[00:00:00] Jim: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the EquipCast. My name is Jim Jansen, and I'm your host, and I've got a great conversation for you today with Father Sean Kilcawley on, gosh, like everything. I don't know. What did we talk about? We talked a lot about evangelization and conversations and identity around gender and human sexuality.
Uh, Father Sean Kilcawley is a former army ranger, pastor and priest of the Diocese of Lincoln. Uh, we talk about like how crucial it is in conversation and relationship, not to try and win a philosophical argument, but to let someone tell their story, to be able to offer to people, Jesus is enough. And that it's our own belief, our own integration of our life and our experience.
And our connection with the Lord that gives us the grace and the standing to walk with others. as they journey through a difficult issue of integration and identity and gender. Uh, it's a great conversation today. We get a little deep, there's some deep water, but he offers some just very helpful practical gold nuggets.
You're going to love today's conversation. Take a listen. 

Intro: Welcome to the EquipCast for the Archdiocese of Omaha, designed to help leaders to transform their cultures, to embody the pastoral vision, to be one church, encountering Jesus, equipping disciples and living mercy. 
Father Sean Kilcawley, welcome to the EquipCast.
How are you doing? 

[00:01:37] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: I'm doing great, Jim. Thanks. It's a good, it's a joy to be with you today. 

[00:01:41] Jim: Yeah, this is fun. I am. We didn't talk about this, but when did we meet? Was it 1999? 

[00:01:47] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: It was 1999. Yeah. And, uh, Father Mattia invited me to go to focus summer training with him in Colorado. 

[00:01:56] Jim: That's right. Oh my gosh. I was actually thinking.
Uh, later in the year, but I forgot we met in Colorado. 

[00:02:04] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah, we met in Colorado and, uh, went to dinner. I think we did some popcorn prayer thing while we were there. 

[00:02:10] Jim: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. It was, that's, that's hilarious. And you were fresh out of ranger school at the time, or was that before you went? 

[00:02:19] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: I had just left active-duty military, so I was 25 and was released from active duty and to live in Lincoln around June of that year.
Yeah. And for some reason, I don't know, maybe I was, uh, the fair-haired seminarian at the time and I got to spend the weekend with father. Remember specifically thinking to myself, if I knew focused existed, I might not be a seminarian, but it might be the topic of a different topic. 

[00:02:47] Jim: Yeah. That's, that's hilarious.
Well, it was, I think it was like, okay, this guy can probably, you know, Father Matias thinking this guy could stay awake while I sleep in the back. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. All right. So, we always like to start the EquipCast here with just like this little question, like father, tell us a little bit about your story when your faith journey, when did you first encounter Jesus?

[00:03:09] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. So, I was thinking about this and, um, and, and I think that Um, you know, our Lord can work in lots of ways and, and I'm, I'm a big advocate of saying like you have a million conversion stories and, uh, yes. Amen. But there was a retreat I went on in the Diocese of Lansing when I was in high school and it was like the, it was called diocesan youth leadership camp.
And it was, it was sort of like. Text spread out over a week with some small group leadership skills and are mingled. And the idea was that every parish would send their youth leaders to this camp and then they would come back and be leaders in their youth group and parish. And so, I remember going on that.
And in high school, I didn't have a lot of friends. Like, you know, a couple friends always really felt like left out. I was probably bullied a lot in my neighborhood, um, had some abandonment issues, which I identify now, you know, those kinds of wounds. And, um, and so I'm, so I'm on this weeklong retreat and.
And there's small group and and I probably was taking risks with vulnerability and and Things like that throughout the week, but at the end of the week and it was the 80s, right? So it's super And uh, you know, we were like in a circle like a hug circle with a hundred kids, you know, everybody's oh and um at a certain point like, um, the two people on each side of me kind of like And then the two people on each side of them also did the same.
And it was like this moment of realizing like, Oh, these people actually like me. Or like, it was this kind of moment of belonging and being chosen. And there was something like very powerful about that. And, and I can think back to like the way my mind was in the high school up until that point and afterwards and, um, and a lot of the ways in which I did stay faithful really like would go back to that moment of like belonging and like that was better than anything else.
Yeah. That's awesome. So it's interesting because, because My, uh, my sort of, I don't know, theological mind or like apologetics oriented mind, um, my doctrinal mind would look back at my high school experience and say, like, that was a train wreck of catechesis that I got and, but at the same time, there was this.
encounter with a group of people where I found belonging that was really important. 

[00:05:54] Jim: Right. Well, and real, real grace. 

[00:05:57] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: And, and it was a real grace. Yeah. And from that point forward, like church became like my most important thing and it became really part of my identity. And I would like. Make sure I went to mass on Sundays.
I worked at McDonald's, you know, and, and I would hope Sundays. And then I'd say, I need, I need to be off like from whatever, 1030 to 1230, so I can go to mass. Um, and it was just normal for me to say that to them. That's, that's awesome. I didn't even think about it really. I was just like, I have to go to mass.
And so, yeah. So, if you're asking about like… Probably that's the most significant earliest encounter with our Lord that I had had. 

[00:06:33] Jim: Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, I love it. You know, like I know, I just appreciate you're sharing that story because I mean, you and I both know like all the data shows many people, especially young men who then pursue seminary, they often find a calling in the Eucharist.
I just had no desire to, you know, to, uh, diminish the Eucharist, but I think sometimes we neglect the power of community and the power of the sense of belonging for providing an encounter with the living Jesus. So, I yeah, I love that story. Thank you. 

