of Jesus, the Church.”

Interested?

Those interested in learning more about Courage are invited to call the spiritual director for Courage in the Diocese of Wichita, Fr. John Brungardt, at the Chancery (316) 269-3900 (mention this is about “Courage”). To find out more about Encourage, please contact the facilitator, Sara Splichal, at the Office of Family Life (316) 744-0167. Other helpful information on Courage & Encourage may be found at http://www.couragerc.net.

History of Courage

Courage was founded in 1980 by Cardinal Terrence Cooke in the Archdiocese of New York. Cardinal Cooke appointed Rev. John Harvey as the founding director. Fr. Harvey discerned that Courage, as a spiritual support group, should reflect the Twelve-Step model. There are five goals, which animate the members of Courage:
To live chaste lives in accordance with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality.
To dedicate their lives to Christ through service, prayer, spiritual reading, meditation, individual spiritual direction, frequent attendance at Mass, and frequent reception of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.
To foster a spirit of fellowship so that difficulties are not faced alone.
To be mindful of the truth of chaste friendships, necessary for the Christian life.
To live lives that serve as good examples to others.
In 1994 the Holy See gave official endorsement to Courage, and today the outreach is in seven countries and has over 100 chapters.

Encourage History

Encourage was established in 1990 and has goals to aid the spiritual growth of parents and friends:
To help members to grow spiritually through developing a vital relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, as authentically taught in our Roman Catholic Tradition.
To enable members to gain a deeper understanding of the needs, problems and issues experienced by men and women with same-sex attractions.
To assist other parents and friends not to reject but to reach out with compassion and truth to their loved one with same-sex attraction.
To witness to loved ones through their own lives that a happy, wholesome life is to be found in union with Jesus Christ and His Body, the Church.
In 1986 Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) reaffirmed the dignity of every human person and the universal call to holiness in a letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church:
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. Everyone 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 a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental identity: a creature of God, and by grace, His child and heir of eternal life.

Ourtreach

Reaching out to our brothers and sisters through Courage and Encourage involves speaking the truth of Christ, but always with the compassion of Christ. Chastity is the goal for the members of Courage, hence, spiritual growth, not “change”. In addition to the goals of Courage and Encourage mentioned above, members are invited to be involved in giving of themselves through their parishes and to regularly attend spiritual support meetings.

**More reading

-- Rev. John Harvey, The Truth About Homosexuality, Ignatius Press, 1996
-- Catholic Medical Association, Homosexuality and Hope, www.cathmed.org
-- The Holy See, On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, Vatican City, 1986
-- Alan Medinger, Growth into Manhood, WaterBrook Press, 2000
-- David Morrison, Beyond Gay, Our Sunday Visitor, 1999
-- The Holy See, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Vatican City, 2nd Edition, 1997
-- Rev. John Harvey & Gerard Bradley, Same-Sex Attraction: A Parent’s Guide, St. Augustine’s Press, 2003
-- N.A.R.T.H., National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, www.narth.com
(12/16/05)

