Catholic Church and Gay Priests
Catholic Church's policy on gays isn't enlightened
By Joan Garry Wed Nov 30, 6:50 AM ET
I was raised Catholic. I never sat in a classroom without a crucifix on the
wall. Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school and Catholic college. I
sang Kumbaya while playing my guitar at Folk Mass.
I sang at my dad's funeral, too, with his barbershop chorus. The song was Be
Not Afraid. For one person in the church that dark day, the song was filled
with irony. The priest who said the Mass was under scrutiny for sexual abuse
allegations. Not long after the funeral, he was gone.
There is no question that Pope Benedict XVI has a big mess on his hands. People are calling it a sex abuse scandal, but let's be honest - it's about abuse of power.
And now we also have an element of emotional abuse as seminarians all across
the USA assess Tuesday's final mandate from the pope. When will they knock
on my door? What will they ask? What will I say?
Two months ago, it was widely reported that the Vatican would investigate all 229 U.S. seminaries for "evidence of homosexuality."
On Tuesday, the Vatican announced that it intends to bar from the seminary men who "support the so-called gay culture" or have "deeply rooted gay
tendencies." While I don't find this entire mess amusing, I did chuckle at
that one. Supporting gay culture?
The problem, as I see it, has little to do with homosexuality and a lot to do with how candidates for seminary are interviewed and selected. A book published earlier this year, Educating Leaders for Ministry, unearths a study that estimates only 10% of seminarians are highly qualified for the educational component of their work and nearly 40% are hindered by poor education, learning disabilities or lack of familiarity with American culture.
Instead of gauging public opinion, and spinning language for the announcement, why doesn't the pope analyze the interview process? If the Church insists on clinging to the celibacy vow, make it meaningful. Make sure that applicants have authentic leadership skills. Ensure that this is indeed a calling for every one of them. Make sure they understand that with power comes responsibility.
And then, after the pope fixes that process, he can focus on creating a clear, transparent and uniform set of rules that holds each of them (gay or straight, priest or bishop) accountable.
Now here's a confession. I'm not a practicing Roman Catholic, so maybe I'm a
bit jaded. But my 78-year-old mom is a practicing Catholic. She heads off to
daily Mass. I thought she might have a different point of view. She didn't.
"We all knew a lot of priests we figured were gay," my mom told me. "If they
did a good job, so what?"
She went on: "Decisions like this make the Church look worse and worse. The
whole thing gives me the willies."
I hadn't heard that expression in a long time, but it felt just right.
The pope is filling my mom and millions of others with fear about the future
of her Church. Not to mention the fear that must be palpable in each of
those 229 seminaries as they await the "verdict."
The last line of that beautiful song I sang at my dad's funeral is "and I
will give you rest."
With his new document, the pope mistakenly thinks he is putting this issue to rest. He isn't. Rather, he is choosing to foster fear and unrest.
Some gay priests (who would be exempt from the witch hunt) are already discussing moves in that direction - "outing" themselves through pulpit boycotts - to illustrate that gay priests, like gay people, are everywhere. Let's hope they find their voices and preclude the Church from making a choice that doesn't feel very Christian.
Otherwise, as they say on Survivor, the tribe will have spoken. One by one,
the flames of generous and spiritual men prepared to take a vow of celibacy
will be extinguished, and they will be voted off the island of Roman Catholicism. And the institution, not those men, will be left in the dark.
Joan Garry is a civil rights advocate, freelance writer and former executive
director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Above, we have an essay by Joan Garry and next, the official
church rulings by the Pope on Tuesday. Being Episopalian (we have Catholic roots
as you may know, and some Episcopal churches [the ones going 'high mass' in their
practices] ae almost 'more Catholic' than the Catholic churches), I watch all this
with much amazement; a couple of my Catholic friends have discussed the 'problem'
with me [of sexual misbehavior by priests] and in their mortification have asked why it had to happen 'to their church'. I tell them it is not just Catholics, but in fact Protestants have the very same problem, with sexually misbehaving ministers. I tell them the difference comes in the way you Catholics place such reverence upon your priests. To your way of thinking, he is a Holy Man of God and all that. And that
is how you deal with it. There are probably _three or four times_ as many Protestant ministers who have 'acted out' inappropriatly over the years as there have been priests in that category. The difference is, most Protestants don't give a damn about their pastor in this way.
