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To: markomalley
Is the policy of the Church to allow priests who are homosexual but chaste still in effect? If so, is it possible that at least some or most of the priests in question are celibate?

I'm perhaps too cynical to hope that they might all be. Mea culpa.

3 posted on 12/05/2009 2:51:36 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham
Is the policy of the Church to allow priests who are homosexual but chaste still in effect?

30. Those To Be Excluded; Practical Directives

1. A candidate who shows himself certainly unable to observe religious and priestly chastity, either because of frequent sins against chastity or because of a sexual bent of mind or excessive weakness of will, is not to be admitted to the minor seminary and, much less, to the novitiate or to profession. If he has already been accepted but is not yet perpetually professed, then he should be sent away immediately or advised to withdraw, according to individual cases, no matter what point in his formation he has already reached. Should he be perpetually professed, he is to be barred absolutely and permanently from tonsure and the reception of any Order, especially Sacred Orders. If circumstances should so demand, he shall be dismissed from the community, with due observance of the prescriptions of canon law.

2. Consequently, any candidate who has a habit of solitary sins and who has not given well-founded hope that he can break this habit within a period of time to be determined prudently, is not to be admitted to the novitiate. Nor can a candidate be admitted to first profession or to renewal of vows unless he has really amended his ways. But if a novice or a temporarily professed religious gives evidence of a firm purpose of amendment with good grounds for hope of success, his probation can be extended as provided for in canon law (canons 571, S2; 574, S2; 973, S 3; Stat. Gen., art. 34, S 2, 3 ).

Well-grounded hope of amendment can be provided by those youths who are physically and psychically normal or endowed with good bodily and mental health, who are noted for solid piety and the other virtues intimately connected with chastity, and who sincerely desire the religious and priestly life.

3. A much stricter policy must be followed in admission to perpetual profession and advancement to Sacred Orders. No one should be admitted to perpetual vows or promoted to Sacred Orders unless he has acquired a firm habit of continency and has given in every case consistent proof of habitual chastity over a period of at least one year. If within this year prior to perpetual profession or ordination to Sacred Orders doubt should arise because of new falls, the candidate is to be barred from perpetual profession or Sacred Orders (cf. above, no. 16) unless, as far as profession is concerned, time is available either by common law or by special indult to extend the period for testing chastity and there be question of a candidate who, as was stated above (no. 30, 2) affords good prospects of amendment.

4. If a student in a minor seminary has sinned gravely against the sixth commandment with a person of the same or the other sex, or has been the occasion of grave scandal in the matter of chastity, he is to be dismissed immediately as stipulated in canon 1371, except if prudent consideration of the act and of the situation of the student by the superiors or confessors should counsel a different policy in an individual case, sc., in the case of a boy who has been seduced and who is gifted with excellent qualities and is truly penitent, or when the sin was an objectively imperfect act.

If a novice or a professed religious who has not yet made perpetual vows should be guilty of the same offense, he is to be sent away from the community or, should the circumstances so demand, he is to be dismissed with due observance of canon 647, S 2, 1 . If a perpetually professed religious is found guilty of any such sin, he is to be perpetually excluded from tonsure and the reception of any further Order. If the case belongs to the external forum, he is to receive a canonical warning unless, as provided for in canons 653 and 668, there be grounds for sending him back to the world (cf. Stat. Gen., art. 34, S 2, 4 ).

Lastly, should he be a subdeacon or deacon, then, without prejudice to the above-mentioned directives and if the case should so demand, the superiors should take up with the Holy See the question of his reduction to the lay state.

For  these reasons, clerics who in their diocese or religious who in another community have sinned gravely against chastity with another person are not to be admitted with a view to the priesthood, even on a trial basis, unless there be clear evidence of excusing causes or of circumstances which can at least notably diminish responsibility in conscience (Circular Letter of S. C. of the Sacraments, n. 16; Canon Law Digest, 4, p. 314).

Advantage  to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.

5. Very special investigation is needed for those students who, although they have hitherto been free of formal sins against chastity, nevertheless suffer from morbid or abnormal sexuality, especially sexual hyperesthesia or an erotic bent of nature, to whom religious celibacy would be a continual act of heroism and a trying martyrdom. For chastity, in so far as it implies abstinence from sexual pleasure, not only becomes very difficult for many people but the very state of celibacy and the consequent loneliness and separation from one's family becomes so difficult for certain individuals gifted with excessive sensitivity and tenderness, that they are not fit subjects for the religious life. This question should perhaps receive more careful attention from novice masters and superiors of scholasticates than from confessors since such natural tendencies do not come out so clearly in confession as in the common life and daily contact.

Sacred Congregation For Religious, Religiosorum institutio (Instruction on the Careful Selection And Training Of Candidates For The States Of Perfection And Sacred Orders), February 2, 1961

Nothing has really changed since that time. Those who have already been ordained, though, cannot be disposed of as easily as being prevented from entering the seminary in the first place.

11 posted on 12/05/2009 4:04:00 PM PST by markomalley (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus)
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To: trisham

That was never official church policy; it was the disobedience of the near unanimity of the American bishops who were warned in 1961 that the ordination of homophilic (homosexuality is by classicial definition not celibate) priests, even those sincerely expecting to remain celibate, would likely cause grave scandal, since the rigors of celibacy (not merely abstinence, but celibacy) require great sexual and emotional health.

That said, those priests who had homophilic leanings but remain chaste received their ordinations obediently, regardless of the disobedience and foolishness of their bishops. If they have managed to remain chaste, their virtue is all the more heroic, since their chastity is probably a far greater burden than it might be to a healthy person. (This is sorta like admiring the guy who showed up for his marathon training 50 pounds overweight, but still finishes.)

However, I would sincerely wonder how you could out a chaste priest.

I think this nut job might be shooting himself in the foot. He’s casting a suspicion on any of the priests who might be soft on gay issues. And if he actually outs anyone for violating his celibacy, he’s only going to make it easier for the church to marginalize that priest.


16 posted on 12/05/2009 11:16:31 PM PST by dangus (Nah, I'm not really Jim Thompson, but I play him on FR.)
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