Dear Alana

 Dear Alana is a now-viral 8-episode podcast, a quasi-documentary about Alana Chen, of Boulder, Colorado,  who took her life at the age of 24 in 2019. The story is developed and narrated by Simon Kent Fung who read about the tragic death and found many similarities in his own life: deep Catholic devotion, homosexuality, involvement in what he calls "conversion therapy" and the deep conflicts that resulted. Simon befriended Alana's anguished mother and was given access to her many, intimate journals. What he presents is in part a biographical sketch of Alana, but  filtered through Simon's own conflicts, hurts, and emerging understanding. As such it is troubling on several levels.

Conversion/Reparative Therapy

The villain of the story Simon develops is what he calls "conversion therapy," the coercive, manipulative attempt to change ones "orientation" from "gay" to "straight." We find here the  standard allegation (we see in Netflix shows) of spiritual abuse: the violent repression of a person's sexuality and destruction of the personality of the young and innocent. As such it has been criminalized across the country. This judgement may well be justified. I myself, a Northeastern, urban Catholic have no knowledge, no experience, and no opinion on this practice. It is close to Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. However, I do have a fair familiarity with something different: Reparative Therapy that has been welcomed in some Catholic circles. (An earlier blog post contrasted the two.) I can state with confidence that there is no Catholic conversion therapy.

Reparative therapy is not the attempt  at "orientation conversion." Rather, it seeks to repair hurts and wounds from destructive experiential dynamics involving family, peers, body image, trauma, and abuse. The logic is that such healing may reduce compulsivity, enhance freedom, and release vigor, health, and generosity in the personality and in sexuality. Some 20 years ago when I first read this literature,  I happily concluded that I would benefit from such work in my relations, as a man, with women: Who doesn't need such repair?

To his credit, Simon gives a detailed, fair and accurate account of the writings of leading proponents Joseph Nicolosi and Elizabeth Moberly. He tells us what he confided to his own NYC therapist, whom he does not name but describes as highly regarded in the Catholic world: the coldness and distance of his father, a traumatic experience in which his father threw him cruelly into the water to teach him to swim, his torment being bullied by the boys in the schoolyard. He recalls his therapist encouraging him to nurture sexually sober friendships with stable, mature, including older men. And so Simon goes to the gym and befriends a slightly older, virile fireman. One day as he is dropped off, his friend says: "See you tomorrow, Brother." The therapist notes the significance: "Do you see? He calls you 'brother' because he sees masculinity in you."

(By the way, later, in the last episode, Simon records a most candid conversation with his father who says he was sorry to learn that his sons homosexuality may have been associated with his failures as a father. He admits to a desire to amend. It is quite touching. And to my mind speaks favorably of the therapy.) 

Simon delivers this "brother"  story in a straightforward, direct fashion, free of emotion or judgement. The incident speaks for itself as a positive therapeutic intervention; but Simon neither commends nor condemns it. I for one loved the anecdote. It is a perfect example of how reparative therapy is supposed to work. In such friendships, a young man grows in masculine self-esteem as he receives the respect of someone he himself admires. This dynamic applies to all of us, whatever our particular issues.

Simon surely knows better, but he persists in referring to conversion therapy. Conversion therapy has now become the ogre, the monster destroying the lives of young homosexuals. The problem is: it is unknown and never mentioned in Catholic circles. You can scour the conservative journals and I doubt you will find a mention. Reparative therapy is a small, niche item. It gets very little attention. And as developed by Moberly and Nicolosi it is not objectionable, neither manipulative nor coercive. It is available to adults who seek it, including some who aspire to transition. It is not a monster conspiracy devouring our young.

It is surely possible that Simon and Alana had the misfortune of seeing bad therapists. My own psychologist daughter firmly cautions against a rigid, heavy-handed practice of these principles. As a good clinician, she is attentive to the particularity of each client. I myself have homosexual and even gay friends who enjoy close, wholesome relationships with their fathers; were not bullied; were not smothered by Mom; are not lacking in athleticism or masculine confidence; enjoy a good body image. It is not unthinkable that these  had such a strong born-that-way propensity that the attraction emerged without the developmental triggers. But such are surely a small minority. 

The Moral Issue and the Psychological Issue

The crusade against "conversion therapy" in Catholic places involves two distinct, but interrelated issues: the moral and the psychological. 

