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Questions Arise Over Seminary Inspections
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 9/16/05 | Cathleen Falsani

Posted on 09/21/2005 5:34:27 AM PDT by marshmallow

Beginning early next month, teams of specially appointed Vatican investigators will visit Chicago area Catholic seminaries to determine whether priests are being trained properly and to what degree homosexuality is present on campus.

The Vatican has ordered "apostolic visitations," as the inspections are formally known, of all 229 seminaries and houses of formation for priests in the United States. The visitations have been anticipated for several years and are, in part, a response to the clergy sex abuse scandal that has rocked the American church since 2002.

While some church leaders insist the visitations are meant to examine how well priests are being trained spiritually and intellectually, others say the inspections are a thinly veiled attempt to root out homosexuals in the clergy.

"They are basically checking to see if we are in compliance with what the church has asked us to do," said the Rev. Thomas Baima, provost of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, the largest seminary in the United States. Nine "apostolic visitors" are to begin their examination of Mundelein's 205 seminarians and 40 faculty members the first week of October. The visitors will also interview about 100 men who have graduated from Mundelein in the past three years, Baima said. "The issue is, if we're training men for chaste celibacy, we want to make sure there's no sexual activity going on at all."

Awaiting a mysterious document

The Rev. Robert Silva, head of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, does not believe the visits are "witch hunts" for gay clergy, but he does think the Vatican is placing undue emphasis on homosexuality.

"We need not to focus on specific homosexuality, but we need to focus on the integration of our own human sexuality and the ability to live a deeply committed virginal life that is fully and wholly sexual," Silva said.

Of the 56 questions in the Instrumentum Laboris, a 13-page instructional document outlining how visitations will be conducted and the kinds of questions apostolic visitors will be asking, six questions are marked "must be answered." Only one -- "Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary?" -- explicitly mentions homosexuality.

The apostolic visitations are getting under way as Catholics await the arrival of a Vatican document addressing homosexuality in the priesthood. The document has long been rumored to exist, but some observers thought it might have fallen by the wayside in light of Pope John Paul II's death, said the Rev. Donald Senior, president of Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, where four apostolic visitors are expected to begin interviewing faculty in December. The visitors will return in March to interview some 170 religious-order seminarians enrolled at CTU.

It is not known what the rumored Vatican document will say, but some observers see hints in comments made recently by Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, the American prelate who is coordinating the apostolic visitations for the Vatican. "Anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary," even if the man has been celibate for more than a decade, O'Brien told the National Catholic Register.

Gay priest derides 'witch hunt'

Such remarks belie the true intent of the apostolic visits, according to one Chicago-area Catholic priest who is gay. "Flying in the face of reality and scientific evidence, rather than dealing with the real issue of psychic immaturity in priests who are either gay or straight -- which is clearly the problem for pedophiles . . . -- they are going on a witch hunt to get rid of all the gays," said the priest, who requested anonymity. "It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

"Why stop at seminaries? Why not deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals? Are they going to be asked if they are homosexuals and if they are, be forced to resign their positions?" he said. "If that happens, there will be many empty offices, many empty parishes and many empty sees."


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; General Discusssion; Ministry/Outreach; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture; Theology
KEYWORDS: gays; homosexualagenda; priests; ruleone; seminaries; vatican
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"Why stop at seminaries? Why not deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals? Are they going to be asked if they are homosexuals and if they are, be forced to resign their positions?" he said."If that happens, there will be many empty offices, many empty parishes and many empty sees."

We should be so lucky.

A smaller, de-sodomited Church works for me.

1 posted on 09/21/2005 5:34:27 AM PDT by marshmallow
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To: marshmallow

Isn't a seminary inspection what Monica L. was doing for Bill C.?


2 posted on 09/21/2005 5:35:35 AM PDT by StrangerInParadise (This tagline has been reported stolen. If you see it, call BR-549..........)
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To: marshmallow
"We need not to focus on specific homosexuality, but we need to focus on the integration of our own human sexuality and the ability to live a deeply committed virginal life that is fully and wholly sexual," Silva said.

OK.

They need to fire this moron for starters.

3 posted on 09/21/2005 5:51:37 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: marshmallow
" A smaller, de-sodomited Church works for me."

Me, too!
4 posted on 09/21/2005 6:08:11 AM PDT by Convert from ECUSA (tired of all the shucking and jiving)
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To: wideawake; marshmallow
""We need not to focus on specific homosexuality, but we need to focus on the integration of our own human sexuality and the ability to live a deeply committed virginal life that is fully and wholly sexual," Silva said."

I see the Unitarian New Ager 1968-stale-leftover hippies have started passing the same ole gas. These pimple-brains are nothing but broken records. This Silva nut case would fit right in with the local ECUSA "parish" down the street from where he parks his rusty dusty. He should depart and make tracks for the ECUSA, who'd welcome his addled-brained "philosophy.!
5 posted on 09/21/2005 6:12:05 AM PDT by Convert from ECUSA (tired of all the shucking and jiving)
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To: marshmallow

LOL! That was my first thought, too. Sounds like a plan to me. Especially the bit about the bishops.