**A father’s advice for protecting yourself and family from pornography

(The last of a three-part series.)
By Tony Habashy, husband and father
Last week we discussed the devastating impact that a dad’s addiction to pornography can have on his wife and children.
In addition to filling them with dark feelings of shame and isolation, it markedly increases the chance of a child’s addiction to pornography and distorts their understanding of their own sexuality. This in turn increases the potential for them to develop destructive behaviors with which they will struggle their whole life.
With the steady increase of pornographic Internet websites, it is very likely that a father or a husband is tempted during normal online daily activities, such as getting a news update, paying bills online, buying a Christmas gift, or simply checking the weekly weather forecast. Sleazy ads, pop-ups, or video clips can lead one toward addictive pornographic websites where Satan can strike and easily take hold of the human mind, body, and soul. While one of the richest sources of information, the Internet is one of Satan’s subtle tools for dividing a person from their marriage and family life, because it has the potential to fill the person with lustful, consuming, and destructive thoughts and images. Therefore, I would like to share with you eight practical tips that have helped me to avoid temptations:
Do not surf. Do not get online unless you have a specific task in mind. Get on, find the information you need and then get off. The more you surf, the more likely you will run into a temptation. When you do not know what you are looking for, you can easily be driven by the desires of the flesh.
Do not clear your Internet history. While it is a good idea to delete the Internet temporary files and cookies to improve performance and free up memory, there is no need to clear your history. Use it as an accountability tool. Everyone in the family should be able to look up other family member’s surfing activities; there should not be anything to hide.
Do you really need a user password at home? While it is becoming easier with newer operating systems for each family member to have his or her own account with customized preferences, there is no need for a private password for each account. This unnecessary privacy can introduce a tempting environment.
Keep the computer in a public space at home with a lot of traffic. Make sure that the computer is not setup in an isolated room. Instead, place it in the busiest room in the house, and make sure that the computer monitor is angled where everyone in the room can see it.
Try to avoid those late night online projects. It is a very good idea to avoid getting online, after everyone has gone to sleep. Late night surfing can be quite dangerous, even if you initially had the best intentions. Always ask yourselves the following two questions: Is this really important? Can it wait until tomorrow?
Install a good Internet filter. It is crucial for every home computer to have an Internet filter. Make sure that the filter cannot be disabled without contacting the software customer support. Also, some filters provide the possibility of customizing filtering options for every user using parental control. My recommendation is to only have one setting for the whole family; if it is harmful for your kids, it is most likely harmful for you, too. Do not get sucked into the illusion, “I am old enough to handle it.” The following links will connect you to good filters: www.internetfilterreview.com, www.besafehome.com, and www.wisechoice.net. For no more then $5 a month, you can protect all of the computers in your home.
Have an accountability partner. As you share your struggle with someone you trust, Satan’s grip on you is weakened. By bringing your “dark secret” to the light, you will gain strength to overcome temptation.
If you cannot handle it, get rid of it. If you cannot handle the temptations of the Internet, it might be a good idea to simply get rid of it for it a while. Your soul is more important than online bill payment.
God’s merciful love is for everyone -- even those who struggle with addictions to pornography. He desires that fathers and dads freely share His love with their wives and children. In order to do this, we must make sure that our hearts and minds are filled with His holy self-giving love, especially through the grace of the Sacraments. We cannot give what we do not have. It is hard to teach our children about God’s pure love, when our minds are filled with lustful images. It is also impossible to share God’s sacrificial love with our wives, when we are consumed by our own selfish desires and lust. Avoiding temptation altogether is better than putting yourself in situations where temptation must be resisted.

**Recommended Reading

Steve Woods, “Breaking Free: 12 Steps to Sexual Purity,” available at www.dads.org.
“Winning the Battle for Sexual Purity: Straight Talk with Men about Love and Life,” Christopher West, www.ascensionpress.org.
(12/02/05)