Morally, the Church firmly teaches that homosexual acts are mortal sins. This is the real, underlying objection of Simon and his coterie. Simon seems to remain deeply conflicted in his own Catholicism, so he does not target the moral teaching, but the alleged practice of conversion therapy. It is not the attraction itself, but the actions which are sins. Disordered sexual/romantic urges are normal as a result of original sin. This teaching is repugnant to the LGBTQ campaign. So while the podcast targets an alleged "conversion therapy" that is entirely foreign to Catholic culture,  the real culprit is Church teaching. Simon himself professes to be a Catholic. He does not clearly renounce Church moral doctrine. 

A distinct issue is the origin of the homosexual attraction and the gay identity. The Church takes no position on this. The Catechism mentions that the origins remain largely unknown. This is a valid area for research, discussion and argument.  A small, increasingly canceled cadre of writers and clinicians find that life experiences contribute to the attraction and its compulsion and address this in reparative therapy. This has obvious appeal to those, including devout Catholics, who do not welcome the attraction. Simon seems to endorse the criminalization of such therapy even into pastoral counseling. This would deny the freedom to seek therapeutic relief from toxic dynamics often accompanying the attraction (compulsivity, obsession) and would go so far as to criminalize Catholic instruction on chastity as itself homophobic.

This apparently benevolent cause, to protect the innocent from spiritual abuse, would deny freedom to research, to repair underlying wounds, and to pass on our Catholic legacy on the human body.

Courage

Courage, the self-support group for homosexual Catholic seeking to live a caste life, despised by gay and gay-friendly Catholics, is slandered by Simon. He associates the group with conversion therapy. The group is very clear: they endorse no such therapy or theory. Their goal is to support each other in chastity. Nothing more. Many of their participants seek relief from compulsion and sin, interior peace, purity and fortitude; with no interest in an imagined "conversion of orientation." Others may indeed, independently of Courage, seek reparative therapy or something similar. Simon quotes the founder of Courage, Fr. John Harvey, as privately endorsing the ideas of the therapy and then he conflates this with the purpose of the group. This is an obvious logical error. Courage mirrors the Church: it supports chastity, no particular therapeutic practice. 

Suicide

Is there anything as tragic, heart-breaking, and mysterious as the suicide, especially of a young one. We simply cannot understand it. The impulse to do so is irresistible. But the attempt is useless. The human person...heart and soul, intellect and will, emotions and passions...is a bottomless abyss of Mystery. Even minor acts...a remark, a glance, an eyeroll...are overdetermined...influenced by a universe of forces: history, fatigue, memories, projections, blood sugar, and ad infinitum. We ourselves do not understand our own motivations:  Why did I do that? Why did I say that? We cannot begin to understand any suicide.

Worse than the effort to explain is the intent to blame. The suicide was caused by the therapist! By the girlfriend! By that cultish religion! By weakness of the will! By the family! Even if the victim leaves a note saying "I am doing this because....." it would be foolish to take that explanation at face value, as if the person were capable of an accurate explanation. Even at our best we lack such self-insight.

And so it is deeply troubling that Simon uses the heartbreaking story of young Alana to advance his agenda: his animus against reparative...aka conversion... therapy. There needs to be a boundary around suicide, as with anything sacred. It is private, indescribable, inviolate. It is not to be used for any argument or ideology.

Privacy of Personal Journal

Alana's journal entries, as shared in the podcast, are personal and intimate: involving sexuality, shame, guilt, family, religious sentiments and emotional torment. It is understandable that family members and close friends might read them in an effort to understand her. But putting them on social media, for the voyeuristic interests of thousands of strangers is a violation.

Such disgraceful disclosure is, of course, typical of the culture of total transparency that characterizes the Sexual Revolution and specifically the Gay Movement. The greatest virtue has become transparency and authenticity. Chastity, fidelity, prudence, temperance, fortitude...the classic virtues are discarded in favor of shame-free, shameless authenticity. We see this in the gay practice of "outing" homosexual or gay celebrities who have not publicly come out. Such is a violation of personal integrity. It appears to be a attempt to normalize the gay life, to overcome shame by involving others, against their will.

And so we have Simon, with her mother, unveiling the intimacies of Alana's life, without consent, dishonorably.

Alliance with Mother

Simon gained the trust and compliance of Alana's mother, Joyce. She allowed him access and  use of the journals. This mother/daughter relationship is very delicate; it is itself sacred; it is to be respected. But the cooperation of Joyce with Simon in the project is questionable in several ways.

