The Catholic Culture Podcast: 197

Jun 10, 2025

We all know the secular world opposes the very idea of a person
with same-sex attraction seeking any kind of therapy or spiritual
counsel that might enable them to reach a state of healthy
relations with the opposite sex. But what’s odd is that many
Catholics seem to have bought into this. Many assume that if
someone is not currently attracted to the opposite sex, this is a
static, lifelong condition and therefore they must be called to
celibacy. But this view involves multiple misunderstandings – of
the SSA experience, of anthropology, of the power of God’s grace,
and of the good of celibacy itself.

Today’s guests know otherwise because they both have a
background with same-sex attraction, and yet are each now married
with children. Andrew Comiskey and Marco Casanova run Desert Stream
and Living Waters Ministries, which for decades have offered help
to Christians seeking healing from sexual disorders (including but
not limited to SSA). This conversation offers solid, spiritually
and psychologically sound, experience-based answers to some
disputed questions about how the Church should be pastoring those
with same-sex attraction.

It’s not about “conversion therapy”. It’s about conversion in
the Catholic sense – one day at a time.

–Can we really put a ceiling on God’s ability to heal us
psychologically?

–Does any attempt at such healing amount to the secular bugbear
of “conversion therapy”?

–What does life look like for a person with a “gay” past who is
now married to the opposite sex?

–Is it legitimate for Christians to embrace a gay identity as
long as they don’t act out sexually?

–Is there such a thing as a chaste same-sex romantic
relationship?

Links

Thomas Mirus, “Your sexual pathology doesn’t make you special”

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/your-sexual-pathology-doesnt-make-you-special/

Andrew Comiskey, Rediscovering Our Lost Fullness: A Guide to
Sexual Integration
https://sophiainstitute.com/product/rediscovering-our-lost-fullness/

Desert Stream Ministries http://www.desertstream.org/

Desert Stream on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVUJQREephvIkJWlTuwXBg

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