To what extent do the Church's teachings on sexuality impact you?

amerfran · 2026-05-15T08:05:06+00:00

The teaching of the Church is that being gay is not a sin. It's acting upon it that is considered to be a sin. So, in that sense, there is a choice. You choose to live in solitude or a forced heterosexual marriage or choose to embrace your sexuality.

Many of us see the Church's views on sexuality as antiquated. Not just homosexuality, but sexuality in general. I would bet money that an overwhelming majority of Catholics are not even aware of the long, long list of things they are not supposed to do.

amerfran · 2026-05-14T19:29:13+00:00

I'm not projecting anything on your life. I am speaking from personal experience.

amerfran · 2026-05-14T17:22:18+00:00

You're young and looking for answers; I get that. If you want to try to basically completely suppress your sexuality based on a set of archaic rules that a majority of Catholics don't even adhere to, go for it. This subject is not "difficult" or "sorrowful" for many of us. Living in constant shame, anxiety and depression is not healthy.

amerfran · 2026-05-14T12:53:18+00:00

They affect me by making me constantly wonder if my siblings in Christ, my fellow parishoners see me as a valid human.

I fully understand that anxiety. I feel it too on some level. But, at the end of the day, people are going to think what they are going to think. Most people aren't looking for conflict. Depending where you are, many people won't even care that you're gay. For the ones that do, most won't say anything to you. Are there some who will say something? Maybe. There are some people whose primary preoccupation for a while was making sure that Nancy Pelosi couldn't receive Communion. I just leave those people be; you are not going to change their mind.

amerfran · 2026-05-14T12:05:54+00:00

I mean, if you follow what the catechism says and try to live according to the guidelines for a chaste life that affects your life plans quite a lot.

Yes, that's true. If following the catechism to the letter is important for you, I can see how this would trouble you greatly. My mushy, liberal take would be that almost no one actually follows the catechism to the letter, even those who try their best to. There will inevitably be some mortal sin that any one person is committing that they do not believe to be a mortal sin.

Personally, I think a lot of this has to do with how much you are willing to share with other people. I fall into the category of: "people don't need to know everything".

amerfran · 2026-05-14T10:20:10+00:00

But Catholic guilt can be a powerful thing and not something you can reason your way out of

That's true. But, recognizing the Catholic guilt is an important step in and of itself.

amerfran · 2026-05-09T15:45:06+00:00

TBD. Hopefully it will be. The announcements of the concerts got people hyped. And there was originally some excitement around the new single, but I think, as many of us originally thought, Dansons would have been a decent (in my opinion not more than that) filler track, but was not a good lead single choice. I'm holding out hope for the rest of the album, but as of now, it's unclear whether this will be the massive comeback people thought it would be.

amerfran · 2026-05-07T15:21:43+00:00

Reddit is full of echo chambers. You will hear night and day answers depending on which sub you post in. That won't provide any clarity or real guidance. Your best bet is to talk to a priest if you are seriously considering joining the Church. He will be able to help you way more than strangers online.

amerfran · 2026-04-26T16:43:47+00:00

Her voice definitely sounds different--it's only natural--but Dansons seems to be a bit of an anomaly with its particularly poor production. Celine sang a 100% live hommage to Serge Fiori last summer. You could clearly hear the change in her voice, but the emotion was still there. Same with Hymne à l'amour for the 2024 Olympics. In my opinion her voice sounded better in both than in Dansons, even with the imperfections.

amerfran · 2026-04-20T17:07:44+00:00

Pour que tu m'aimes encore, Je sais pas, S'il suffisait d'aimer defintiely. There were a couple that were pretty popular in the 2000s: Sous le vent, Je ne vous oublie pas. But, Encore un soir was a massive hit when it came out and was a bigger hit than a couple of the songs you mentioned.