I have always thought that one of the things that has protected gay priests has been a cadre of gay (and I mean actively gay) bishops. I'm sure we all have our candidates for this list, starting with the holder of a certain major West Coast see. But until somebody starts rooting out the bishops who have fostered and protected the gay environment that has grown in seminaries, dioceses and religious orders, the problem is not going to be solved.

Remove just one of them for that and all the rest would get the message. After all, they can probably dump their boyfriends faster than they can dump their comfortable benefits, adoring treatment by the press (since they are all liberals, of course), and all the other perks that go with the job.


6 posted on 09/21/2005 6:22:10 AM PDT by livius
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To: marshmallow

" they are going on a witch hunt to get rid of all the gays," said the priest, who requested anonymity. "It would be funny if it weren't so sad."

That should cut their pedophilia problem significantly.
Thats not sad at all.


7 posted on 09/21/2005 6:24:28 AM PDT by Adder (Can we bring back stoning again? Please?)
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To: wideawake

Ten-to-one he's a poof.


8 posted on 09/21/2005 6:33:08 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilisation is aborting, buggering, and contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: ArrogantBustard

If you lisp what he said in your head, it sounds very familiar.


9 posted on 09/21/2005 6:37:28 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: wideawake
If memory serves, Mundelein Seminary is featured prominently in one of the earlier chapters of Goodbye, Good Men.
10 posted on 09/21/2005 6:40:20 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilisation is aborting, buggering, and contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: Adder
That should cut their pedophilia problem significantly. Thats not sad at all.

Agreed. This should have been done in the American seminaries 40 years ago. It would have saved so much suffering.

The problem wasn't generally pedophilia, though there might have been a few. It was usually pederasty and the complaintants were males.
The pederast priests didn't go after little children, boys or girls. They went after the altar-boy age, usually close to teenage....pederasts. They are just as sick, only their sickness is rather more specific than pedophilia.

11 posted on 09/21/2005 6:59:39 AM PDT by starfish923
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To: marshmallow
"Why stop at seminaries? Why not deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals?

I'm all for it. If that's his main complaint, I say give him what he wants.

12 posted on 09/21/2005 7:09:05 AM PDT by Rutles4Ever
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To: starfish923

YUP!!

In every discussion I ever get into about queers, either with them or their apologists, Ancient Greece comes up. Pederasty raised to an almost official level.

Now, the argument is always made that queers are not pedophiles [and how homophobic of me to suggest such a thing!]and that Greece was a pinnacle of homosexuality[and we so admire Greek culture...].

I would wonder if the same sort of "study" will be done in the nunneries.


13 posted on 09/21/2005 7:10:43 AM PDT by Adder (Can we bring back stoning again? Please?)
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To: marshmallow

Thanks, marshmallow, for posting this!


14 posted on 09/21/2005 7:13:34 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: marshmallow

**Why not deacons**

LOL!

Deacons are usually married! How much does this writer know about the subject?


15 posted on 09/21/2005 7:14:27 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: marshmallow
Vatican to Start U.S. Seminary Evaluations
Apostolic Seminary Visitation To Begin This Fall
U.S. Bishops to Begin Inspecting Seminaries
Prelate Says Gays Shouldn't Be Ordained
American overseeing Vatican evaluation of US seminaries says gays should not be ordained

Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence
POPE APPROVES BARRING GAY SEMINARIANS
Pope bans homosexuals from ordination as priests
Questions Arise Over Seminary Inspections

16 posted on 09/21/2005 7:16:25 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Rutles4Ever
If that's his main complaint, I say give him what he wants.
I think his main complaint is he's afraid that they'll enforce Rule One.

"We need not to focus on specific homosexuality, but we need to focus on the integration of our own human sexuality and the ability to live a deeply committed virginal life that is fully and wholly sexual,"
Translation: "Please don't root out the poofters!"

17 posted on 09/21/2005 7:17:20 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilisation is aborting, buggering, and contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: Adder
I would wonder if the same sort of "study" will be done in the nunneries.

NONE. (Pun intended.)

Male homosexuality is disgusting to both men and women.
Female homosexuality is disgusting to women....but a "turn on" in pornography to men. Men just love to see women "do it" to each other.
It's so odd.
Being a straight woman, I never figured that out.

18 posted on 09/21/2005 7:29:01 AM PDT by starfish923
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To: starfish923
Men just love to see women "do it" to each other.

Do they, now? All of them?

19 posted on 09/21/2005 7:39:20 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilisation is aborting, buggering, and contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: starfish923

"but a "turn on" in pornography to men."

I suppose thats "true" but it certainly is not for me...which makes me wonder how true it really is. I know there is a market for it, however, and many times there is some in a "straight" film....

wait...

I'm starting to sound like an expert, aren't I?

:]


20 posted on 09/21/2005 8:00:37 AM PDT by Adder (Can we bring back stoning again? Please?)
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