Abbey-Roads2

And your ‘no’ mean ‘no’… - James 5

Today’s first reading at Mass reminded me of the Lord’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, “Say ‘Yes’ when you mean ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ when you mean ‘No.’  Anything beyond that is from the evil one.”  [Matt. 5:37]

Certainly these passages must give anyone pause when one considers the ongoing debate about admitting homosexuals to Holy Orders.  The Vatican just reiterated, indeed clarified Church policy regarding this issue.  All I can say is there must be a lot of homosexuals in the clergy and the episcopate to cause such an uproar over what the pronouncement means.

The Cardinal.

In fact Cardinal Rosales of Manila more or less contradicted  the Vatican’s prohibition shortly after it was made public:

Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila told reporters that homosexuals who do not “act out” can be good priests. His statement came immediately after the release of a letter in which Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio - news), the Vatican Secretary of State, confirmed that a Church policy barring homosexuals from priestly training applies to all the world’s seminaries.

Speaking on Radio Veritas in the Philippines, Cardinal Rosales said that the Vatican did not intend to ban chaste homosexuals from the seminaries. “A homosexual inclination is not bad but acting it out is an entirely different matter, and that is what is written in the sacred scriptures,” he said. - CWN 

So what does the Vatican really say?

“The Vatican policy on the question, explained in an Instruction that was released by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 2005, stipulates that a homosexual identity interferes with a man’s ability to achieve what the document termed “affective maturity and spiritual paternity,” even if the individual refrains from homosexual acts. The Instruction says that anyone who identifies himself as homosexual– whether or not he is sexually active– is not an appropriate candidate for priestly ministry.”- CWN

It was meant for other people. 

I’ve known a fair share of gay priests - how do I know, because they identify as such.  I don’t care if a person identifies as SSA, (same-sex-attracted), gay, queer, homosexual, homosexually attracted, what have you.  If a man identifies himself in this way, there is obviously something “deep-seated” going on.  But many do not believe the rules apply to themselves, or they may feel they are simply meant to placate the faithful.  (Dymphna  has a short post on how confusing this issue can become - it is related to the story of a Texas bishop’s assignment of a gay priest and that priest’s subsequent resignation.)

WDTPRS?  (What do the priests really say?)

Not every “SSA” priest admits his orientation outright, although there are other signs and signals to let another person know, if he wants him to know.  For those willing to discuss the issue, many say they have made peace with their orientation and have accepted it as a gift from God.  They claim to have arrived at a place in life wherein they can be faithful to their vocation, observing chaste celibacy.  So that is good, right?  Pretty much - if he kept himself pure…

Because…

For all of the challenges anyone faces when embracing a life of chastity - I think it is much easier for a gay priest to fall prey to temptation and satisfy the urges of nature, mainly because gay sex is easily had for the taking.  Just ask any married man, or gay man in a relationship, or one who just happens to like cruising and public sex.  (It isn’t always about self-hate when guys do this stuff.  When straight men go to a brothel or massage parlor is it because they hate their sexuality or something inside themselves, or do they just want a quickie, or happen to like dirty sex?) 

Then…

There is that “favored person status“, the “club” atmosphere.  All men hang out with the guys they like and share similar interests with.  Gay men hang out with gay people - and if they are hanging out with straight people, very often these people tend to be “gay” by association.   (J. McNeil, The Church and the Homosexual, 1976)  They’re pretty much open to the artistic, more spiritual and intellectual sensitivity of the SSA priest.  In addition, SSA priests know and cultivate friendships with like-minded priests.  When they become bishops, maybe even cardinals, they continue to cultivate and maintain these friendships and contacts.  The “old boys” - “old girls” club thing.

Cover ups.

The SSA priest understands the lonely isolation of gay men, the slips and falls, and frequent addictive behaviors they can become entangled in.  Therefore they more easily excuse and even cover up their brother priest’s  sin - sometimes assuring him that there was no sin.  It can be like “protective services” for errant priests.  You don’t have to agree with me on this, but you can believe me when I tell you I know what I’m talking about.

Circumventing the rules.

To me, it is a strange obedience when a priest or religious studies and disects a rule to discover all of its loopholes in order to legitimize one’s behaviour.  A priest once explained the loopholes of the Vatican ruling to me in this way:

I have had long discussions with folks in Rome on the three criteria published in the Instruction.  They were very carefully worded so as to respect the infinite variety of souls and of Our Lord’s work in them.  They were not intended to close the door absolutely.  They are principles; their application is entrusted to those who have the grace of state to do so.

.
The three criteria:  

1. those who practise homosexuality,
2. present deep-seated homosexual tendencies
3. or support the so-called “gay culture.”

Numbers 1 and 3 are self-explanatory.  Number 2 is more complex.  The deep-seated tendency is generally manifested in the individual for whom the SSA is very core of his identity.  All of his choices and all of his self-expression proceeds from what he perceives as being (ontologically) constitutional of who he is as a person.  Homosexuality as a state of being is a relatively new concept.  The traditional moral theology looks at one’s choices and behaviour: a question, not of being, but of doing, or saying, or acting out, or otherwise expressing what is an intrinsically disordered inclination. - Letter

Obedient dissent? 

Okay, perhaps SSA vocations can be reviewed on a case by case basis, thereby permitting a man with previous homosexual inclination to be ordained - that is a big risk to take though.  How can it be determined the man has resolved the issues of sexuality and the underlying psychological issues that affected the inclination in the first place?  What about a relapse?  It would definitely have to be an exception to obtain a dispensation to admit a “former homosexual” to a seminary or to ordination, and not the “rule” - as it seems to have been in the not too distant past.  That this is an issue for gay men already ordained suggests to me their personal issues have not at all been successfully resolved.

Or, Creative Fidelity?

Diogenes  has an interesting post on this same subject, he writes:

It’s no secret that the old line religious orders are the most fervid dissenters from the ban on homosexuals, and their superiors comprise a kind of Shadow Cabinet within the Church: hostile to the policy of the Holy See but outwardly deferential to its authority — and, most importantly, incubating in their ranks a parallel government and parallel apparat through which the “alternative” policies are discreetly advanced. The Shadow Cabinet’s own term for this genial subversion is Creative Fidelity, and any housewife whose husband protests he was “creatively faithful” to her during his Las Vegas business jaunt will be able to gauge the degree to which the Pope is reassured by the euphemism. - Ad dubiam. 

Yeah, so I don’t think that ”smoke of Satan” thing Pope Paul VI referred to was just about liturgical abuse either. 

Links:

David at Cosmos, Liturgy, Sex  has a couple of presentations which deal with these issues on a more anthropological, theological level, and are easier to understand. 

Nothing Extraordinary

The Vatican will ban gays from seminaries.