Good morning!

For those of you who don’t know, Pink News is an online news site for the LGBTQ community.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk

Last week I contacted PN (pink news) in reaction to an article they published about gay conversion therapy and offered my own personal experience as an example of the great danger of such ministries!

So I was very happy when they contacted me and wish to film-interview me and reach out to thousands and thousands of people in the gay community who have suffered and who are perhaps still suffering at the hands of some of these ministries.

What a truly remarkable opportunity to bring the gospel of love and mercy to the world!

Thank you Jesus!

Of course these gay-conversion programs are well-intentioned and the people running them need to be looked on with mercy too!

In most cases they are Christians with strong faith and a very strong (and good) belief in the power of Jesus to heal emotional wounds!

When I came back from Australia after coming to my end with such a ministry I sat suicidal in this house.

I cried out to God to tell me the truth about myself, about my sexuality and about the church.

I was worn to suicide by so many healing priests and even exorcists telling me the same old rubbish that I was gay because I didn’t get enough love from my dad and that God would heal me!

Sure dad wasn’t mother Theresa but neither were other dads and I didn’t see all of their sons gay!

And considering I had more inner healing and experiences of Jesus than all these priests and healers combined, I smelt a rat! It just didn’t add up!

And then I’d look on the wall of that old house where I sat beside my grandad with my little cat 20 years earlier and as if granda was talking to me I’d see the prayer of serenity that must have been hanging there for 50 years!

And from that point on I knew that homosexuality wasn’t something to be healed of, it was something to be embraced, to be accepted and to be at peace with!

Of course I knew that many would not agree and this was daunting as I recovered from the biggest breakdown of all but yet blind trust egged me on!

Once a soul has learnt to suffer, all the demons of hell are powerless. God’s grace leads it on and I was one of these souls!

“Satan, get out of my way, I’ve got a mission and you are not a part of it!”

Despite daily agony I got on with it and I found the strength from mass, prayer and a few friends!

Now accepting homosexuality as normal does not mean that everything about the gay life is good!

Heterosexuality is also normal but that doesn’t mean that sexual promiscuity is something to be celebrated!

What it does mean is that our orientation whether homo or hetero is something good and something that we must accept and live in a loving, healthy and life-giving way!

How can gays give life you may ask?!

Well life isn’t all about babies! Life is about love, encouragement, caring etc. and gays are often exceptionally gifted in these areas!

And of course none of us are perfect in these areas which is why we are all called to grow by trusting in God’s mercy and the power of prayer!

And so getting back to the Pink News, how wonderful to be able to bring Jesus’ good news to them!

That they are loved and accepted and that the “conversion therapy” they need isn’t a conversion of sexuality which is ridiculous but a conversion of heart to know that the God they were led to believe that hates them loves them to bits and accepts them gay and all!!

May all of us in the church humble ourselves and ask the gay community for forgiveness for all the places we have judged them and condemned them and caused them to believe that God has no place for them.

May all the broken families, the worried parents, the rejected gays experience the love, mercy and unifying power of God’s love.

And finally, may our church (catholic in my case) develop and teach an adequate theology that allows people of all sexualities and genders to journey towards heaven with the help and support of the church!

So thank you Jesus for the gift of being gay and may I bring your love to the gay community all over the entire world!

Pink News, here I come!

Michael

Ps: to support this ministry in prayer it financially please contact me @ momaoldomhnaigh@gmail.com