_If_ a protestant pastor is caught in this kind of situation, believe me you, there will be a meeting of the Trustees, the Board of Directors, the Elders or whatever they are called _that very day_ and their *employee*, the pastor will be out -- on his Ass! -- the same day. They'll try to keep it hushed up; (and after all, the pastor will _hardly_ be in a position to complain about it) and hopefully the incident will not become all that well known so as to not stink up the place too badly or affect the offering plate. They'll probably give him a chance to tender a resignation, effective immediatly 'for personal reasons' and go about finding a new pastor to fill his role. And if the pastor _does_ refuse to resign (the poor fool!) then the Trustees will offer to 'go public', get the police involved and all that. Any further discussion of the matter will never leave that room. That is how the Protestants generally handle that situation, same as Boy Scouts, same as school teachers, etc. If the indiscretion was so severe that police got in on it at some point and the Trustees cannot do damage control beforehand (i.e. Dennis Rader and the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita) then they deal with it as best they can. The protestants do not keep the mis-behavior ones on the payroll, as the Catholics have done for God knows how many years. So after years and years of it all building up in the Roman Church, its no wonder it finally all split apart and flooded out at one time as it has done for a few years now. We have had _much_ more of it, but ours is 'spaced apart' differently, one by one as they are found out.
Something about pedophiles causes them to seek out employment where they can be in control over the children in their midst, be it school teacher, scout master, pastor, whichever.
We Episcopalians like to say 'we are much better' and in fact, if _homopobia_ is left out the equation, where no secrets are hidden, then things do seem to work better. We have at least one Bishop who is gay and makes no bones about it, and a few priests. We also have some 'closet cases' (men whose homosexual inclination is kept a secret) and if anyone is likely to get in trouble, it would be those 'closet cases'. Our priests can be in a marriage relationship if they wish (homo or hetero).
Now, let's turn our attention to what the Pope had to say on Tuesday. Like so many, he confuses _homosexuality_ with _child rape_ an entirely different subject. It is _NOT_ true -- a damnable lie, actually -- that gay men 'tend to be' child molestors.
Anyway, here is a summary of the Pope's thoughts:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
November 30, 2005
Directive Banning Gay Priests Is Released by Vatican
By IAN FISHER
VATICAN CITY, Nov. 29 - The Vatican officially issued a new document today
that strongly reinforces its ban on ordaining homosexuals as priests, and a
cardinal, making the church's first public comment on the decree, rejected
criticism that it is discriminatory.
"It's not discrimination, for example, if one does not admit a person who
suffers from vertigo to a school for astronauts," the cardinal, Zenon
Grocholewski, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican
department that issued the directive, said in an interview broadcast on
Vatican Radio.
The document's official release ended months of piecemeal leaks on one of
the most sensitive issues facing the church. Last week, a copy of the entire
directive was posted on an Italian Web site, sparking debate especially
among American Catholics about how restrictive the church meant to be and
how the rules would be applied in practice.
It was officially published today in two forms, as a booklet that ran for
seven pages, in the English translation with footnotes, and in the official
Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
The newspaper also published a much longer commentary by Tony Anatrella, a
French Jesuit and psychologist, who repeated the church's long-held
condemnation of homosexuality both in the priesthood and in the wider
culture. Generally, he said, homosexuality "presented a destabilizing
reality for people and for society."
"During these past years, homosexuality has become a phenomenon that is
always increasingly worrying and in many countries is considered a quality
that is normal," he wrote. He said that homosexuality was a "sexual tendency
and not an identity."
According to the text of the document itself, the church will not admit to a
seminary nor ordain "those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated
homosexual tendencies or support the so-called `gay culture.' "
Only candidates who had experienced "homosexual tendencies" that were
"transitory" will be ordained, the directive said, provided such tendencies
had been "overcome" three years before ordination as a deacon, a step on the
path to full ordination as a priest.