[00:07:12] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Thanks. I think that's really true and how that happens.
And yeah, I think sometimes we discount the importance of those things. Yes, because I was talking to seminarians once and I know there, I knew them all in high school and I was asking them. So, what, like what was significant about your faith journey? And they would be like, well, we went to Catholic school, and we had priests for teachers, and we did this and I was like, but you all went on a tech weekend.
Don't forget about that, you know, like that was really important, you know, or, or you grew up in a family where the faith was important in your family. Yeah. That was really important. And, and so... 

[00:07:51] Jim: Yeah, there's this amazing stat that has been blowing my mind lately that millennials and baby boomers go to mass at the same rate.
As long as they both came from intact families and it was like, well, it's like, is it? So right. So, like a baby boomer isn't necessarily more faithful. It's just that that generation came from intact families. They had a sense of belonging. They had a community of faith, however imperfect it might have been, however, maybe rule driven or whatever, but like they had a community of faith in their nuclear family and most millennials don't and that yeah.
That is what makes the difference in, uh, attending mass. It just kind of reinforces that like, yeah, that whole belonging community thing isn't just an incidental part of the Christian life. Right. Anyway, okay, so what's your job again? What do you do around here? What's your day job, Father? 

[00:08:49] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Currently, I am the pastor at St. Leo in Palmyra and St. Martin in Douglas, which are eight miles apart. 

[00:08:58] Jim: Yeah, and this is Palmyra, Nebraska, for all the folks in Indiana who are listening. 

[00:09:03] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah, so there are two small towns in Nebraska, and that really has been an incredible joy and an unexpected joy, being the pastor in like a really small town.
Yeah. And I, and I continue to do. Some traveling and speaking. I think the last time we saw each other was at the SEEK conference doing a lot of online pastoral counseling for various people, but I no longer I was the family life office director for the Diocese of Lincoln, which, which I just, uh, turned over to a new director.

[00:09:38] Jim: And so, um, Mutual friend of mine, former teammate. That is correct. Yeah. Yeah. Rachel Tvrdy. We love you, Rachel. Okay. So, you've had an opportunity, the Lord, I mean, you didn't seek this out. The Lord seemed to have moved you in a place where you have been deep into a lot of, I mean, I don't even know how to summarize it.
A lot of issues about human identity, sexuality, uh, pornography, and that you've just. You've been moved into that space. Can you give us just a little bit, I mean, in so many of these, they're not just issues, but they're, they're like pastoral care. Can you give us just a little bit of a background to kind of like how you got into that?
Then in particular, I wanna, I wanna kind of zero our time in on some of the, the gender identity questions, which are looming so large today. So, give us kind of the, you know, context here of how you, how you got into this ministry. 

[00:10:35] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Okay. I'll try to do this as succinctly as possible. Um, like the succinct, the succinct answer is the Holy Spirit, and our Lord just invited me.
And relentlessly invited me, by the way, but but like, on a personal level, you know, I grew up in a non-intact family. So, like, both of my parents were divorced and had children when they married each other when they got married. I was born. My mom died. Um, when I was two, my dad remarried and had three more children.
And then my dad and my stepmom got divorced when I was in college. And so, so like the question of like, what is love supposed to look like was a question that always had been on my heart. I had always been a desire of my heart. Like when I was. When I was at Military Academy at West Point, we had to have a quote that we put in our yearbook.
And, uh, and for whatever, this was just kind of like an anthem or like a prayer that I had, which was, let me live, let me love, give me life. And just like that desire to, to know what love was and to love well. And then, you know, I go through that whole journey of being in the army, you get out of the army, you go to the seminary.
And then as a priest, I taught at Pius X high school and I taught the vocations class and, and the quote that I always made my students memorize was redemptor hominis 10, where John Paul, the second says, man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible to himself. His life is senseless.
If love is not revealed to him. If he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. And that quote like summed up like that desire that had always been in my heart. So, it became like a launching point. And then in 2009, the bishop sent me to Rome to the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies, where I really took every course I could that had to do with chastity, human sexuality.
And I, and my course load probably wouldn't have made sense unless I had a time machine and I could go forward 15 years and I'd be like, that's the exact course load that I needed to do what I'm doing. That's awesome. So, I spent, you know, four years there in the course of that, our Lord, just like studying theology is like letting the light shine on all the places where you fall short in your life.

[00:13:13] Jim: You know, yeah, it's like the spiritual version. What's that phenomenon where like the medical students are like, I think I have this disease.

[00:13:19] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Exactly. 

[00:13:19] Jim: Yeah.

[00:13:20] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Except maybe I do have this disease called others. And so, so it really provoked in me a need for healing. And what I experienced was that the truth of the truth, beauty and goodness that the church teaches just.
provoked the need for healing in my own life. And, and as I've spoken on many times, like I ended up going to counseling that summer and starting a journey of integration and healing in my own life. 

[00:13:49] Jim: Which became a, became a ministry. 

