Q: As a Catholic with homosexual friends, how should I navigate through conversations that they initiate about their same-sex attractions or “love interests”? I love them, yet I do not want to enable sin in any way. – Jorge

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC:

These can be difficult waters to navigate, especially when you want to go against the tide of what the wider culture thinks is acceptable behavior.

The fact that your friends are talking about their “love interests” in your presence might indicate that they assume you support their homosexual behavior or that they are looking for your affirmation.

You would need to determine whether your silence or your small interventions (“Oh, really?”) implies your consent to what is objectively gravely sinful behavior. For same-sex behavior isn’t in God’s plan for sexuality and marriage and family life.

It might be good to consider a few things.

First, do you want to help your friends to get away from homosexual behavior? Are you willing to challenge them even if it endangers your friendship with them? 

To state the case differently: Are you evangelizing them and helping them come closer to Christ, or are they pulling you away from your faith? 

And if your silence and noncommittal implies consent to their lifestyles, what will you do later when they invite you to their “wedding”? Or what will you do when they expect to be invited to your (real) wedding?

If you decide that you can’t reasonably expect to convert these friends, and that they are causing you to compromise your faith, you might want to cultivate a different circle of friends.

In any case, be sure to build a network of solid Catholic friends. And keep up your prayer life and sacramental life.