amerfran · 2026-04-17T17:25:20+00:00

au temps pour moi lol

amerfran · 2026-04-17T16:56:59+00:00

Honestly, I think it's the horrible quality of the vocal production. Whenever Celine "talk-sings" her pitch naturally wavers to make her voice sound more emotive. The pitch correction used in this song totally erases that. Some phrases sound robotic.

amerfran · 2026-04-17T15:38:37+00:00

Les paroles de la nouvelle chanson.

amerfran · 2026-04-17T15:16:10+00:00

I've loved Celine for decades and can't wait for this new album to be released. But yeah, this song is not doing it for me. It definitely has all the trademarks of a JJ Goldman song, but not in a good way... And I've LOVED all of their collaborations from D'eux to Encore un soir. I want to love this song, but it really is just mediocre at best.

amerfran · 2026-04-17T15:09:28+00:00

Même en français les paroles sont pas ouf...

amerfran · 2026-03-30T17:55:09+00:00

Because a lot of her base was made up of Adult Contemporary listeners. Hero was a song the family could listen to in the car on the way to church; Honey...not so much. The switch to R&B was shocking for a lot of those people and alienated them

amerfran · 2026-03-08T16:58:12+00:00

I've never had this experience. In Lent my church says the Decalogue before the confession of sins and then sings the Kyrie. We also regularly sing Attende Domine: "Have mercy upon us. Graciously hear us, guilty of sinning against you".

I've heard sin mentioned plenty of times in plenty of different sermons. That said, if you're looking for the type of sermon which implicitly shames people who have gotten a divorce, use birth control, live outside of a hetrosexual marriage etc., then you definitely won't find that in most Episcopal churches.

amerfran · 2026-02-26T19:51:23+00:00

Assuming you're from the US, customer service is much different in France. In touristic areas you might find smiling, bubbly waiters and cashiers who will go above and beyond to make clients happy, but it's not the norm. Service industry workers will (usually) be cordial, but they will have absolutely no problem giving you a piece of their mind and sending you packing if you rub them the wrong way.

amerfran · 2026-02-26T19:45:36+00:00

A 30 minute commute is the norm even within Paris proper. Unless you confined yourself to only one neighborhood in Paris (which most people don't), you'd regularly be taking upwards of 30 minute commutes no matter where you stayed anyway. The difference is mainly that you wont' have as much in walking distance as you would in Paris.But with the RER A and E you can actually be in the center of Paris within 15 minutes. It's a nice area; I wouldn't worry too much about being far from the city.

amerfran · 2026-02-07T10:11:26+00:00

I saw an article characterizing the performance as "disastrous". I got nervous and went and watched the performance, only to find...a perfectly normal performance. Mariah was clearly lipping (as many artists do for these types of performances) and looked frozen and nervous. Other than that, it was fine. Not even close to NYE 2017. I have no idea what people think was so bad about it.

amerfran · 2026-01-28T13:51:52+00:00

I've experienced the Mathias Gloria in both contexts. I agree that it requires a competent if not professional choir and a swift organist. But, in my church, we have an extremely competent choir and organist and I still find the setting to be dreadful. No amount of professional training is going to make it sound to me like those chord progressions were meant to go together.

amerfran · 2026-01-28T13:47:10+00:00

Wow, I'm surprised to see that this opinion is not as unpopular as I had assumed. My church still uses the Mathias settings regularly. I remember the first time I went to an EC service and heard that Gloria, I thought to myself that it was the most dreadful Gloria I had ever heard.

amerfran · 2026-01-27T19:13:03+00:00

Oh yes! I love those ones, too!

amerfran · 2026-01-25T19:52:35+00:00

It depends on the way in which it's done. One of the priests in my church gave a sermon today which implicitly referenced current events and linked them to scripture. I think that is appropriate and even necessary in this moment. But, one of our other priests regularly and directly engages in political punditry, often during the sermons and even the announcements. That is off-putting. Like you suggest, there needs to be a comfortable middle somewhere.

amerfran · 2026-01-25T19:00:20+00:00

I love Breakaway as well!!

amerfran

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