The journal quotations reveal that Alana was tortured for many years by her Mom's disapproval of her intense Catholicism. As an adolescent, she lied to her mother in order to attend daily mass. Her intention to become a nun was vigorously resisted. Later she writes with grief about her Mom's refusal to accept her religious identity. We start to see any irony here: the goal of Dear Alana is to unveil the effort to deny her "sexual orientation." But Alana's own words show her resentment at the denial of her Catholic identity and the maternal attempt to "convert" her.

Her journal also notes her immense distress about the fighting of the parents, before their divorce,  and her feelings of guilt that she as unable to heal the rupture. Clearly, Alana was an exquisitely sensitive soul. She was tortured by the discord and the divorce.

Alana's father is still alive but gets little mention. Did he approve of Simon's use of the journals? Was he even consulted? In Simon's narrative, there are no positive, paternal figures in his or her lives. Both fathers are distant and removed. Alana formed close, trusting relationships with two priests who served as spiritual directors to her. Her own comments are extremely positive. Simon had access to emails and the journals and unveiled nothing inappropriate in their communications. But he contrasts their affectionate tone with that of his own directors and so suggests a romantic or erotic interest. It is not obvious to him that the tone of a fatherly man is different towards "son" and "daughter" figures.  Such a slanderous intimation, made credible by the priest scandal, is understandable in the context of our hyper-eroticized culture, especially the gay world.

We see in the Simon-Joyce alliance a shared distance from the masculine and the paternal. It reflects the broader coalition of the Cultural Revolution: angry women joined with men, troubled in their masculinity,  in resentment against the paternal distrusted as toxic patriarchy. They are joined in antipathy to the two priests directors, the therapy, the Sisters of Life who befriend her, and above all to the paternal religion of Catholicism that she passionately embraced. 

The Priest Problem

Alana entrusts herself, at a tender age, to the spiritual direction of Fr. David Nix. There is no evidence of sexual impropriety. But Simon and Joyce see spiritual abuse at work. This does raise a question. Fr. David's blog (padreperegrino.org) shows him to be a hard right, trad priest: friendly with Mel Gibson, anti-vax, strict old school Catholic. In one essay, "15 Mortal Sins Catholics Are Missing in Confession," he includes in addition to contraception, IVF, and pornography, wearing short shorts and leggings. In a recent tweet he compares Olympic gymnastics to light child porn. This suggests an anxiety and scrupulosity about sexuality. Perhaps Fr. David is the rigid, doctrinaire priest our pontiff has been warning us about. At the least it seems to have been a bad combination: his anxious rigor may have agitated the vulnerable, sensitive Alana. To call this spiritual abuse is an exaggeration, but the mother's concerns warrant respect.

Our Church faces a daunting challenge in the formation of our young. We surely do not want to inflict more shame, anxiety, guilt, conflict and insecurity on young, sensitive, fragile psyches. We do want to assure them of God's and our love for them, as they are. We do not want to fixate them in a static, restrictive identity or orientation. We do  want to invite them into the inner peace, confidence, strength and generosity of sexual purity. May God help us!

Mother/Daughter  Father/Daughter

Any parent can understand the mother's concern that her 14-year-old daughter is secretly receiving spiritual direction from a priest who himself shows signs of sexual imbalance and scrupulosity. The secrecy involved, for example in sneaking away to daily mass and then lying about it, indicates a deeper problem: Alana's distrust of and distance from her mother. Her journal entries show that she experienced her mother as hostile to what was most precious to her: her Catholic piety. And so she distances herself to protect, yes from her own mother, what she most values. This is not uncommon. The early virgin-martyrs violated the Roman protocols and died for their faith. We are familiar today with smothering, borderline mothers who do not respect the boundaries and autonomy of their children. 

The young Alana clings passionately to her Catholic spiritual family and father as she is distant from both parents. The father is entirely absent. We learn nothing about him. We do know that Alana writes of her agony in hearing the two spouses fight and that she blames herself. It seems that at a very sensitive age, when she was herself shaping her own identity, she interiorized the hatred they shared as her own fault. 

A young woman's feminine self-esteem is shaped in different ways by mother and father. The mother is closer; so the trust and intimacy between them allows the daughter to interiorize as her own the feminine identity of the mother. The father is more distant, but as an authoritative figure and representative of the broader world, as "Other,"  he affirms the girl in her value as a woman, in that universe. Alana's story, as told by Simon, who does not interpret it in this way, suggests a perfect storm of dysfunction: when she is needing intimacy with mother and affirmation from father, they are furious with each other and she is blaming herself. We can see that a sensitive girl would become anxious, insecure in her feminine identity. She might sexualize her frustrated desire for intimacy with the maternal. She might look to the priest for the father who is not available. She might seek in prayer and piety to soothe a deep inner loneliness. She might find in self-stimulation a release from the unbearable tension which all of this brings.

