Posted on 10/07/2005 5:26:14 AM PDT by Abathar
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican will allow gay men into the priesthood if they can show they have been celibate for at least three years, leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported on Friday.
But it said the Vatican will ban men who "publicly manifest their homosexuality" or show an "overwhelming attraction" to homosexual culture "even if it is only intellectually."
The Vatican views on gay priests are contained in a secret 16-page document which is expected to be released next month.
The document, an "instruction" by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, covers one of the most sensitive issues in the Roman Catholic Church.
Officials at the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Vatican press office could not be reached for immediate comment.
The Corriere report said: "Candidates who show a homosexual tendency will not be allowed into the priesthood unless they can demonstrate that they have been able to remain chaste for at least three years."
Media reports last month, primarily in the United States, said the document would bar all gay men from being ordained priests, even those who are celibate.
Those reports caused concerns in many quarters in the Church that many good men would be excluded by a total ban.
The Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin but that homosexual acts are, and it expects all priests, whether homosexual or heterosexual, to remain celibate.
Corriere and the weekly Panorama magazine both reported on Friday that Pope Benedict had approved the document this summer.
Panorama said its release would be accompanied by a written explanation by "an internationally known psychologist."
WIDESPREAD CONTROVERSY
Reacting to earlier reports that the document would ban even celibate gays, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin told the British Catholic newspaper The Tablet last week:
"You don't write off a candidate for the priesthood simply because he is a gay man."
Martin told the Tablet that seminaries did not in the past give men enough support to help them mature in their sexuality.
"We need to provide services of support for these priests and this will involve helping them along their personal journey and reassuring them."
In his book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," Father Donald Cozzens estimated that some 40 percent of U.S. priests are gay but only a tiny minority are practicing homosexuals.
The Corriere report by the paper's respected religious affairs correspondent Luigi Accattoli, which he said was based on "verbal indiscretions," said the testing period for celibacy would be the last three years of seminary study.
Some conservative Catholics cheered last month's media reports that the new document would ban even celibate gays.
Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, head of the U.S. Archdiocese for Military Services, caused a storm when he said that even homosexuals who had managed to remain celibate for 10 years or more should not be admitted into seminaries.
Such positions were met by much criticism in the rest of the Church, particularly in the United States.
The Vatican has been working on the instruction on homosexual men and the priesthood for years. It will be a reform of a 1961 document which said men with "perverse inclination" to homosexuality should not be ordained.
Well said. The only part you forgot is that "these reports were gathered from respectable press accounts which were discussed over several bottles of booze at dinner."
COMMON SENSE PRIZE POST!!!
Same here, I second your sentiments and knowledge.
See above. I disagree--it's a mental disorder, regardless of the gerrymandering by the American Psychiatric Ass'n.
Looks to be rumor being repeated as though news, by hopefuls.
No ban on gays expected in Vatican document; will advise 'prudential judgement'
National Catholic Reporter ^ | Friday Oct. 7, 2005 at 8:27 a.m. CDT | John L. Allen, Jr.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1498416/posts
Here's an interesting article:
http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2005/10/08/news/2news8.txt
Note that the shrinks state that 'the [candidate] is just fine, he's not a homosexual, he's stable...'
If you've read the stories on this guy, you'll find that 1) there are credible allegations of ephebophilia/homosexuality; and 2) the priest "cried a lot" during confessions, Masses, prayer, etc.
IOW, the shrinks were dead wrong. He WAS a homosexual and he was NOT "stable." But I repeat myself.
Read the link I just posted. It'll cheer you up.
Check out the link I just posted above.
From little jeremiah's link"
"A forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals in seminaries will not demand an absolute ban, a senior Vatican official told NCR Oct. 7, but will insist that seminary officials exercise "prudential judgment" that gay candidates should not be admitted in three cases.
Those three cases are:
If candidates have not demonstrated a capacity to live celibate lives for at least three years;
If they are part of a "gay culture," for example, attending gay pride rallies (a point, the official said, which applies both to professors at seminaries as well as students);
If their homosexual orientation is sufficiently "strong, permanent and univocal" as to make an all-male environment a risk.
In any case, the Vatican official said, whether or not these criteria exclude a particular candidate is a judgment that must be made in the context of individual spiritual direction, rather than by applying a rigid litmus test."
Guidelines, which ought to have been obvious.
SHOULD this be accurate, it's #2 which is most interesting; not only because there's a hint about the future of Sem profs who are rah-rah-queer types--but in addition, because 'participating in "gay culture"' will be a clear bar, especially if applied with any common sense.
EG, does the Seminarian hang around queer bars? Enjoy shopping for household decorative items? Spend inordinate time worrying about fashion, both personal and household?
you get the drift...
Oh I totally agree. That is my mantra, that these kinds of perversion are mental disorders. But it is also a behavior, in the same way that pyromania is a mental disorder and a behavior. The important point is that it's not an immutable characteristic like left-handedness that the PC crowd want us to believe.
Sure Gay Priests, why not, it has work well so far.
We need Gay Scout leaders too, wandering off into the woods with our children.
Not!
Well, I don't know if they are necessarily obvious before they are made public.
My opinion is that there shouldn't be gay priests allowed at all, regardless of celibacy. I disagree with those posters who find it necessary that one actually practice the act before being classed a homosexual, I believe that what is in the mind is what counts.
That being said, I am sure that there have been many very fine priests who have been gay.
**Gay men can be priests if celibate**
Huh? This sounds like propaganda from the left.
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