Posted on 10/10/2005 10:09:11 AM PDT by marshmallow
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin is not mincing words about the proposed Vatican statement on homosexual seminarians. In plain, simple language, he told The Tablet: "You don't write off a candidate for the priesthood simply because he is a gay man."
You might think that Archbishop Martin is desperate. After all, he ordained zero new priests this year-- the first year in the history of the Dublin diocese that no priests were ordained.
But No. The instructors who train candidates for the Dublin priesthood are rigorous enough on some issues.
The Irish seminary at Maynooth (which is, these days, the only functioning seminary all of Ireland) recently threatened to suspend 5 young men-- 6.7% of the entire student body-- for a particular form of misconduct.
What was the transgression for which this punishment was threatened? What would cause you to write off a candidate for the priesthood?
Brace yourself. Cover the eyes of the children. OK, ready?
They were kneeling for Communion!
Here's why!!
Ten to one says he's a poofter.
In his mind, being a homosexual is not a sin in God's eyes. Yep, there's your problem. Major on the minors, but miss the obvious areas of sin.
Maynooth was one of the treasures of the Catholic world.
In a decent, civilized Ireland this prelate would have been tarred and feathered.
"In a decent, civilized Ireland this prelate would have been tarred and feathered."
My paternal ancestors lying beneath the good green grass of Kerry must be spinning in their humble graves!
St. Patrick, St. Brigid, PRAY FOR US!
Then your quarrel is with the magisterium of the Church. The Catechism clearly says that being a homosexual is not a sin but is a disorder. Doing homosexual acts is a sin. All heterosexuals suffer from some degree of disordered heterosexual lust--the concupiscence left over from original sin. Some heteros suffer from more severe heterosexual disorders as a result of having been exposed to pornography or to friends or parents who see others merely as sexual objects. Some severe hetero disorders are the fault of the person who suffers them because he voluntarily acted out on them and thus further disordered himself. But all of us suffer from some form of disorder. It is wrong to call it ordered when it is disordered; it is wrong to deny that acting out on the disorder is sin. But it is not a sin as long as one does not act out on it (and acting out can be a matter of thoughts of lust, whether hetero or homo, or it can move on to physical acts like masturbation). Heterosexual masturbators sin just as as much as homosexual masturbaters, whether the masturbation is done solitarily or in the form of oral sex by the opposite sex or the same sex. It's the same acting out on a disorder. Homosexuals who suffer the disorder as the result of childhood or adolescent molestation may not be culpable at all for the orientation. They sin when they act out on it and refuse to get therapy for it--if they have not been misled to believe that no therapy is possible, and most people have been deceived on that point. But heteros who have sinned with pornography or casual mere-using hetero sex and thus further disordered themselves and refuse to get help are equally culpable, are sinners. It's easy to point the finger at homosexual sinners but if you do that, make sure you point it back to yourself unless you have never ever acted out on disordered heterosexual desires and very few of us have never done so. When you deal with the log in your own eye then you can deal with the log in the active homosexual's eye.
But it is dissent from the Church's teaching to label homoesexual orientation a sin. And to persist in that dissent after you've been informed about what the Church does teach about this matter would be a sin.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin is not mincing words about the proposed Vatican statement on homosexual seminarians. In plain, simple language, he told The Tablet: "You don't write off a candidate for the priesthood simply because he is a gay man."
I believe Jesus said to Peter, "Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven". Sounds pretty clear-cut to me what Jesus meant papal authority to be.
I sincerely doubt we can find one orthodox-minded priest with homosexual tendencies. If you ask me, they are a subversive risk to sound theology because they impress me as narcissists who want the world to conform to them.
I have had it past my head with the neo-Marxist's desire to create minority rule.
Dear Dionysiusdecordealcis,
Although all are subject to concupisience, nonetheless, a heterosexual's natural inclinations are not fundamentally disordered. A hetersexual may act out (through thought, word, or deed) his sexual orientation in sinful, even disordered ways, but his sexuality, at its root, although perhaps marred by original sin, is not fundamentally disordered, not fundamentally turned against from nature.
Indeed, the heterosexual's most basic sexual desire, to be united in love with a woman, is good, and not evil at all.
The sexuality of the homosexual, however, as long as he suffers from homosexual inclination, has a fundamentally-flawed sexual orientation. His entire sexual orientation is twisted and turned against nature, and toward death.
His most basic sexual desire, gratification through contact with another man, is fundamentally evil.
Although the homosexual may have no culpability for his orientation, he is still broken in a way that one can say makes him unfit for ordination. This unfitness is part and parcel of a homosexual orientation. It is not part and parcel of a heterosexual orientation.