I can hear already the indignant chorus:  "You are shaming, blaming the mother and father!" The intent of this essay is not to shame, but to discredit the blame game. It does not help to point the accusatory finger at the parent, priest, or therapist. But it does help to identify obvious factors at work as narrated by Simon from her journal: Alana's torment and loneliness; the scrupulosity of the priest; the crucial relationships with mother and father.

Sexual Compulsivity

It is disrespectful for the podcast to reveal  Alana's difficulties with continence. But since it is so public, we might benefit from some reflection. Her journal notes that at the age of 12, in confession, she encountered Christ in a mystical experience that brought relief from the compulsion of masturbation, a freedom that lasted several years. This addiction returned some years later. Her journal entries show her intense shame, guilt and self-hatred regarding the habit. The accusation here is that the Church was the cause of her disorder and eventual suicide. Judgement against conversion therapy disguises a deeper hated of the Church. This case has been further argued recently in several journals, predictably in America and National Catholic Reporter. 

At one point she cuts the word "defiled" into her flesh. She journals with loathing about herself and her body. She writes of "the voices." Reference to "voices" brings two things to mind: schizophrenia and demonic oppression. Alana is deeply tortured at this point and does get professional attention. We learn of no diagnosis but it is possible that she is experiencing the onset of schizophrenia which often manifests itself in early adulthood. It is also possible, it seems to me as a believing Catholic, that she was being attacked by Lucifer, especially in view of her intense piety and her desire for a religious vocation.

Her mother's response upon reading these entries is noteworthy:  "Who are these people that are teaching her this stuff?" She attributes Alana's self-loathing to the influence of her Catholic friends. She blames this  self-hatred on her Catholic views. Here we start to see this podcast as a conspiracy of Joyce and Simon to discredit  Church and its view of sexuality. The crusade is gaining steam as the podcast is viral and widely recognized in the liberal media. 

She writes glowingly of her friendship with the Sisters of Life, whom she finds full of laughter, fun and encouragement. I know this group and confirm her view: they are entirely wholesome, surging with life and joy. They have denied any endorsement of conversion therapy.

The masturbation compulsion is important. Liberational fashion, prevalent in woke psychology, is that this habit is normal and wholesome. The reality is that it easily becomes addictive and self-destructive. Wilhelm Reich, one of the brilliant grandfathers of the Sexual Revolution, wrote of a patient who frustrated him as she continued the practice of prayer. He noted that the practices of prayer and masturbation could not coexist; that they contradicted each other; that eventually one or the other would prevail. Reich was entirely prescient on this point. The two practices are intolerant of each other. Their coexistence brings tension, shame, and guilt. Clearly, this practice troubled Alana, probably more than her attraction to women, which she realized was not itself sinful. The podcast ignores this. 

On this most delicate subject, the Catholic Catechism is nuanced, stern but tender. It is a serious sin. But it is oftentimes practiced under subjective conditions of anxiety, insecurity, self-hatred and stress; all of which mitigate the culpability. In confession the Church is most merciful with this failing of the flesh. Alana almost certainly tortured herself in a form of scrupulosity. This was not the intention of the Church. Rather, the compulsion and the shame were both somehow the expression of a tortured psyche, afflicted by surging, underlying spiritual and emotional forces. 

There is no mention in the podcast of any involvement in a 12-step program such as Sexaholics Anonymous (S.A.), which is known in recent years to bring great relief and freedom for those (and there are now so many) afflicted by sexual and romantic addictions. This is a strong, Catholic-friendly program as it understands sexual sobriety as restricting sexual expression to traditional marriage. It intuits that masturbation, far from being wholesome, is self-enclosed and itself the "gateway" practice to other sexual disorders of fornication, adultery and homosexual activity. Such fellowship may have relieved the severe shame and tension that tormented her.

Her Conversion from Catholic to Gay

In Simon's telling, she accepted her gay reality after "falling in love." This relationship, however, might best be described as an immature infatuation. It is on-again and off-again in an unstable manner. The girlfriend is described by everyone as likeable, fun and very funny. But Alana swings from elation to torment in a borderline fashion. The liberation of her sexuality brings no peace or joy.

Abruptly, she disconnects from the Church and her old friends. Her journal entries express anger that they fail to reach out to her. It is impossible for us to judge the nature of the separation since we do not hear the other side of the rupture and her own feelings toward them are extremely angry.