[00:13:52] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: It did be when I came back from Rome, then people just started showing up and that's all I can say.
Like, there's this kid showed up in my office and he'd been waiting 4 years for me to get back from Rome because he wanted to talk to me because he was struggled with pornography. And I was maybe the one priest who we ever encountered in high school who asked him about that, whether it was in the context of confession or not, I don't remember, but, but it was just like, I had asked him more questions about it.
And then I was like, Oh, that's interesting. Maybe like, we should start talking about this more. And what if, what would it be like to make it safe for people to speak? The difficult things that go on in their hearts. And the way we make that safe is to start to name them. Stanley Harbass has a book called naming the silences, which is human suffering.
And, and he, he basically says the Psalms of lament, name the silences that each of us carries within our hearts. Wow. And there's a need to give voice to them and a need to give voice to that suffering. So then that just led to giving a lot of talks on, on various topics. And. And then, you know, I kind of end up where I am now, but, but the real like reason that I talk about these things is because they're common and they most get in the way in the spiritual life, you know, and I, I'm just very passionate about integrity and.
Not having duplicity, right? So, if the Lord teaches something is true, it has to be possible to live it. Yeah. Say that again. If the Lord teaches that something is true, it has to be possible for us to live that way. Yeah. Like if the Lord teaches us, whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart, then it must be possible to not look at somebody with lust.
Yeah. Right, because what God wills, God enables, however we want to say that, like, I believe Jesus is real and everything that he said is true, which means it's possible to be free, and it's possible to have joy, and we're not, like, condemned to a life of just, like, the blah, or a life of good enough. Yeah, all of us could step into the good enough life, but... 

[00:16:18] Jim: Well, or loneliness.
I mean, that's like the as I think about as you're saying this, I think about individuals, friends, parents that I've talked to where someone is struggling, let's say, with same sex attraction and so forth. Yeah. What they hear is you're saying I'm supposed to be lonely for the rest of my life because they don't believe it's possible, uh, to find fulfillment, uh, in a chaste lifestyle.

[00:16:46] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Right. Or, or they don't even know what a chaste lifestyle looks like. Well, right, yeah. And that a chaste lifestyle is, like, A relationship with someone. It's not a privation of relationship. Yeah. 

[00:16:59] Jim: Uh, so, okay, so this is, so I just want to dive in, because you, you spent so much time on a variety of issues.
Talk about a little bit about like the, the gender identity. Issue and I don't even want to call it an issue. I don't have another. I don't have another word, but let's talk about like, you know, for individuals who are struggling with gender identity. How did we get here as a society? How do we begin to think about this?

[00:17:27] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. So, I don't know. Um, I'm not an expert in, like, how we got here as a society. I know what I've observed, you know, like, what I observed was that, um, when I was a child, there were about two television shows that would have a homosexual character on them, but they would just, like, make allusion to it. I think 21 Jump Street was the first show I was watching, the 80s version, right?
And there was some, like, character who was gay identified or identified as gay in the character. And that show, but that is slowly, like, there starts to be even more and more in television shows. And you can look up people have done this research on, you know, the specific strategy of doing this in order to, like, make people more tolerant of of that.
Those choices. And then I think it was, it was almost immediately after the Supreme Court ruling that, um, basically made like marriage between two people of the same biological sex legal throughout the country that nightline almost the next day ran a story on polyamorous relationships. And, um, and I just found that interesting, right?
So, okay, that's done. We're moving on to polyamorous relationships. 

[00:18:39] Jim: Right. And just so everybody know, this would be multiple. Like, not just two, three, four. 

[00:18:45] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: It would be like a triad. It would be like a triad. So, so to call it polyamory is, uh, it's a more inclusive way of calling it. So, you're not calling it polygamy, right?
Polygamy means you have more than one wife. I forget what the word for more than one husband is. Um, but there's a different word for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that that story ran almost the next day and then more and more like you see in media people who would like, embrace a like, transgendered identity of some kind.
Right? And I want to be sensitive the way that I say that because. There are many, many, many, many, many, many, many varieties, right, of ways that identify with about their gender. And, uh, and so, but it's also important to remember that gender dysphoria is. A psychological condition that has a diagnosis in the diagnostic and statistical manual.
Because, because sometimes I've talked to people, and they think that everyone who would say that they question their gender identity is just doing it because it's cool or they're doing it because they're mm-hmm. They want attention or you know, like things like that, which, which are just not helpful.
Mm-hmm... And, uh, and it's not the problem of society. Like society is not like forcing our young people to make those choices, but there is a psychological condition. And so, so when somebody asks me about it, I often will ask, like, do they have a diagnosis or is it a preference for them? Or is it like, what is going on with them?
Yeah. Cause there's a difference between having a diagnosis for gender dysphoria, having a preference, having a fetish that would like… Somebody just gets aroused by dressing like the person of an uh, like an opposite sex. Um, like there's a difference in all these things and it's very complicated and it takes really smart people to kind of do a differential diagnosis, right?
And but it's become more and more common as time has gone on, it's become more common. 

[00:20:56] Jim: Yeah. Well, so for the layman, like, let's say like, cause I mean, right, equip cast, we want to help equip people, uh, in their personal. You know, mission. How do you start a conversation right for the for the layman? Like, how do you start a conversation?
What are the mental kind of frameworks that you need to begin a conversation with someone about the issue of gender? 

[00:21:19] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: So, I guess there's, I don't know, like, I don't know if I've ever started a conversation about gender before. 