The challenge for a heterosexual is self-mastery and appropriate integration of his existing sexual identity as part of a chaste life. It is neither necessary nor possible to cease to be a heterosexual in order to accomplish this. All other things being equal, a heterosexual man who accomplishes this self-mastery is certainly an appropriate candidate for the priesthood.
The beauty of the gift of celibacy on the part of a chaste heterosexual man is the willingness to sacrifice, to offer as a Gift, the profoundly good thing of wishing to be united in love to one's wife, in exchange for the greater gift of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
Conversely, The homosexual who refrains from sin still suffers from a fundamentally disordered sexuality. Many will argue (including myself) that he is not a fit candidate for the priesthood.
Even if refraining entirely from sexual sin, the homosexual man does not sacrifice one good for a greater good. In sexual terms, he has no good gift to offer up. He is empty, as well as broken.
The challenge for the homosexual is, if possible, to cease being a homosexual, to put to death the inclination and desire for homosexual sex. The challenge for the homosexual man is to become a heterosexual man. Such a man could become an acceptable candidate for the priesthood.
But a man who remains homosexual suffers still from a fundamental moral and psychological disorder, and cannot integrate his sexuality properly.
Certainly, the Church should try to accept for the priesthood men who have achieved self-mastery and are relatively more free from sexual disorders. But these men will only be found among heterosexual men.
sitetest
"The Road to Hell is paved with the Skulls of Bishops".
The paving continues.
Homosexuals don't think the same as Heterosexuals and can't possibly serve as Priests.
His most basic sexual desire, gratification through contact with another man, is fundamentally evil.
Thank-you for stating it plainly, sitetest.
I don't know how to make it any clearer. THERE IS NO SUCH THING SINCE ADAM AND EVE AS A NATURAL HUMAN NATURE. WE ALL LIVE WITH A FALLEN NATURE, EXCEPT OUR LADY AND OUR LORD. And a fallen nature is unnatural. Heterosexual lust is unnatural, homosexual lust is unnatural. If you want to call homosexual lust doubly unnatural, fine. But that's meaningless in the end because just as 2 x 0 = 0, 2 x unnatural = unnatural.
Yes, some heteros and all homos have a greater disorderedness than the simple concupiscent disorderedness with which they were born as a result of things done to them or things they have chosen to do (sins) that increase their original disorderedness. But homosexuals have no monopoly on that increased disorderedness and, as explained below, the increased disorderedness of unacted upon homosexual orientation in most cases does not result from what the person did but from what was done to him as a child. Some heteros also have increased hetero disorderedness as a result of what was done to them (exposure ot pornography; lack of an example of healthy selfless heterosexuality by parents and teachers etc.). Both homos and heteros then increase their disorderedness when they act out on their existing disorderedness, but that is not the issue here.
So, if you want to argue that homosexual desire (caused, say, by molestation as a child or by the absent father--as most of the NARTH research shows) is disordered to a greater degree than concupiscent heterosexual desire, I'll grant that for the sake of argument.
I think that some heteros have great hetero disorderedness, beyond the simple concupiscence and some homos have slight disorderedness, only slightly beyond simple concupiscence. Some heteros may live very pure lives and have only the simple disorderedness of concupiscence to live with--but they are rare, especially in our deeply disordered pornographic society.
The one difference between the two disorders is that in the case of the homosexual who has not acted upon his disordered desire, something happened to him to further disorder what should have been a disordered hetero desire. (I reject any claim that homoexual orientation is genetic--it seems to result from things that happen to the person in the case of genuine homosexual orientation.) People with strong hetero orientation who then commit perverse homosexual acts are different--they have chosen to do a greatly diordered act and commit a sin. But many homosexuals--if Santinover, van Aardweg, Harvey, etc. are correct--are victims of things done them as far as their orientation is concerned and that is not sinful on their part--it was sinful on the part of those who did not parent them well or who molested them.
Only in that sense is something added to the homosexual orientation--a futher disordering caused by someone who abused the person. Only if he acts upon that disorder does he sin--acting includes lustful thoughts deliberately consented to, of course.