But the document did not provide definitions of terms like "tendencies,"
"deep-seated" or "overcome," though Cardinal Grocholewski gave several
specific instances of homosexuality that could be considered "transitory"
and thus possibly acceptable.
"For example, some curiosity during adolescence, or accidental circumstances
in a state of drunkenness, or particular circumstances, like someone who was
in prison for many years," he said in the Vatican Radio interview.
Advance reports of the new instructions pleased many conservative Catholics,
who say that church teaching on homosexuality needs to be restated and
enforced. But many liberals, who say that celibacy rather than sexual
orientation ought to determine eligibility for the priesthood, have been
equally critical.
A central question is whether the new rules will allow the ordination of a
man who is celibate but believes his basic sexual orientation to be
homosexual.
The new instructions do not apply to priests already ordained, though some
liberal Catholics predicted resignations in protest by some priests who
consider themselves gay.
Though the general content of the document has been widely known for some
time, many local church officials withheld comment until today, when the
official version was issued.
The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop
William S. Skylstad of Spokane, issued a statement calling the new policy a
"timely document" in an era when homosexuality and gay marriage are so
widely discussed.
He said it was a "valid concern" for the church to seek priests who are
chaste, mature and "can faithfully represent the teaching of the church
about sexuality, including the immorality of homosexual genital activity."
Bishop Skylstad said that for people who wonder whether "homosexually
inclined" men can be good priests, the answer is yes. In the future, he
said, a man could be considered for the priesthood "if homosexual tendencies
are indicative of a passing problem in the candidate's life."
He called on bishops, major superiors, seminary rectors, priests and
seminarians in the United States to discuss the new instructions thoroughly.
In an effort to stir resistance to the Vatican directive, the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force, based in Washington D.C., called on closeted gay
priests to go public and "denounce this affront to their faith, vocation and
dignity." It said that heterosexual priests, bishops and parishioners should
stand up for gay priests.
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the
understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic
issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I
believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner, in this instance, New York Times Company.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
By Joan Garry Wed Nov 30, 6:50 AM ET
I was raised Catholic. I never sat in a classroom without a crucifix on the
wall. Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school and Catholic college. I
sang Kumbaya while playing my guitar at Folk Mass.
I sang at my dad's funeral, too, with his barbershop chorus. The song was Be
Not Afraid. For one person in the church that dark day, the song was filled
with irony. The priest who said the Mass was under scrutiny for sexual abuse
allegations. Not long after the funeral, he was gone.
There is no question that Pope Benedict XVI has a big mess on his hands. People are calling it a sex abuse scandal, but let's be honest - it's about abuse of power.
And now we also have an element of emotional abuse as seminarians all across
the USA assess Tuesday's final mandate from the pope. When will they knock
on my door? What will they ask? What will I say?
Two months ago, it was widely reported that the Vatican would investigate all 229 U.S. seminaries for "evidence of homosexuality."
On Tuesday, the Vatican announced that it intends to bar from the seminary men who "support the so-called gay culture" or have "deeply rooted gay
tendencies." While I don't find this entire mess amusing, I did chuckle at
that one. Supporting gay culture?
The problem, as I see it, has little to do with homosexuality and a lot to do with how candidates for seminary are interviewed and selected. A book published earlier this year, Educating Leaders for Ministry, unearths a study that estimates only 10% of seminarians are highly qualified for the educational component of their work and nearly 40% are hindered by poor education, learning disabilities or lack of familiarity with American culture.
Instead of gauging public opinion, and spinning language for the announcement, why doesn't the pope analyze the interview process? If the Church insists on clinging to the celibacy vow, make it meaningful. Make sure that applicants have authentic leadership skills. Ensure that this is indeed a calling for every one of them. Make sure they understand that with power comes responsibility.
And then, after the pope fixes that process, he can focus on creating a clear, transparent and uniform set of rules that holds each of them (gay or straight, priest or bishop) accountable.