[00:21:25] Jim: Well, they probably come to you. Yeah, they probably come to me. That's a better question.
How do you how do you think about it when the conversations come to you? Yeah. 
[00:21:33] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: So, if somebody was to come and say, right, like I'm transgender, the first question I would ask them is what does that mean to you? 

[00:21:43] Jim: Good. Say more about that. Why? 

[00:21:45] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Because I want to know like, what do they mean by that? And, and like, what is it like for them?
To experience what they're experiencing, because we, we use words to try to explain an inner experience that it's really hard to explain. And so, I want to know more about like, do they feel like they don't belong in their body? Does, do they have like a high amount of distress when they think about dressing like a man or dressing like a woman?
Do they have a fear of Presenting as a man or presenting as a woman, are they just uncomfortable with themselves? Like, what, what do they mean by that? How long is, have they felt that way? Like, what's normal and what's not normal? Have they ever had conversations with people about what's normal or what's not normal?
Like, I had preferences when I was a young child. I had a lot of feminine preferences. Like, I remember very distinctly being in kindergarten. And when I share this, I'm only sharing it for the sake of this was my experience. I'm not saying like every person must have had this experience, but my experience was it was time for like indoor recess in kindergarten.
And I looked up and there was like a Holly hobby kitchen set and I was super excited, and I ran to it and, uh, and then at a certain point I remember distinctly realizing. It was me and like six girls and all the boys were like being rough and pushing cars around and doing these things. And, and I was sitting there like hanging out with all these girls.

[00:23:23] Jim: Yeah. Making, making pretend muffins. Making 

[00:23:26] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: pretend muffins or whatever I was doing right now. Like, yeah, there's, there can be a million explanations for that experience. I'm grateful that I had the space to live in the tension of that experience and, and have to like work through that and sort through that.
You know, and I know, like, I know a couple and their son would just like love to wear dresses and when he was like two or three, he would always play dress up and he would always like want to wear his sister's dresses and, and, you know, they tried saying like, you know, like boys don't wear dresses and he'd say, well, I'm not a boy.
I'm violet, you know, and he would like make up a name and, uh, and they just kind of like, didn't react to it. They were just kind of like, Oh, okay. Yeah. And just didn't really react. And then after a couple of years, like he doesn't do that anymore. And so, so it's just like having enough tension in that I think is important.
I think it's important to always acknowledge what's true. And it's true that all of us struggle with living in our bodies. All of us struggle with where we fall in our gender identification, because like when people say that gender is fluid. It is fluid for all of us like, and what I mean by that is like, I feel more comfortable in my masculinity now than I did when I was 12.

[00:24:53] Jim: Yeah, thank you for saying that. And I know there's probably like some qualifications that need to be made for the, you know, for the people like, hey, you, you, you know, theology, philosophy, please don't freak out. Just give us some time here. But I not to the same degree. That someone who may have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, but I don't know any woman or man who doesn't feel a little ill at ease in their body.
You know, I wish I were more this or that. And that's not the same thing. I don't want to belittle those who struggle with real gender dysphoria, but at a small level we can relate because it's just part of the fall. Part of, you know, sin is that I am alienated from myself. 

[00:25:39] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: And we teach that. Yeah. Like we teach that there is a rupture between body and soul.
That's a result of original sin that's repaired by grace that we teach, that everybody experiences that. Mm-hmm. and, and the phenomena of gender dysphoria is like a visibilization of that. Thing that we all believe is true. Yeah, or that we are supposed to believe it's true. Sometimes we forget that maybe because the rest of us don't want to admit that there's a rupture between like my body and my spirit or Like I don't want to admit that like two days ago.
I totally like Drove to Sam's Club so I could buy a bunch of like Pistachios and chocolate and I just sat there and ate all of it because I don't even know why I was depressed or something. 

[00:26:28] Jim: Nobody can relate to that. Nobody's uh, why do we need to be careful to avoid? Because I think what I have appreciated about your, your teaching on this is that yes, there is a truth of.
philosophy and theology, the unity of the soul. And it might be, you know, body and soul might be helpful to, you know, to, to review some of that, but that when you're in conversation with a person, it is not a theological debate. 

[00:26:58] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. And it's not a, it's so what I found really helpful was Mark Yarhouse has written extensively on this topic.
He's a Christian psychologist. And, um, so he has this, um, this perspective of three lenses that he talks about. And so, so the first lens is the traditional lens, and the traditional lens sees sex and gender as something that's given by God and reflects God, and that sexuality is sacred. And, um, we find our sense of identity and belonging in our relationship with God, which is exactly what the church teaches.
Right? And so that would be like more of a doctrinal position. That would be more of the position of, like, when we start to argue about, like, what's true or what's not true and what does the Bible teach, et cetera. So that's the traditional lens. The. Medical lens is something that sees gender dysphoria as a psychological condition, like many other psychological conditions.
And so, so in this lens, like, in the traditional lens, somebody, right, who does not live in accordance with the church's teaching would be seen as willfully disobedient, right? And in the place of sin, in the medical lens, we don't say that they're in a place of sin. Mhm. Because they have a medical condition.
So, so we have this school for mentally handicapped students and every year they do a Christmas play and all the like really faithful Catholics go to this Christmas. Oh, it's beautiful. It's right. You've been there. Yeah. And there's one kid who drops the F bomb the entire time. Right. Just like in the middle of silent night.

[00:28:39] Jim: I've heard these stories. Yeah. 