I simply am tired of Catholics who want to point at the very real problem of homosexual disorderednes but refuse to recognize that the epidemic of it that we face is the direct result of the horribly disordered heterosexual culture we have had since the French Revolution and especially since the contraceptive revolution. Read E. Michael Jones, Libido dominandi for the evidence of the latter. Read Santinover, Van Aardweg, Harvey etc. for evidence of what causes homosexual orientation. And stop calling homosexual orientation a sin. It is a disorder and a serious disorder but it is not a sin unless consented to. And masturbation, pornography, fornication, re"marriage" after divorce which produces permanent adultery and creates additional disorderedness in the children--and a dozen other hetero sins are also rotting our society from the inside out. Far too many pious and selfrighteous Catholics wag their fingers at the "greater disorderedness" of (unacted upon) homosexual orientation while whitewashing their own and other heteros deeply disordered and often acted upon, in other words, sinful, behavior.
I make no brief for gay acting out on homosexual orientation. I despise it and condemn it. But I also condemn fornication, masturbation, use of pornography, divorce, contraception. I despise them and condemn them. And the simple scientific fact, as best we can currently interpret the data, is that initially most homosexual disorderednesss, before it is acted upon, is not deliberately chosen but results from a victimization. Not to recognize that and then to turn around and call the orientation itself a sin is a gross injustice--to do that is itself a great sin because it is a falsehood, as the Catechism makes clear.
I know that many Catholics doggedly resist hearing this message. They'd like to paint the homosexually oriented person as an Other, as someone on the other side of a sinful boundary from themselves. But to do that deliberately (until now, perhaps you did not know these things, but now you do, so you can't plead ignorance any longer) is to be a whited sepulchre, a selfrighteous pharisee.
What I have outlined here is taken straight from the Theology of the Body of John Paul II. It emphasizes that our natural, God-given, unfallen nature was heterosexual and selfless. If that is true, then heterosexual lust, disorderedness is unnatural and terrible. For too long Catholics have winked at those (especially men) who act out on overwrought libidos. I have heard this from many traditional Catholics: well, yes, it was wrong to lust, it was wrong to do (name the act), but at least it was heterosexual and we all know that boys will be boys, that those hormones are strong. Yes, the hormones are strong and before the Fall, the strong hormones could be acted on without sinning because they were ordered, not disordered. But that exists nowhere anymore and so we have to recognize that our urges, yes, our heterosexual urges, are fundamentally disordered.
Thus you basic premise--that the desire of man for a woman is itself healthy--is flawed. It would be true, absent the Fall. But we live post-Fall and every Catholic theologian I know insists that all of us are disordered in our desire for the opposite sex. It shouldn't be that way but it is that way and you simply sweep that under the rug at the starting point of your case.
True, that men desire women and that women desire men is not disordered, but the way men desire women and the way women desire men, has in fact, since the Fall with two exceptions, been disordered, either in small or great degree. That men desire men or women desire women is always disordered, yes. But there is not a man or woman alive who does not to some degree desire the opposite sex to some degree in a disordered way. If you want to label same-sex desire more disordered, I'll grant it but only if you also agree that, until that same-sex desire is acted upon in thought or deed, it, though more disordered than hetero desire, is in most cases the result of a grave injustice done to the victim suffering from that "greater disorder" of same-sex desire. Those who act out on either hetero or homo disordered desires make themselves culpable of sin and further disorder themselves but homos who have not acted out remain deeply disordered victims. To call them sinners is a serious sin.
I do not expect to persuade you. I weep at the obtusenesss of our culture with regard to both homosexual and heterosexual disorderedness. The animosity toward homosexuals expressed on FR threads angers me because it frequently rests on falsehoods, scientific and theological falsehoods. Living a lie never helps anyone, homo or hetero. Until we really embrace JPII's theology of the body (that anything other than pure, selflesss self-giving sexuality is disordered), until we take seriously how badly messed up our hetero sexuality is, we will only created many more homosexuals because thats what is created them: selfish parenting, parents treating children as trophies, as toys, as mere objects (the opposite of selfless love) and so forth--if the NARTH researchers are correct.
And just to be sure that I am not misunderstood. I do not in any way minimize the disorderedness of homosexual desire and the sinfulnes of homosexual acts. My purpose is to underline both of those in any way possible but, at the same time insist, with John Paul II and St. Paul and Aquinas and Augustine that our lives are deeply impacted by the serious disorderedness of heterosexuals. Denounce homosexual disorderedness vehemently, but just don't let that lead to a minimizing of heterosexual disorderednesss, which is exactly what your post does. You start of by admitting, that, of course heteros are concupiscent but proceed to minimize it by accenting how much more homos are disordered. I would grant you the greater disorder for the latter if you or others valiantly refuse the temptation to use it to give heteros a pass. But because so many Catholics I know do exactly that--use it to give heteros a pass--for that reason I will continue to insist that hetero disorderedness is the most basic social problem we face and that it in fact is producing a significant portion of the homosexual disorderedness we face.