Now here's a confession. I'm not a practicing Roman Catholic, so maybe I'm a
bit jaded. But my 78-year-old mom is a practicing Catholic. She heads off to
daily Mass. I thought she might have a different point of view. She didn't.
"We all knew a lot of priests we figured were gay," my mom told me. "If they
did a good job, so what?"
She went on: "Decisions like this make the Church look worse and worse. The
whole thing gives me the willies."
I hadn't heard that expression in a long time, but it felt just right.
The pope is filling my mom and millions of others with fear about the future
of her Church. Not to mention the fear that must be palpable in each of
those 229 seminaries as they await the "verdict."
The last line of that beautiful song I sang at my dad's funeral is "and I
will give you rest."
With his new document, the pope mistakenly thinks he is putting this issue to rest. He isn't. Rather, he is choosing to foster fear and unrest.
Some gay priests (who would be exempt from the witch hunt) are already discussing moves in that direction - "outing" themselves through pulpit boycotts - to illustrate that gay priests, like gay people, are everywhere. Let's hope they find their voices and preclude the Church from making a choice that doesn't feel very Christian.
Otherwise, as they say on Survivor, the tribe will have spoken. One by one,
the flames of generous and spiritual men prepared to take a vow of celibacy
will be extinguished, and they will be voted off the island of Roman Catholicism. And the institution, not those men, will be left in the dark.
Joan Garry is a civil rights advocate, freelance writer and former executive
director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Above, we have an essay by Joan Garry and next, the official
church rulings by the Pope on Tuesday. Being Episopalian (we have Catholic roots
as you may know, and some Episcopal churches [the ones going 'high mass' in their
practices] ae almost 'more Catholic' than the Catholic churches), I watch all this
with much amazement; a couple of my Catholic friends have discussed the 'problem'
with me [of sexual misbehavior by priests] and in their mortification have asked why it had to happen 'to their church'. I tell them it is not just Catholics, but in fact Protestants have the very same problem, with sexually misbehaving ministers. I tell them the difference comes in the way you Catholics place such reverence upon your priests. To your way of thinking, he is a Holy Man of God and all that. And that
is how you deal with it. There are probably _three or four times_ as many Protestant ministers who have 'acted out' inappropriatly over the years as there have been priests in that category. The difference is, most Protestants don't give a damn about their pastor in this way.
_If_ a protestant pastor is caught in this kind of situation, believe me you, there will be a meeting of the Trustees, the Board of Directors, the Elders or whatever they are called _that very day_ and their *employee*, the pastor will be out -- on his Ass! -- the same day. They'll try to keep it hushed up; (and after all, the pastor will _hardly_ be in a position to complain about it) and hopefully the incident will not become all that well known so as to not stink up the place too badly or affect the offering plate. They'll probably give him a chance to tender a resignation, effective immediatly 'for personal reasons' and go about finding a new pastor to fill his role. And if the pastor _does_ refuse to resign (the poor fool!) then the Trustees will offer to 'go public', get the police involved and all that. Any further discussion of the matter will never leave that room. That is how the Protestants generally handle that situation, same as Boy Scouts, same as school teachers, etc. If the indiscretion was so severe that police got in on it at some point and the Trustees cannot do damage control beforehand (i.e. Dennis Rader and the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita) then they deal with it as best they can. The protestants do not keep the mis-behavior ones on the payroll, as the Catholics have done for God knows how many years. So after years and years of it all building up in the Roman Church, its no wonder it finally all split apart and flooded out at one time as it has done for a few years now. We have had _much_ more of it, but ours is 'spaced apart' differently, one by one as they are found out.
Something about pedophiles causes them to seek out employment where they can be in control over the children in their midst, be it school teacher, scout master, pastor, whichever.
We Episcopalians like to say 'we are much better' and in fact, if _homopobia_ is left out the equation, where no secrets are hidden, then things do seem to work better. We have at least one Bishop who is gay and makes no bones about it, and a few priests. We also have some 'closet cases' (men whose homosexual inclination is kept a secret) and if anyone is likely to get in trouble, it would be those 'closet cases'. Our priests can be in a marriage relationship if they wish (homo or hetero).
