Posted on 08/02/2013 3:09:13 AM PDT by markomalley
If he were just sharing a house with a man --- for example --- there wouldn't be any public proof of a homosexual relationship. Many guys share apartments or houses with other guys, not only as students but in many other circumstances, best friends, business associates, especially in places where housing is expensive and salaries are low.
Marriage, however, proclaims their cohabitation as an unmistakably sexualized arrangement. That's where an institution which opposes sodomy is forced to draw a line.
The word "homosexuality" didn't even enter into Church parlance until fairly recently. Previously, the concept of a persistent sensual weakness would have been covered by the more general word "concupiscence." A man strongly under the influence of any of the passions (this would mean any form of sexual covetousness, as well as covetousness for money, luxury, personal prominence, power) would be considered unsuitable for seminary or for ordination.
This, in turn, would go back to the Council of Trent document Cum adolescentium aetas which called for the foundation of the first modern diocesan seminaries (as distinct from monastic novitiates), which were to train candidates for the priesthood in intellectual and spiritual discipline, "to extirpate heresy and reform morals", as it decreed in its Fifth Session (June, 1546)
Thanks for the info...
Thank you for the details.
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