Revised – Thursday, July 30, 2009, 13:41:15 GMT
Thalamus Center
By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Important note: I mean no disrespect to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children. Kids are being hurt!!!
As, a priest, I was always worried about preaching whether I was helping in the smallest way helping people to become better or whether I was making them crazy. I would tell people from the pulpit that it was like raising kids, “Parents always worry whether they are making their kids better or making them crazy.” I would go on to say that “…in the end, it really doesn’t matter much what the parents do, because when their kids turn teenagers they will say that their parents made them crazy.”
I am one of the middle generation of the baby bloomers. Meaning growing up, for me, was always in the midst of tons of kids born before me and tons born after me. Families, neighborhoods and schools were flooded with kids and raising kids was of prime importance, maybe for the sake of survival for parents, for everyone, because we were like swarming locust covering the entire land. I believe that our parents were truly focused on making this a better world for their children and did their best for us kids. Growing up out of this social environment of the 1950’s and 1960’s I guess I have that same kind of concern about caring for kids and people ingrained in me. This is especially true growing up in a city like Grand Rapids, Michigan.
So, when I was ordained, I was worried about doing my best not to harm anyone. Psychology has been a passion of mine as far back as I can remember, even in the first grade. I always wanted to know what makes people tick, why do they do, what they do. This passion of mine was in part due to my growing up gay, which I was not conscious of at that time. So, when your natural sexual orientation growing up is not acceptable to others, as a child for survival sake, a child will try to learn quickly how to act in a way that will be acceptable. Because the biggest fear for a child is being abandoned. The threat of being abandoned for a child can be overwhelming, even traumatizing depending on kind and degree of abandonment.
J.K. Rowling speaks about how people block out huge sections of their childhood years, which were most unpleasant and then will say that their childhood years were wonderful. Ms. Rowling will challenge these adults by reminding them of some of the most unpleasant things that happened to them and even then they will say that their childhood years were wonderful. People forget the unpleasant memories, but she states that her brain does not let her forget. Our entire lives are significantly shaped by what happens to us in our early childhood years, which most people forget. However, in our adults lives we tend to be constantly trying to unconsciously resolved issues that were troubling for us growing up. This oftens prevents us from truly living our lives, which not only impacts our own personal lives but many others in our lives. 13,645
I had been in years of Catholic psychotherapy; because of the problems I had growing up gay, due to the psychological harm of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings. I was concerned about not harming others by my preaching and this was another reason why I continued in psychotherapy and due to the fact that Catholic psychotherapy was heavily influenced by the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings. In these years of psychotherapy, studying psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan and then changing to psychotherapy not influenced by the Vatican unsubstantiated antigay teachings, I vividly and thoroughly examined my early childhood years. And it is in this way I can see so clearly the harm that the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings has on children in early childhood psychological developmental years growing up. It freed me from the past-unresolved problems and to truly begin growing and living my life. However, without the influence of the unsubstantiated Vatican’s antigay teachings I would have begun to truly living my life over some 50 years before and have avoided wasting decades of my life and not had to have been in any psychotherapy. No child should ever have to experience this kind of harm and wasting most of their lives trying resolve these issues caused by the influence of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings. "Kids are being hurt!!!
Presently, there are no civil laws to protect children growing up or for receiving compensation for the harm inflicited on children by the influence of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings.
The Needless Early Childhood Hardships Caused by The Vatican’s Unsubstantiated Antigay Teachings.
If being gay was not considered such an abhorrent evil, published by going to hell, a social disgrace, I would have learn that I was gay at an early age. This would have significantly improved my early childhood years growing up. It would have eliminated years of conflict and tension between my older brother and me.
My older brother by 3 years is a heterosexual and would be classified growing as all boy. He loved and played any and all sports. And he was good at everything he did. Me, I could not throw a ball to save my soul, although, I desperately tried to because I wanted to be just like my big older brother who idealized. And even though, my brother patiently practiced endlessly with me, I could not do it. He became frustrated and upset with me calling me all the stereotypical names about being gay, which hurt me deeply and forever. He was hurt by my inability and clumsiness at sports. He thought I wasn’t trying that I didn’t care about him, he felt rejected, abandoned and used by me. He didn’t know how bad I felt that I couldn’t be like my older brother and how that was so devastating to me that I was such disappointment to him. This started a needless separation and conflict between us that lasted throughout our growing up years.
When I was just about 3 years old, I slept in the same bed with my brother, who was 3 years older. This likely happened when my twin brothers were born. I can remember being thrill to sleep with my older brother. I could snuggle up next to him and would feel safe and secure all through the night. When he started school and my mother would wake him up to get ready to go, I would cry without end. It seemed like I cried all day until he came home. I was inseparable from my brother. But as we grew up my brother started to push me away, because at school, I didn’t know how embarrassing it was to have your younger brother always with you. It would not have been so bad if I could throw a ball. This is likely the reason why my brother tried so hard to teach me sports and why he felt hurt by my lack of improvement.
Had being gay been socially and religiously acceptable and understood by the adults in my life growing up, it would have prevented years of frustration and conflict between my brother and me. I would not have been put in the same bed with my brother. My attraction for my brother would have been understood and explained to me that my brother is "straight" and that I was "gay." I would have been told that some day I could meet someone like my older brother who is gay and I could marry him. It would have been explained to my older brother that I was gay, which would have saved a lot of hurt feelings, hurt feelings that either of us, including my parents understood. There would have been enormous improvements made for my entire family and me had being gay was understood correctly and accepted.
This does not even begin to explain the unending traumatic, humiliating, confusing and isolating experiences that I and others like me had growing up through puberty having an unidentified attraction for other boys. Only, knowing that something must be terribly wrong with the way I was made. In more extreme cases, this may begin to explained why some people who are so obsessively speaking out publicly against "gays" only to be exposed themselves publicly in a samesex sexual encounter, because their samesex attraction was never identified. This is not the experience of all gay people growing up; it seems to be for only those who grow up in more extreme antigay social and religious environments.
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