When Catholics begin really to take divorce and contraception and pervasive soft-porn seriously--and by that I mean, stop busting up their marriages, stop making excuses for their unfaithfulness and selfishness, then I'll greet their denunciations of homosexual orientation's disorderedness with acclaim. But they aren't there yet, at least in my experience.
All of this goes twice as strongly for Evangelical Protestants who are even softer on divorce and contraception.
Yes, it's a hard saying. None of us like to hear it. But Jesus was brutal about thtese matters in Mt. 19. It's about time that hetero CAtholics open up their ears and start listening to what JPII had to say on this.
You are the one who is failing to understand the difference between a sin and a disorder. Porn, adultery, etc. are sins - meaning they are a perversion of legitimate and natural acts and desires.
Homosexuality is neither legitimate nor natural, and hence is a disorder. Acting upon the disordered desires is a sin, but the fundamental condition is a disorder.
BTW, I think even JPII believed and taught this. He was not particularly good at reining in homosexuality in the Church, but he wasn't good in any other disciplinary area, either.
Maynooth is dying of liberalism...
Mgr Micheál Ledwith, the former PRESIDENT of Maynooth College resigned following allegations of seminarian sexual abuse, is now a lecturer at the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a New Age school run by J.Z. Knight, who claims to be the channel for a 35,000-year-old warrior from the lost city of Atlantis. He says he intends to publish a book claiming Jesus had a twin brother "Thomas" who travelled across the Asian subcontinent.
Father Joseph Briody, a Donegal priest, published an account of his time at Maynooth in The Irish Catholic newspaper. He claimed trainee priests went on drinking binges, carried condoms, had girlfriends and “inappropriate relationships” with men. Briody added: “There was little emphasis on chastity, morality, purity, character, virtue, self-control, self-sacrifice, ongoing conversion and fidelity in seminary formation.”
You can see Ledwith passing himself off as a priest in good standing while trashing the Church in last year's Ramtha cult film "What the Bleep Do We Know"
Dear Dionysiusdecordealcis,
A lot of what you're saying is arguing against arguments I haven't made. I readily admit that many heterosexuals are much more disordered than mere concupiscience. Yet, heterosexual concupiscience is a fault in what is fundamentally good, fundamentally with nature - the heterosexual orientation. It must be the goal of the Church to look for men whose sexuality, though marred by original sin, is not turned entirely against itself.
Homosexual men, as long as they retain a homosexual orientation, can never meet that standard.
But read what I'm writing, for gosh sakes. "...AS LONG AS THEY RETAIN A HOMOSEXUAL ORIENTATION." I don't have any problem thinking that homosexuals can be healed of their orientation. Only that as long as they are not, they should not be ordained.
"Heterosexual lust is unnatural, homosexual lust is unnatural."
But heterosexual DESIRE is NOT unnatural. In fact, heterosexual DESIRE is entirely natural. That we are marred by original sin and thus seldom is ANY good or holy thing in us found apart from some selfishness, some attachment to sin isn't the point.
With the grace of God, a man CAN have sinless desire of love for his wife! A man CAN imagine falling into love with a woman and wanting to unite with her without sinning! The desire to do so is good, natural, and without sin. That it may usually come bundled with sin isn't the point.
Heterosexual desire finds its moral fulfillment in marriage, which is a sanctified state, which is a sacrament. No matter how imperfectly, the marital state mirrors the relationship of Christ and His Bride, the Church. One hopes and prays that in part through the grace obtained through the sacrament, one will grow in chastity and purity, and one's love for one's spouse will become ever purer, ever more selfless, ever more like Jesus' Love for His Bride, the Church.
There is NO analogous desire for the homosexual man that is in accord with the nature of man. There is no moral fulfillment for his desire, no sanctified state, no sacramental bond that enshrines that state. No relationship that he desires can mirror, no matter how imperfectly, Christ's relationship with His Bride, the Holy Catholic Church.
You seem to be coming dangerously close to suggesting that in practice all sex is sin, and since all sex is sin, it isn't all that important to distinguish between men who have a heterosexual orientation and those with a homosexual orientation.
If you merely want to make the point that folks should humbly be mindful of our own faults, that's a good thing. But if you want to try to make a point that because many heterosexuals commit sexual sins, that homosexuals thus shouldn't be judged unfit for the priesthood, I think you err badly.
"And stop calling homosexual orientation a sin."
I have been posting here at FreeRepublic since January 22, 1998. Please find a single post where I have asserted that a homosexual orientation is a sin. On many occasions, with many interlocutors, I have said just the opposite - there is no sin in being a homosexual person, only in committing homosexual acts.
