197—Same-Sex Attraction and Conversion w/ Andrew Comiskey & Marco Casanova

By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 10, 2025 | In The Catholic Culture Podcast

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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. This assumption is putting arbitrary limits on God and on every human being struggling with psychological wounds.

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”

Andrew Comiskey, Rediscovering Our Lost Fullness: A Guide to Sexual Integration

Desert Stream Ministries

Desert Stream on YouTube

Theme music: “Franciscan Eyes”, written and performed by Thomas Mirus. Download the Catholic Culture Podcast soundtrack.