Now, let's turn our attention to what the Pope had to say on Tuesday. Like so many, he confuses _homosexuality_ with _child rape_ an entirely different subject. It is _NOT_ true -- a damnable lie, actually -- that gay men 'tend to be' child molestors.
Anyway, here is a summary of the Pope's thoughts:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
November 30, 2005
Directive Banning Gay Priests Is Released by Vatican
By IAN FISHER
VATICAN CITY, Nov. 29 - The Vatican officially issued a new document today
that strongly reinforces its ban on ordaining homosexuals as priests, and a
cardinal, making the church's first public comment on the decree, rejected
criticism that it is discriminatory.
"It's not discrimination, for example, if one does not admit a person who
suffers from vertigo to a school for astronauts," the cardinal, Zenon
Grocholewski, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican
department that issued the directive, said in an interview broadcast on
Vatican Radio.
The document's official release ended months of piecemeal leaks on one of
the most sensitive issues facing the church. Last week, a copy of the entire
directive was posted on an Italian Web site, sparking debate especially
among American Catholics about how restrictive the church meant to be and
how the rules would be applied in practice.
It was officially published today in two forms, as a booklet that ran for
seven pages, in the English translation with footnotes, and in the official
Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
The newspaper also published a much longer commentary by Tony Anatrella, a
French Jesuit and psychologist, who repeated the church's long-held
condemnation of homosexuality both in the priesthood and in the wider
culture. Generally, he said, homosexuality "presented a destabilizing
reality for people and for society."
"During these past years, homosexuality has become a phenomenon that is
always increasingly worrying and in many countries is considered a quality
that is normal," he wrote. He said that homosexuality was a "sexual tendency
and not an identity."
According to the text of the document itself, the church will not admit to a
seminary nor ordain "those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated
homosexual tendencies or support the so-called `gay culture.' "
Only candidates who had experienced "homosexual tendencies" that were
"transitory" will be ordained, the directive said, provided such tendencies
had been "overcome" three years before ordination as a deacon, a step on the
path to full ordination as a priest.
But the document did not provide definitions of terms like "tendencies,"
"deep-seated" or "overcome," though Cardinal Grocholewski gave several
specific instances of homosexuality that could be considered "transitory"
and thus possibly acceptable.
"For example, some curiosity during adolescence, or accidental circumstances
in a state of drunkenness, or particular circumstances, like someone who was
in prison for many years," he said in the Vatican Radio interview.
Advance reports of the new instructions pleased many conservative Catholics,
who say that church teaching on homosexuality needs to be restated and
enforced. But many liberals, who say that celibacy rather than sexual
orientation ought to determine eligibility for the priesthood, have been
equally critical.
A central question is whether the new rules will allow the ordination of a
man who is celibate but believes his basic sexual orientation to be
homosexual.
The new instructions do not apply to priests already ordained, though some
liberal Catholics predicted resignations in protest by some priests who
consider themselves gay.
Though the general content of the document has been widely known for some
time, many local church officials withheld comment until today, when the
official version was issued.
The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop
William S. Skylstad of Spokane, issued a statement calling the new policy a
"timely document" in an era when homosexuality and gay marriage are so
widely discussed.
He said it was a "valid concern" for the church to seek priests who are
chaste, mature and "can faithfully represent the teaching of the church
about sexuality, including the immorality of homosexual genital activity."
Bishop Skylstad said that for people who wonder whether "homosexually
inclined" men can be good priests, the answer is yes. In the future, he
said, a man could be considered for the priesthood "if homosexual tendencies
are indicative of a passing problem in the candidate's life."
He called on bishops, major superiors, seminary rectors, priests and
seminarians in the United States to discuss the new instructions thoroughly.
In an effort to stir resistance to the Vatican directive, the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force, based in Washington D.C., called on closeted gay
priests to go public and "denounce this affront to their faith, vocation and
dignity." It said that heterosexual priests, bishops and parishioners should
stand up for gay priests.
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the
understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic
issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I
believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner, in this instance, New York Times Company.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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