**The effects of pornography on marriage and family life

The second in a three-part series.
By Sara Splichal, director Office of Family Life, and Shirley Bessette, retired marriage and family therapist
Last week we looked at the prevalence and acceptance of pornography in our sexualized culture. This week we will focus on pornography on the homefront. How does it affect one’s wife, one’s husband, and their children? Although it is known that women access pornography, too, in this article we will consider primarily a husband and/or father’s use of pornography, since it is at this time more common.
First, how does a husband’s use of pornography affect his wife? When a wife learns of her husband’s addiction to pornography, one of her initial reactions is to question and doubt herself, “Is it my fault?” “I’m inadequate.” “Somehow, I’m responsible for his addiction.” She senses deep shame and alienation, feeling alone in her distress and distrust of her husband. A wife becomes keenly aware of her feeling of being treated as a “thing” being “used” for pleasure. She compares herself to the pornographic images and feels that she will never measure up to these “perfect bodies.”
How does the use of pornography by a father affect his children? Children notice the absence of “dad”. Their father is not emotionally or spiritually present to his children, because he becomes engrossed in satisfying his addiction and is simply unavailable to his family. Children also sense that there is something wrong, that there is a kind of secrecy in their family. When they do find out, perhaps by innocently stumbling upon a magazine or an Internet site, they, too feel shame and that somehow they are at fault. If children encounter pornography, they are more prone to addictive behavior. Their emotional and mental development will cease at the point where the addictive behavior begins.
What perhaps are the causes and effects of a husband’s use of pornography? Perhaps he experienced peer pressure to look at pornography in his adolescence. Perhaps for different reasons he has an inner emptiness that he is trying to fill. Sometimes there is an emotional wound that he seeks to comfort through his addiction. As a result, a husband and father will not be available for his family, because he is focusing on the addiction. With the admission of addiction, shame follows because of the type of the addiction.
Pornography alienates the members of a family. There is an experience of loneliness between members of the family and isolation from friends and extended family, as well. To whom can they turn?
For a wife, she must remember that she is neither imagining nor blowing the problem out of proportion. It is serious. It is important for her to find support, perhaps through Christian counseling or helpful books such as, An Affair of the Mind, by Laurie Hall. For the children, they need a safe place to talk, perhaps it might be a trusted friend of the family or a teacher or a Christian therapist.
For the husband, upon admitting his addiction, he will need a support group toward which to turn, such as “The Twelve Steps: A Spiritual Journey”. He might also read Hall’s book or the following: Addiction and Grace by Gerald May or False Intimacy by Harry W. Schaumburg.
Other sources of help in this healing journey are the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. Steve Wood, Director of the Family Life Center International, has written a booklet called “Breaking Free: 12 Steps to Sexual Purity for Men”. He is offering a free copy to priests who want to review it and purchase additional copies to distribute or make available in the confessional. Call (800) 705-6131. There are more resources available at www.dads.org, www.family.org, and www.nationalcoalition.org under “Cultural Apologetics”.
For persons who struggle with an addiction to pornography, as well as their family members, it is important to know that God’s grace is new everyday. He does not reject His sons and daughters, but loves them with merciful love.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

**Recommended Reading

For Women: An Affair of the Mind, by Laurie Hall
For Men: Addiction and Grace by Gerald May or False Intimacy by Harry W. Schaumburg.
(11/25/05)

**Pornography becoming a problem in many families

The first in a three-part series.
By Sara Splichal, director, Office of Family Life
It is becoming more common to receive a phone call or a visit from a concerned person with regard to the devastating impact of pornography on our culture, as well as, questions of how to help a loved one or how to protect ones family. The prevalence and acceptance of pornography is deeply disturbing, because the epidemic is rampantly destroying marriages, families, and even parish life.
Steve Wood, founding director of Family Life Center International, says, There isnt a parish anywhere in North America where good Catholic [persons] arent struggling with a pornography addiction....
Alan Sears, an expert who has addressed the Vatican on this subject, says pornography includes several classes of material: obscenity, material harmful to minors, child pornography, indecency, and lawful but nonetheless pornographic depictions.
The statistics are staggering. An article on the Catholic Online website stated that the number of pornography related websites grew from 14 million in 1998 to roughly 260 million in 2003. The marketing of pornography worldwide generates $56 billion annually, with pornography in the United States accounting for $10 billion to $14 billion in revenue each year.
These figures should sound an alarm in all of us. What should be even more disturbing is how acceptable it has become in our culture. There are two reasons for this, Sears says. First, those who oppose it are largely silent and indifferent, and secondly, those who want it will pay a high price culturally and financially to obtain it.
I am reminded of the Gospel passage in Luke where the blind man calls out to Jesus on the road to Jericho, Lord, I want to see (18:41). Those who enable the addiction to pornography through their support and production of it are blind to its devastating effects on the common good, and especially innocent children and youth who have access to the Internet.
The Internet Filter Review found that the average age a child is first exposed to pornography is 11 years old, and the majority of children who have viewed pornography online have done so while doing homework.
Given the prevalence and acceptance of pornography, we cannot afford to be silent and indifferent. It is vital that we be proactive and responsive in protecting our loved ones from the advance of pornographic media in our sexualized culture, yet at the same time reach out to those who are struggling with addictions to pornography.
Next week: the devastating effects of pornography on marriage and family life.

**Recommended Reading

Steve Woods, Breaking Free: 12 Steps to Sexual Purity, available at www.dads.org.
Winning the Battle for Sexual Purity: Straight Talk with Men about Love and Life, Christopher West, www.ascensionpress.org.
(11/18/05)

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