[00:28:41] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Right. Dropping the F bomb. Now nobody walks out of there saying, I can't believe the blasphemy that I went on in that Christmas show. And I can't believe like what they did. Like they don't count that as sin. Right. Because he has a medical condition. Yes. Right. So, so there are contexts where we, we have used the medical lens before in other circumstances.
And so, so that's where, where the medical lens is. So, it can reduce shame. And then we, and then we implement interventions to try to reduce symptoms, um, as much as we can. And then the third lens is the celebration lens where we just see like. The gender dysphoria or homosexuality or whatever as something to be celebrated about the person.
All right, and and that's where we could say when we talk about the culture in quotes. That's where they are. Yeah. So, when we're talking to people, I think it's important to identify what lens we're in and what lens they're in. Yeah. Because all of the lenses have their strengths and weaknesses, right?
Like the strength of the celebration lens is it provides a sense of identity and belonging for somebody who's looking for it. I talked about finding a sense of belonging, like in that, you know, circle hug at youth leadership camp. Um, for a lot of people, like that's, that's the one place where they feel like people love me exactly as I am.
Yeah. And I don't have to change for them to love me. 

[00:30:13] Jim: And I would say, and I will not change, even if I am so inclined, because I found belonging here. And I'm not going to give up that belonging for anything. 

[00:30:23] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: That's, I think that's, that's a real point. I've talked to plenty of people who like did not enjoy the lifestyle that they were in, but it gave them a sense of belonging and they stayed in it.
Yeah. Yeah. So, when we're talking to people, it's important to identify what lens am I in and what lens are they in? Because otherwise, if we're in two different lenses, we're going to talk past each other all day long. Right. Because then what happens is, you know, like oftentimes a parent is in the traditional lens, their child is in the celebration lens who's struggling and a sibling might be in the medical lens.
And that's how they explain things to their peers. And, and so you've got a parent who wants to fix their child by informing them what the church teaches and that's going to fix them. And then the child's like, I just want you to love me. And then the parents in the traditional end, so they don't want to sacrifice their like status in the church or their belief in the church, because that's where they find their identities in the church.
And they don't want to compromise their identity by, like, giving scandal to their child. And so, they have a hard time, like, saying, I'm going to love you. And then we say things like, well, I love you, but I hate the fact that you identify this way, which the person receives as you don't actually love me, you know, it's like.
When my I have a sibling who got married outside the church when I was young and rigid, and I didn't go to the wedding, and it probably took 20 years to heal that relationship. Wow. Yeah, it wasn't worth it. You know, it wasn't worth it. And in that desire to maintain my own integrity. Maybe I felt like I would compromise my integrity by going or at least I was told that it just did a lot of damage.
Yeah, and I didn't understand that my sister needed me to be there for her in a particular way because of the nature of our relationship with each other and I wasn't thinking about that. So, so the gift of those lenses, I think, is also that when we know where somewhat lens somebody's in, then we know what to pose to them.

[00:32:35] Jim: Yeah, that's super helpful because. I mean, where we talk past each other so often when we're in a conversation like this, just if you would give us a little bit like, okay, so you're, you're in a conversation with someone who's in the medical lens or in the celebration lens. How do you approach it when they're in that lens?

[00:32:58] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah, like, so if somebody's in the medical lens, like, then I would, I mean, that conversation is very different because if they're in the medical lens, then they're really just interested in like medical interventions. Um, like the weakness of the medical lens is that it's perceived as compromising too much by those in the traditional lens.
And it's seen as not going far enough for those in the celebration lens. That's interesting. So, it's an, it's an interesting spot to be in because like, in from the medical ends, well, you don't feel comfortable presenting as a girl, so you don't have to wear a dress ever. that like help where you're short, your hair shorter, you might wear men's undergarments, um, things like that.
There are certain step by step by step by step by step-by-step interventions that might lower the level of dysphoria if they actually are diagnosed with gender dysphoria and it's not a preference. 

[00:34:00] Jim: Right. But the medical lens, they're trying to alleviate symptoms. Right. Classic, classic metal medical approach.

[00:34:07] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Right. So, you, so you would be going at it from that direction. Now, like if I'm talking to somebody in the celebration lens, I would really want to know, like, what are you looking for? And so like, what does it mean for you to identify in this way? Like, what does that do for you? And I want to know, like, like what they feel like they've found because the only thing I can do is Propose to them that our Lord might be able to give that to them. 

[00:34:37] Jim: Yeah, say more about, say more about that. 

[00:34:40] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: So, if somebody is looking for a sense of identity and belonging, right?
Like they want to be able to name what they've been experiencing, and they feel like like this is naming the silences in their heart well, like What would it be like if our Lord was capable of, like, naming those silences as well? And what would it be like if our Lord could respond to you there so that you're not alone?
And so, what would it be like to be chosen by Him? Or is it possible to find a sense of identity and belonging in the Church? And and their answer to that might be no, if they've only ever encountered people that are in the traditional lens who are basically saying, like, you don't belong if you feel that way, which is the hard part, right?
It's the hard part. And I think that this is what we see in many ways. Kind of modeled by the Holy Father when he emphasizes over and over and over again, like you belong in the church and Like our Lord like desires you and our Lord loves you where you are And that's always the first proclamation of the gospel is the Lord loves you where you are.

