FYI
Posted on 12/05/2002 11:27:36 AM PST by Polycarp
Vatican Department Says No to Gay Priests BY PHILIP PULLELLA Reuters
VATICAN CITY - An influential Vatican department has said homosexuals and men with gay tendencies should not be ordained as priests -- an opinion seen as a foretaste of things to come in the Roman Catholic Church.
The view was contained in a letter published without fanfare in the latest bulletin of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship as an official response to a bishop's request about whether gay men should be ordained.
"The ordination...of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and from a pastoral point of view, it is very risky," said Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez.
"Therefore a homosexual person or a person with homosexual tendencies, is not qualified to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders," he said.
While the opinion of Medina Estevez, who retired in October, was not definitive, it could influence a future Vatican document on homosexuals in the clergy.
The Catholic Church's traditional teaching says that homosexual orientation is not sinful but homosexual acts are.
The Church's Catechism says homosexual tendencies are "disordered" and some Vatican officials have said that men with homosexual inclinations should be barred from the priesthood. The Vatican did not publicize Medina Estevez's letter, but the fact that it was published in an official organ of the Holy See was seen as a bad omen by those who support the admittance of gay men to the priesthood as long as they remain chaste.
According to Vatican sources, the Holy See is preparing a document that could prevent men with homosexual tendencies from becoming priests.
"These comments seem to be either aimed at preparing people for this document or pressuring the rest of the Vatican to accept their points of view," said Father Tom Reese, editor of America, the influential magazine of the Jesuit order.
"It looks like this document is coming and it looks like it is going to say no to gays in the priesthood," Reese, a theologian, told Reuters from his office in New York.
Reese is among those in the Church who support gays in the priesthood as long as they obey the vows of celibacy that apply to all men in the clergy, whether heterosexual or homosexual.
PAEDOPHILIA SCANDALS
The issue of gay men in the priesthood, long one of quiet discussion, was thrown into the open this year following pedophilia scandals in the United States.
While Church officials insist there is no link between pedophilia and celibacy, the scandals have opened debate on many aspects of sexuality among the all-male clergy, particularly because most abuse cases concerned homosexual acts.
The Vatican document is being worked on by several departments, including the Congregation for Divine Worship, which oversees the application of all the sacraments.
The text is at an early stage of drafting and it is not clear when it will be released.
Significantly, Medina Estevez said he had formulated his response after consulting the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the key department in issues of doctrinal orthodoxy.
In its present form, the document being prepared would require bishops and directors of seminaries to block men with a homosexual orientation from entering the priesthood.
A number of bishops around the world, however, have expressed deep reservations, about how it could be implemented.
Vatican: Gays unsuitable for priesthood By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
VATICAN CITY - The ordination of gay men into the priesthood is "imprudent" and "very risky," according to an letter written by a top Vatican official.
The claim by Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez likely will fuel the debate about homosexuals in the priesthood - a perennial issue gaining new attention after the clergy sex abuse scandal in the United States and elsewhere.
Medina Estevez, the recently retired prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, offered his thoughts about gays in the priesthood in a letter published in the congregation's magazine, Notitiae.
Ordination "of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent, and from the pastoral point of view, very risky," Medina Estevez wrote.
"A homosexual person or someone with homosexual tendencies is not, therefore, suitable to receive the sacrament of holy orders," he said in the letter to an unidentified cleric dated May 16 and published in the magazine's November-December editions. Medina Estevez retired as prefect in October.
The Vatican is drafting new guidelines for accepting candidates for the priesthood that are expected to address the ordination of gays.
The document - under prepared by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education - is not expected before next year.
News reports in Italy and the United States in recent weeks have said that initial drafts of the new guidelines recommend seminaries bar men with homosexual tendencies.
The issue of gays in the priesthood has gained attention after accusations in the United States that priests molested children, and that Church leaders tried to cover it up by moving known abusers from parish to parish.
Most of the victims have been adolescent boys. Experts on sex offenders say there is no credible evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to abuse children, but several church leaders have argued that gay clergy are to blame for the scandal.
In a letter dated May 16, 2002, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez-- who was, at the time, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship-- said: "Ordination to the diaconate or priesthood of persons with homosexual tendencies is absolutely unadvisable and imprudent, and from a pastoral point of view, extremely risky." The letter by Cardinal Medina Estevez, which was a response to a query from a bishop, has now been published in the November-December edition of a bulletin put out by the Congregation for Divine Worship.
An unidentified bishop had written to the Congregation for the Clergy, seeking a definitive answer regarding Vatican policy on the ordination of men with homosexual tendencies. That Congregation handed the question over to the Congregation for Divine Worship, prompting the response from Cardinal Medina Estevez.
The cardinal's letter indicates that he was replying to the query from the unnamed bishop (who is understood to have been American) after having consulted with other Vatican dicasteries, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as well as the Congregation for the Clergy. He said that he had also been guided by previous Vatican statements, and had taken into account the lessons that had been derived from many requests for dispensation from the priesthood.
Earlier, in 1997, the Congregation for Divine Worship had circulated a letter to the world's bishops, proposing some guidelines for the selection of candidates for priestly ordination. Among the required characteristics were "sufficient affective maturity and a clearly masculine sexual identity."
The Congregation for Catholic Education is expected to take up the same topic in a document that will appear in the near future, intended for the guidance of seminary rectors.
Since writing his answer to the bishop's request, Cardinal Medina Estevez has stepped down as the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. That post is now held by Cardinal Francis Arinze.
Pinging...
FYI
I just wish they had done this 4 decades ago (well, actually, THEY DID!), and repeated and enforced it stringently every day since (which they failed to do after saying this exact same thing in 1961!). Then we wouldn't be in this mess to this degree.
Hurray!
After months of saturation coverage of this scandal in the Boston media, I doubt that this announcement will receive any coverage.
Nope, they will try to ignore it to death. John Paul is a very conservative Pope. He just has to find enough people around him that are not tainted by buggery to put the word out. And that won't be easy. Remember all the news in the past few months about the JP being so old andf frail he should retire? That is the way the media want to silence this.
Despite what critics of the Church imagine, the Vatican really hesitates from issuing hard and firm declarations about matters that are not, strictly speaking, issues of Faith and Morals. And this issue is NOT strictly tied to Faith and Morals, but to a more nebulous issue, namely, the qualifications that make a man fit for ordination to the ministerial priesthood. What I predict is that the final form of any document on this will be joined/ blended with something relating to priestly formation in general; the document will talk about all aspects of the training and about the need for regular visitations from outsiders to assure orthodoxy, etc. Included in the document will be clear but bland language about the need to make sure that the candidate has reached the proper level of integration of personal sexuality and personhood, etc etc.
This letter published today will be out there, of course, for those who want to clarify the bland language of the document; but the language of this letter will not be normative. My prediction.
Now lets see the Church try to keep a lid on this even larger mess about to coming out in the open.
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