In the logic voiced by Simon and Joyce, her renunciation of the Church, her embrace of her gay identity, and her pursuit of lesbian relationships should have been a freeing experience. In fact, she gets worse instead of better. She makes heavy use of marihuana; she is off and on again with depression meditation. She records, and we hear, a session with an astrologist. Simon comments that she seems to be seeking spiritual direction here as she had formerly with her priest advisor. Her lesbian relationship tortures her. She records all this anguish in her journals but keeps it from family and friends.

I have pondered this mysterious conversion, not in so-called-orientation, but the change from a homosexual attraction to the gay identity. Often, the transition seems to be associated with sexual compulsivity and borderline tendencies to narcissism and histrionics, but there is something deeper and sadder. The story of Alana, as told by Simon, is helpful. It suggests that the root cause is a deep interior loneliness, a sadness that is somehow not touched even in one who is surrounded by loving family and friends and devoutly practicing her faith. Her infatuation aroused in her an erotic-romantic elation that relieved her of that piercing sword and surged with joy. But it was unstable. It is the bourgeois illusion that happiness in life can be found in romantic love. As infatuation, it is the mirage in the desert of the one desperate for relief. 

Simon

The narrator is himself a fascinating co-protagonist in the drama. He does mirror his subject: intelligent, gifted, charming, sensitive, and still deeply Catholic. He does not explicitly criticize the Church. He is clearly still struggling with powerfully conflicting feelings. His target is conversion therapy. One senses however that it was not so much an external conspiracy of manipulation and coercion that drew him but his own self-hatred. This mirrors Alana. I do not doubt that he, like Alana, may have encountered dysfunctional priests and therapists. We all do. That is life. But there is not in the Church a campaign to convert homosexuals. This interior torment of shame was the result of a complex, sensitive psyche, interactive with a range of toxic dynamics, notably the distant father and the bullying. Neither Simon nor Alana are victims of a homophobic Church. He does not face a hard binary between conversion  from homosexual to "straight" or conversion to "gay." There is a more serene, promising path by which he befriends his homosexual tendency (which is NOT a hard "orientation") as his share in the concupiscence we all suffer and sublimates it into wholesome, chaste, fruitful expressions.

Attack on our Church

Dear Alana is a skilled, clever, engaging, and sentimentally manipulative production. The tone, music, interviews all elicit compassion; and an aversion to the "conversion therapy conspiracy" which is a straw man. Deeper, however, the hostility is to the Catholic Church. Our received teaching on sexuality as spousal, fruitful and unitive, makes a moral judgment against homosexual acts as it does against pornography, fornication, masturbation and other disorders. 

The gay identity is one of many options which are incompatible with Catholic life: mobsters, pornographers, Marxists, pro-abortion-voting Democrats, libertarian capitalists, abortionists, atheist nihilists, and others freely reject the Catholic way.  The militant gay identity is unique in that it operates within Catholicism, portraying itself as a pitiful, powerless victim; judging the Church as hateful and homophobic; and positioning itself on the high ground of moral superiority. It elicits a soft, cheap pity. It plants seeds of hatred for the Church in our young. 

We love the gay and lesbian as persons; just as we love the libertarian, the Marxist and the nihilist; not in their ideology and practice. 

It is ironic: this podcast is a crusade against conversion therapy; it is itself an effort to convert, us and our children,  away from our Catholic belief and practice regarding chastity and fidelity.

Pondering this Tragic Death

Before suicide, we do well to be quiet. To restrain ourselves in analysis and blame. To avoid weaponizing the catastrophe for our preferred cause. To refrain from a righteous, shrill crusade against the Catholic Church on behalf of the persecuted gay community.  

Before such a tragedy, we do well to avoid blame. The "Alana Campaign" against "conversion therapy" and the Catholic way might want to relax in its strident, righteous indignation. Her suicide occurred well after she left her Catholic practice. It is conceivable that her prayer and fellowship supported her in her torment and she succumbed to suicide when she was deprived of it. It might be that her Catholic life kept her alive, as she dealt with tribulations that we can hardly imagine. Her astrology, unstable love affair, and marihuana use did not help; but we will not see an 8-episode podcast accusing these.  

Alans's story is simply heartbreaking. She was a gifted, poetic, lovable and loving soul. She was saintly in so many ways: her yearning for God, her trust in the Church, her concern for the poor. She suffered an abyss of loneliness and longing. We do well to grieve her suffering; admire her goodness; ponder our own frailty; and commend her to the Merciful God she sought so passionately.