[00:35:49] Jim: Mm hmm 

[00:35:50] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: And and we actually have to come to know that in order for the next thing to happen, which is for him to say, go and send no more. Yes. And and so there's there can be a long moment. Like, I often talk about the woman caught in adultery and how, like, in the midst of her worst moment and all the things, all the silences in her own heart, all her shame are now manifest.
Our Lord bends down. To write in the sand, in other words, he places himself within her gaze and it gives this moment, which, which I would say places himself in her gaze so that she'll notice how he looks at her and she'll notice that he looks at her with love and that he loves her as she is. And then it might take a while before she starts to see herself the way that our Lord sees her.
Yeah. And in that gospel story, maybe it took like. Five minutes, 15 minutes. Cause he asks her like, woman is no one condemned you. And her answer is no one, sir. And, and then no one, sir, includes herself, like somewhere she's seeing herself the way our Lord sees her. And then he says, go and sin no more in our own lives, the time between bending down to write in the sand and our Lord saying, go and sin no more.
It might be five years. It might be 10 years. It might be. It might be a very long time. You know, like I often say, like I was giving these talks on like integration, love, sonship, et cetera, for probably eight years before I really had like a powerful experience that what I was saying was actually true.
And, and our Lord like did something and, and it was like his relentlessness. And, uh, and kind of getting my heart to a place where like, Oh, like my heart just desires him. Yeah. And, and I want to be alone for him and, and he can be enough for me, right? Like as a celibate person, I have to learn that our Lord can be enough for me.
And whenever we tell somebody else they're called to live chastity, they can't do that unless they believe that our Lord can be enough for them. So that becomes then the conversation. 

[00:37:59] Jim: So, I mean, this is deep water. I just wanted to, I wanted to take a shot at maybe kind of like summarizing and you're basically saying like, we don't need to be afraid or in a rush.
As we're in conversation to let someone as long as it may take, and I'm thinking when I say conversation, I mean, ongoing conversation to let someone come to a place where they feel like they belong to Jesus. They belong in the church because that is a prerequisite of the maybe conversion that we'd love to see.
That is the go and send no more. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that, and we might want to see someone change their behavior, but that behavior only changes when they are first feeling at, you know, well, first off, it only changes as a result of a real new belief, which is only possible. As they're in relationship with our Lord feeling that belonging.
Yeah, that's that's you. I want to go back. We talked a little bit about this before we talked a, a fear.
Of giving scandal, whether it be a parent or a friend, you're in a conversation with someone who's right to stay with the language we've been using, they're not behaving or they're not believing in a way that would be good for them the way they should, but in a way that would be good for them, you're pained because you see this behavior in your life and as you're trying to interact with them, you're trying to, let's say, sincerely because I know our listeners, you're sincerely trying to bring the love of God But you're afraid.
If I don't make it clear that what you're doing is wrong, I'm afraid I'm going to give scandal. Can you speak to that? 

[00:39:51] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. So, I really like this formulation that, um, there's like two different formulations that I like. One is actually in Amoris Laetitia, 281, where Pope Francis writes, although she constantly holds up the call to perfection and asks for a fuller response to God, I'll stop there for a second, right?
Which means we're always going to teach the fullness of the truth, right? We're never going to affirm something that's not true, right? This is what we believe which is true. We believe that we're created to be a body soul composite. We don't believe that our spirits are renters in our bodies. We believe that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman.
We believe that, like, all sexual acts Um, have to be open to every gift at their disposal in the moment, which means like we're always open to babies and bonding and any sexual expression outside of like a married couple who's a man and a woman that's open to life is intrinsically and gravely disordered.
Like that's what we believe. We're always going to teach that. But then it goes on to say, although she constantly holds up the call to perfection and asks for a fuller response to God, the church must accompany with attention and care the weakest of her children who show signs of a wounded and troubled love.
Wow. Right? And, and so, so we have to accompany with attention and care those who show signs of a wounded and troubled love. These are most of the time that's, that means that somebody was supposed to have loved you, but they didn't love you well. Mm hmm. It could be that you grew up in a family where there was a divorce or abandonment, or there was abuse, or there's some other kind of trauma, or like you, you had no tools to navigate your sexuality.
And your adolescence, you had certain taboo topics. So, you weren't allowed to talk to your parents about sexuality issues. Um, like there can be all kinds of things that lead to that wounded. And trouble love and and that means entering into somebody's life and walking with them and and so so sometimes out of fear of scandal.
Scandal means that you're leading someone else to send right? Scandal means you're causing someone to send and so. Out of fear of scandal or a fear of showing approval. We kind of think my job is to tell them the fullness of the truth, but then I'm just going to leave them there. And I'm just going to tell them to choose to believe it.
But when we're in that place, we're really not proclaiming the gospel and we're not leaving room for grace. We're basically. In the realm of Pelagianism or this idea. Yeah, I tell you the truth. You should be able to choose to live that way. 

[00:42:42] Jim: Yeah. So, you just figure this out and you let me know and then we could be friends again once you got it all straight. 

[00:42:48] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Right. Or I'll spend time with you once you have it all straight. Yeah, that's just no good. And it's it's uncomfortable to spend time with people that don't think like we think. You know, it's plenty uncomfortable. Like when, when I was in training for being a pastoral sexual addiction practitioner, um, I would like to go out to dinner with anybody in the class.
It would go out to dinner. Um, it was back when I used to drink beer before I quit drinking. And so, I just wanted to go hang out with people who went to drink beer. Many of them were like. You know, gay identified people who were also therapists that used to be Catholic. That's super fun, right? 