However, there is also no sin in being an alcoholic. Yet, in a certain place in the soul, the alcoholic is broken. I'm not judging an alcoholic morally if I judge that putting him in charge of the bar at parties might be inappropriate.
"I know that many Catholics doggedly resist hearing this message. They'd like to paint the homosexually oriented person as an Other, as someone on the other side of a sinful boundary from themselves. But to do that deliberately (until now, perhaps you did not know these things, but now you do, so you can't plead ignorance any longer) is to be a whited sepulchre, a selfrighteous pharisee."
In that you address part of this paragraph to "you," I take personal offense and insult, Dionysiusdecordealcis.
At no time have I ever said that the homosexual person is a greater sinner than I am, or is Other. I admire homosexual persons who strive to live lives of chastity. However, the homosexual person suffers from a disorder that DOES make him unfit for the priesthood.
That's not a comment on MY fitness for the priesthood, nor that of any other heterosexual man. It only means that the pool of men who ARE fit for the priesthood are uniformly heterosexual.
"And masturbation, pornography, fornication, re'marriage' after divorce which produces permanent adultery and creates additional disorderedness in the children--and a dozen other hetero sins are also rotting our society from the inside out."
Hey, if you want to rag on sin, I'm all for it. If you want to say that these things are extremely bad, have at it. I'm all for that. I'd go so far as to say that the acceptance of homosexuality and behavior in our society are a result of these heterosexual sins. I'd say that the acceptance of homosexuality and behavior helped exacerbate the recent scandals.
Nonetheless, in spite of all that, and in spite of my own personal sinfulness, your own personal sinfulness, or anyone else's, we must all still uphold the truth. That we often find ourselves, our lives, our actions in contradiction to the truth just doesn't let us off the hook to keep telling the truth.
And one truth being discussed here is that homosexual men should not be ordained. That many heterosexual men are unchaste (in the full meaning of the word) and may therefore also be unfit for ordination is not denied, but not the point.
sitetest
Apples and oranges.
You are using the words "unnatural" and "fallen" synonymously with respect to human sexuality. That's a mistake.
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul says this:
Romans 1:25-27
25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
He makes a clear distinction here between what is "natural" and what is "unnatural". Heterosexual lust is a misuse of something which is natural. Homosexual attraction, on the other hand, is something, which is of itself, unnatural.
God has given man the power of procreation and he infuses a soul into the life which we beget. We may exercise this procreative power imperfectly due to original sin but God still blesses the union of a man and a woman in matrimony.
There is no procreative power in the homosexual union. It is sterile by nature. It is a completely different species.
"I know that many Catholics doggedly resist hearing this message. They'd like to paint the homosexually oriented person as an Other, as someone on the other side of a sinful boundary from themselves. But to do that deliberately (until now, perhaps you did not know these things, but now you do, so you can't plead ignorance any longer) is to be a whited sepulchre, a selfrighteous pharisee."
Sorry. I object. That is a straw man. (And by pinging both of you I do not in any way attempt to suggest that sittest agrees with me from here on out).
Conservative heterosexual Christians don't think themselves "righteous" when they condemn homosexuality anymore than they consider themselves as having taken a vow of poverty when they condemn counterfeiters.
Aquinas taught homosexual acts were worse than incest. And homosexuals are "worse" in Christian Theology. That can de recognized by recalling the Sins crying to Heaven for Vengeance.
And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” (Gn 4:10)
Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me.” (Gn 18:20-21)
“You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do afflict them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” (Ex 21-23)
“You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brethren or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns; you shall give him his hire on the day he earns it, before the sun goes down (for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it); lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be a sin in you.” (Dt 24:14-15
Of the four sins crying to Heaven for vengeance, only one is sexual; and that is homosexual.
* I have a special reason for hating the actions of active homosexuals. As a young adolescent, a man I trusted got me drunk and sexually abused me. The memory of what happened that night has never left me. It never will. I later learned that man sexually abused other young adolescent males after geting them drunk. That is what homosexuals do. I know it isn't what they all do; but the majority of active homosexuals prey upon young males. They prey upon young, trusting, adolescent males. They have some sort of weird antenna that alerts them to the presence of weak young males who have had troubled youths, or come from broken familes, or come from troubled homes, or come from familes who neglect their children. They prey upon the weak and vulnerable and any attempt to try and convince me they are really no different than lustful heterosexual men is going to fail. Period.
*Diogenes has a good sense of humor.
Sounds reasonable to me. S. Patrick must be turning over in his grave!
Prayers for the Church in Ireland.
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