Not too sure when will the rules be passed.. Get ready for
another round of "witch-hunt"..
And they can only force those who are openly gay out of Church,
while they can't do anything to those in the closet.. So what
now?
Part 1/2
New Vatican rule said to bar gays as new priests
New York Times
Ian Fisher and Luarie Goodstein
September 22, 2005
www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/international/europe/22vatican.html?incamp=article_popular_2
ROME - Homosexuals, even those who are celibate, will be barred
from becoming Roman Catholic priests, a church official said
Wednesday, under stricter rules soon to be released on one of the
most sensitive issues facing the church.
The official, said the question was not "if it will be published,
but when," referring to the new ruling about homosexuality in
Catholic seminaries, a topic that has stirred much recent rumor and
worry in the church. The official, who has authoritative knowledge
of the new rules, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of
the church's policy of not commenting on unpublished reports.
He said that while Pope Benedict XVI had not yet signed the
document, it would probably be released in the next six
weeks.
In addition to the new document, which will apply to the church
worldwide, Vatican investigators have been instructed to visit each
of the 229 seminaries in the United States.
Although work on the document began years ago under Pope John Paul
II, who died in April, its release will be a defining act in the
young papacy of Benedict, a conservative who said last spring that
there was a need to "purify" the church after the deeply damaging
sex scandals of the last several years.
The church official said the ban would pertain only to candidates
for the priesthood, not to those already ordained. He also said the
document did not represent any theological shift for the church,
whose catechism considers homosexuality "objectively
disordered."
Although the document has not been released, hints of what it will
say are already drawing praise from some Catholics, who contend
that such a move is necessary to restore the church's credibility
and who note that church teaching bars homosexuals, active or not,
from the priesthood.
Other Catholics say, though, that the test should be celibacy, not
innate sexuality, and they predict resignations from the priesthood
that can worsen the church's deep shortage of clergy.
"I'm hearing that some men will choose to leave, because if they
don't, it would be like living a lie," said the Rev. Robert Silva,
president of the American National Federation of Priests' Councils,
who opposes a ban because it would be "extremely hurtful" to chaste
gay priests who are serving the church.
But the church official who discussed the expected new rules said
the document called for barring even celibate men who considered
themselves homosexual because of what he contended were the
specific temptations of seminaries.
"The difference is in the special atmosphere of the seminary," he
said. "In the seminary, you are surrounded by males, not
females."
The issue of homosexuality in the priesthood and seminaries has
long been a difficult one, which the Vatican appears to be
addressing, particularly in the United States, on two apparently
connected fronts.
The visits to the American seminaries cover a wide range of
concerns, but among those the investigators will be looking for is
"evidence of homosexuality" and whether seminarians are being
properly prepared to live celibately. Both the document and the
investigation come under the authority of the Vatican Congregation
for Catholic Education.
Taken together, the document and visits seem aimed at imposing a
stricter standard on both the atmosphere at seminaries and on whom
they accept as candidates for the priesthood. Archbishop J. Michael
Miller, the congregation's secretary, noted at a meeting in
Baltimore last week with more than 100 bishops, priests and lay
people that the new rules would come as no surprise because there
was an existing Vatican document barring homosexuals from the
priesthood, according to two church officials who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because they felt there might be
repercussions if they spoke for attribution.
Archbishop Miller appeared to be referring to a 1961 document that
recommended against ordaining anyone who has "perverse inclinations
to homosexuality or pederasty."
But that document has been overlooked by seminaries in the United
States for many years. Although practices vary, most American
seminaries in recent years have not uniformly rejected candidates
with a homosexual orientation, seminary officials say.
Instead, they try to ascertain case by case whether the candidate
is capable of living in a chaste and celibate manner, often
rejecting candidates who have been sexually active in the years
before deciding to join the priesthood.
Many gay men have entered the priesthood, though, and they are
increasingly open with their colleagues, their bishops and in some
cases, even with their parishioners, about their sexual
orientation. The Rev. Donald Cozzens, a former American seminary
rector, contended five years ago in his book "The Changing Face of
the Priesthood" that "the priesthood is or is becoming a gay
profession."
James Hitchcock, a conservative Catholic and a professor of history
at St. Louis University, said some seminaries had reached the point
of being "openly welcoming of homosexuals" and "don't even regard
chastity necessary."
"In that environment - and then you add to that the pedophilia
scandals - probably the Vatican thinks that strong medicine is
necessary for a serious disorder," said Mr. Hitchcock, who said he
would nonetheless favor a system that allows for rare cases to be
decided individually.
In fact, the degree to which the new rules would allow some slack
appears to be a major question. It seems clear that the rules will
be far more restrictive than current practice.
In what many church experts saw as a hint of the new rules, the
archbishop leading the seminary visits was quoted last week by The
National Catholic Register as saying even homosexuals not sexually
active for a decade or more should not be accepted into
seminaries.
But the church official said the rules were not absolute. The very
definition of homosexuality, he said, is not fixed. And there may
be rare cases in which a prospective seminarian who is confused
about his sexuality might be accepted if the church decided he
would still make a suitable, celibate priest.
"There is room for this," he said.
Still, Father Silva of the Federation of Priests' Councils and
three other church officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because they feared they would lose their jobs if they revealed
dissension within church ranks, said several influential American
church leaders had tried to persuade Vatican officials not to
release a document about gay seminarians because it would create
more problems in the priesthood than it would solve.
"People would do what they used to do, which is not be honest,"
said a gay American priest and professor at a Catholic college who
did not want to be identified because he fears he could lose his
church position if his sexual orientation was known.
"The irony is, if you look at the exact ages and seminary
graduating classes of those priests who were convicted of sexual
abuse in the past few years, they were not on the whole people who
entered seminaries in the 1980's, when there began to be more
openness about homosexuality," he said. "These were people from the
old closeted days.
"So what the church is doing is repeating, in a weird way, the
conditions they had before that gave rise to the abuse
crisis."