[00:43:27] Jim: It sounds like a joke.
So, a priest and a, you know, and a gay counselor walk into a bar. 


[00:43:30] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: So, I'm sitting there in my collar and we're both uncomfortable with each other in the room, right? But what was beautiful about that experience was like holding the tension for long enough to actually have some really good. Conversations, and it's okay.
Like, I'm not there to, you know, force on anybody, anything it's much like our Lord in John chapter six, you know, like he, he tells everybody who he is. Some people leave and he doesn't try to force himself on them. Yeah. Like he invites, he proposes, he doesn't impose. So sometimes fear of scandal is when, like, I won't hang out with you because if I do, then you're going to think that I think that your behaviors are okay.
Right. Now, most people don't think that, um, and they just want to know that you'll love them. Anyways. Yeah. Father Harvey has a really great formulation where he says this when he's talking about homosexuality. He says, like, the counselor can never affirm the behaviors in the client that he knows are bad for them.
Okay. So, so that means, like, the counselor can never affirm the client's behavior. Homosexual act behaviors, right? However, the client has to come to a point where he or she believes that the therapist is going to be there for them, even if they persevere in those behaviors. Yeah. Right. So, I don't believe that what you're doing is a good for you, but I'm going to be here for you and I'm going to love you anyways.
So, like I don't think what you're doing is good and I'm gonna love you anyways, which is a completely different thing. 

[00:45:17] Jim: Yeah, that's so profound. So, as you say that I mean and our time is flying my my mind goes, right? I'm a dad to the heart of a parent who? Wants to live that tension, you know, I can't affirm the self-inflicted harm from these choices, but I love you and I'm going to be with you anyway.
I'm going to be here for you. I can see the fear of Oh my gosh, but it's so hard to watch you suffer from these choices and make these choices. The fear pushes me out. Of persevering in relationship, what do you say to parents? And this could be parents, siblings, but just family of those who have a child who seems to be confused or struggling with their gender?

[00:46:11] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. So, I think the first thing is that, like, our Lord loves you and You know, for the parent, it's important to continually, like, abide in the Lord's love for you. Yeah. Because what parents go through is a kind of, of suffering that's multifaceted in that moment. Because they'll go through, Every single time that they might have made a mistake or did something that was sexually shaming or they didn't have the right conversations at the right time and they start doing research on how did people, how do people come to this place and it says, well, some of them have trauma and then the parents like, well, did I traumatize my kid?
Right? And then all of that happens and, and it can be, okay. All of that can be an invitation to healing from our Lord. Right. But it, but it also, it, it's a moment that we just surrender, and we just let our Lord, Lord love us where we are right now. And then, because we have to be good in our own hearts, we have to be so good in our own hearts that you're able to go to your child and ask them those hard questions.
Like, well, what is that like for you? You know, what's that like for you? Are we integrated enough as adults to tell our own story of integration, right? Because we've all had to integrate. 

[00:47:39] Jim: Yeah, you use that word like give an example. What do you mean by integration?

[00:47:43] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: I mean, like, whenever you got to a point where you were, like, super comfortable in your masculinity, right, or if you remember, like, growing in that, or any ways in which, like, you've, like, not liked your own body and had to grow to accept the body that God gave you.
Any ways that, because anybody that struggled with anything, it could be food, it could be sex, it could be like using our bodies for pleasure in lots of ways, right? There's lots of ways that we use our bodies for pleasure, which means we're alienating ourself from our body. We're not treating our body like it's our body.
We're treating it like it's a mechanism for pleasure. And that can be binge eating. It can be masturbation. It can be like, you know, I just want to sleep all day. It can be like the kind of vanity that like we all have had to like deal with our bodies and and growing into being more comfortable in them.
Like for me, like I oftentimes tell this story of like receiving my masculinity when I was in ranger school and, uh, and it was kind of this moment because masculinity is bestowed when we're accepted by a group of men that we admire. Right? So, we're kind of on the outside looking in and there's this group of men and we want to belong with them and but, but they have to like, welcome us and choose us to belong with.
Yeah. Yeah. And I was always the last one chosen on teams. I was, I was never really like, I never had that experience growing up. And then I finally, I was in ranger school. It was like third phase of ranger school and a bunch of people had fallen out and I had no idea who was going to be my ranger buddy.
And I'm super insecure about asking anybody because I don't want them to say no. I know I'm the only person in the world who's ever had that experience, right? Like ever like neglected to ask a girl out on a date because we're afraid she would say no. Yeah. Um, but, uh, and then this guy walks up to me, and he was like, Hey, will you be my ranger buddy?
And he was like, bigger than me, stronger than me, faster than me. Um, and it was just this moment of like, Oh, I belong here. That's awesome. And there was a sense of belonging in that. And I never doubted. My masculinity from that point forward. And I've been comfortable in groups of men and I'm comfortable to have conversations with men.
And I, I used to not be that way. Like, like, sometimes I joke that I probably would have been like the altar society priest who really didn't know how to function with the Knights of Columbus. If I hadn't had. One through that.

[00:50:23] Jim: Yeah. And you're saying we all have to have that little integration. If we're going to help someone who is in the journey now and struggling.

