Catholic Document on Priests And ‘Gay Culture’ Stirs a Debate

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON – A new document refining the Vatican’s position on homosexuals in the priesthood will place greater pressure on American bishops, seminary rectors, and local clergy, and may inflame tensions among leaders of the Catholic Church in America, observers said yesterday.


Despite criticism from some quarters, those supportive of the document’s stipulations said it might also result in more careful attention being paid to the process by which young men become priests, ultimately proving beneficial to the church.


The document, first made public by an Italian Catholic news agency, Anista, was issued by the church’s Congregation for Catholic Education, a group of cardinals and bishops whose responsibilities include overseeing the training of new priests. It provides “instruction concerning the criteria of vocational discernment regarding persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to seminaries and holy orders,” and won praise from some orthodox Catholics as an important affirmation of central church teaching on the matter of homosexuality.


The new document – prompted by sexual abuse scandals that erupted in 2002 in which hundreds of men alleged that they had been molested by priests during their adolescence – reiterates Catholic teaching on the subject of homosexuality, distinguishing between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies. The former are deemed “grave sins” and are considered a violation of natural law and doctrine. They are also violations of a priest’s or prospective priest’s commitment to celibacy.


Homosexual tendencies, however, are often less clearly identifiable, and the “Instruction” describes “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” as contrary to the laws of God and nature and “often a trial” for the men and women who have them. Individuals with homosexual tendencies, pursuant to church teaching and stated in the “Instruction,” “must be accepted with respect and sensitivity; every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should avoided.”


The document, however, stipulates that the Vatican “deems it necessary to clearly affirm that the Church, even while deeply respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the Seminary or Holy Orders those who are actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture.”


The document stipulates, moreover, that would-be priests whose homosexual tendencies are the result of transitory issues, such as delayed adolescence, must “clearly overcome” their tendencies “at least three years before diaconal Ordination.”


Although the document immediately prompted a backlash from critics of the church’s teaching on sexual morality, observers both supportive of the Vatican and in open disagreement with it said yesterday that despite the hubbub, the document represented little new in terms of church teaching.


It did, however, represent a new commitment to making sure that priests’ vows and Catholic dogma are taken seriously, analysts said.


The editor of First Things, a New York-based journal of religion, the Reverend Richard John Neuhaus, said yesterday that while he had not read the text of the document, what he had heard of its precepts suggested “nothing that has not been said many times before.”


Yet while the words outlining Catholic teaching on homosexuality represented 2,000 years of immutable tradition, they were infused with a new urgency as a result of the 2002 scandals, Rev. Neuhaus said. “The context, at least in this country, is dramatically different, and therefore the words mean something that people pretended they did not mean before.” He cited a 1961 document prohibiting gay behavior in the priesthood that had, evidently, gone largely unenforced.


The gravity of the abuse, Rev. Neuhaus said, “has taken the wink-and-nod element out of play” when it comes to the church’s prohibitions on homosexuality and its requirement of celibacy among priests. “And that is a change, and it’s a welcome change – and a change purchased at an enormous price,” Rev. Neuhaus said.


The requirement of a three-year commitment to celibacy before entering the priesthood was new, he said, but Rev. Neuhaus emphasized that whether the period was three years, five years, or 10 years, what was most significant was that the church was now requiring some quantifiable dedication to living the chastity required of priests.


Even one of the church’s most vociferous critics and a professor of theology at Southern Methodist University, Charles Curran, said yesterday that the document represented the “status quo.”


“It’s not saying there can be no gays, it’s just saying they have to be celibate,” Rev. Curran said. The priest was removed from his teaching post at the Catholic University of America and stripped of his license to teach Catholic doctrine in 1987 for opposing the church’s teachings on contraception and other matters of sexual morality.


Another critic of the church and a professor at Northwestern University, Garry Wills, however, said the document would likely reduce the number of young men applying for the priesthood and would intensify the crisis of empty parishes already afflicting the church in America.


“Why don’t they address the pedophile problem first?” Mr. Wills, a former Jesuit seminarian, said.


A fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a renowned observer of the Catholic Church, George Weigel, said criticisms like Mr. Wills’s were to be expected.


“I think there will be the usual attempt to paint the Catholic Church as behind the times, segregated, etc.,” Mr. Weigel said. “But that’s just the way it is when the Catholic Church defies the politically correct view on anything having to do with human sexuality.”


The document, Mr. Weigel said, represented how the church often finds itself in a no-win situation with critics. Opponents lambaste the church for having failed to address the abuse scandals quickly enough, Mr. Weigel and other observers said, yet when the church takes steps to remedy the situation by addressing gay culture in the priesthood, it also finds itself under fire.


Moreover, Mr. Weigel added, a study conducted by the National Review Board of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that the overwhelming majority of abuse cases were not pedophilia, but instead homosexual acts between male priests and post-pubescent young men.


Mr. Weigel also said he doubted the new document would discourage young men from entering the priesthood. He said that the result would be greater care exercised in the formation of priests and the training of seminarians. Ultimately, he and other observers said, the real implications of the document will depend on how it is interpreted by the rectors of seminaries and the clerical hierarchy in America.


“All of this inevitably comes down to whether the local bishop wishes to implement these things, and the church is not going to set up some sort of gestapo,” Mr. Weigel said. “The bishops have to take the responsibility to know their seminarians, and it makes no sense that a bishop is barely acquainted with a man before he ordains him a priest,” he added.


A Jesuit priest and author based in New York City, the Reverend James Martin, agreed that the document put greater pressure on bishops, adding that it would likely intensify divisions within the American church among clergy who disagree about the church’s teachings on homosexuality and its prevalence in the priesthood.


Two American bishops have already come out against the church’s increased strictures on homosexuality, and Rev. Martin said he thought the new document “certainly brings those tensions to the surface.”


While the new stipulations had to be interpreted and implemented by seminary rectors and novice directors, Rev. Martin said, he expected that many seminarians would take care of the matter themselves, withdrawing as a result of the document’s rhetoric.


Representatives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops declined to comment yesterday, citing the fact that the document had not yet been officially released by the Holy See.


The New York Sun

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