[00:50:33] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. And, and maybe we just like identify with where they're at in their struggle and like, how do you get there? We haven't struggled in the same way, but, but sometimes when we ask questions like, well, what do you mean by that? We might find out that what they mean by that is not that uncommon. 

[00:50:50] Jim: Right.
Yeah, because it may be, yeah, the parent, family member, sibling, whatever is freaking out thinking they've got full blown gender dysphoria diagnosis and you know, and their son is like, well, I just sometimes wonder if I'm, you know, enough of a man when, when, when the appropriate response to that is like, well, hell me too.
I mean, not anymore, but can I tell you how small I was in high school? And right now, suddenly you've got a bonding moment instead of a moment of division and shame.

[00:51:21] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: And again, I don't want to make it sound like, Oh, this is the one thing. This is the thing. And then everything will be fine. And it doesn't fix everything.
But, but I think the more that we can do to normalize conversations and to be safe to have conversations, the better. 

[00:51:42] Jim: Father our time is just flown. What would you say? Just somebody listening now. They're kind of feeling called. They're like, oh man, I need to be thinking about this differently. I need to approach the conversations with friend, family, coworker, whatever differently. Where do they begin?

[00:52:02] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: I don't know. I think we begin where we always begin, which is with our Lord. We begin by reflecting on like, what does it mean for me to belong to the Lord? Like, what does it mean that the Lord has chosen me? And, and I might begin with that question of like, is the Lord enough for you? Do you believe the Lord's enough for you?
And, and how do we tell that story of coming to believe that the Lord is enough for us, because that's what we're proposing and all of these circumstances, right? Whenever somebody is living outside of the church and outside of the church is teaching, what we want to propose to them is that they could find what they're looking for with our Lord and that the Lord can be the one that meets their needs.
And so, we have to ask ourselves, do we believe that? And what's the testimony we give about that? 

[00:52:56] Jim: Yeah. Oh man. Say that again. Like, do I really believe Jesus is enough? And what is my, what, what, how does my life, how did, what, what do I say? No, he is enough because he's been enough for me. Right. 

[00:53:09] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah. Yeah. So, what's your testimony that the Lord has been enough for you?
Um, cause oftentimes we give a testimony. That's something like I studied my way into the church or like, I didn't believe this. And then I did. And like, that can be our testimony, but there's another testimony of like, Learning that the Lord actually can meet my needs, you know, like, like I was talking to a brother priest recently and, um, we're just talking about loneliness and, and I have had bouts of loneliness for the first time since I've been living by myself and, uh, and I, and I basically said like, I get lonely when I forget to be alone with the Lord.

[00:53:50] Jim: Yeah, my gosh, that's great. And it's 

[00:53:53] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: one of those things that it sounds nice theologically or a theological spiritual thing, but there, there's something real there and it's possible that we find something real there and, and we actually can be alone with him and, and be in friendship with him and, and have him be the one that meets our needs and, and, um, like.
All those things are, all those things are real and, and that's, that's what we sign up for to when we're Christians, you know, it's really, it's really the difference and it's what we have to proclaim. It's what we have to offer. 

[00:54:30] Jim: That's beautiful. Father, for those who want to connect with you, speaking, whatever, how do, how do people find you?

[00:54:38] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Um, so I think probably the most. I have on the internet, it would be on my, um, YouTube channel. Uh, so if you go to YouTube, type my name in, you can go to my YouTube channel. I really post like all the talks that I give there. Um, also like our CIA talks and various talks, things like that. 

[00:54:59] Jim: And that's Father Sean Kilcawley.
Father Sean Kilcawley, yep. S E A N and then K I L C A W L E Y. 

[00:55:07] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: That is correct, yes. Uh, I also have my own, um, I podcast my homily every week and so that's also, um, easily found and... Like either like the Apple podcast or on SoundCloud. 

[00:55:24] Jim: That's great. Father, you name dropped a couple of good books. Naming the Silences.
I didn't catch the other one. What are some resources that have... That you found very helpful and inspiring. 

[00:55:36] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: Yeah, so there's a book called The Seven Desires of Every Human Heart by Mark and Debra Laser, which, which I think has been a very good reference, especially just to, to, to learn to name our desires, right?
Um, because when people say they're looking to belong or, or like when, when we want to ask people questions like, well, what do you desire? It usually comes down to one of those seven. Then. They talk about, uh, I can't remember the name of your house's book offhand, but it's, uh, it is Mark your house. Perfect.

[00:56:12] Jim: Father, thank you. Thanks for being with us. 

[00:56:15] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: You're welcome. Should we like close with a prayer or? 

[00:56:18] Jim: Yeah, let's do it. 

[00:56:19] Fr. Sean Kilcawley: In the name of the father and the son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Oh, Jesus, we ask your blessing upon each person who listens to this podcast today to help our hearts to be open. First and foremost, to your love for us.
Also give us the holy curiosity to get to know the people in front of us and and to know their hearts, especially the hearts of those who struggle with living what the church asks of us or to who struggle to believe that that you are enough for us. Let's help us to grow in our own conviction more and more each day that.
That you are the source and summit of everything. The only one that knows us truly. And the only one that matters. And through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, and all the saints, may almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

[00:57:20] Jim: Amen. Thank you. Alright everybody, you know somebody who needs to hear this, so don't try and share it while you're driving.
But when you get a chance to pull over, uh, share this with a friend. Alright, God bless.