Homosexuality Within The Priesthood

[franciscanheart]

the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education — which has authority in matters of seminary training — issued a document designed to clarify the Church’s position on the issue of homosexual men studying for the priesthood. The Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders was approved by Pope Benedict for publication in 2005. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html By its very nature, it is not an infallible pronouncement; (emphasis mine) but Catholic bishops and administrators of their seminaries throughout the world are to form their own judgments of prospective candidates in light of its interpretation of Church teaching.

The document reiterates the position of the Catholic Church that homosexuals are to be profoundly respected, as children of God. Nevertheless, it states unequivocally that the Church “cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’” The document goes on to explain that such people “find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women,” and reiterates several times the need for a candidate for the priesthood to reach “affective maturity,” which “will allow him to relate correctly to both men and women, developing in him a true sense of spiritual fatherhood towards the Church community that will be entrusted to him.”

On the surface, it does sound as if the Church is denying the rights of some Catholic men to receive the sacrament of holy orders, doesn’t it? But the Congregation rebuts this point of view in the same Instruction, noting bluntly that “the desire alone to become a priest is not sufficient, and there does not exist a right to receive sacred ordination.” This is entirely in keeping with the Church’s theological understanding of the priesthood as a sacrament designed, by its very nature, for the spiritual benefit of others, and not solely for the recipient of holy orders himself. Priestly ordination should not be conferred on a man who is judged by his bishop to be ill-equipped — for whatever reason — to work among Christ’s faithful as a priest.

This theological notion is, in fact, completely consistent with canon 1025.2, which states bluntly that a candidate for ordination must be considered by his bishop to be beneficial to the ministry of the Church. In other words, a man may argue that he is being called by God to the priesthood, but if his bishop feels that he is for some reason unfit, the man cannot insist that he be ordained.

Finally in my opinion, just my opinion, those men who are at peace with themselves and God and have embraced Chasity and have united with Christ's cross and are good men but happen to have a tendency towards one temptation more so than other sexual temptation should be given just as much consideration as a person who has a tendency towards heterosexual temptation. Temptation isn't sinful; it's how you deal with that temptation.

Thank you, thank you, Father! (As always.)

So then the attraction to the same sex would not definitively rule out the potential of a religious vocation outside of the priesthood for other men and women?

[cappie]

The more important question for me is  "Do I have the ability to live out the life as defined by the rules and expectations of the diocese or community I am thinking about joining?"  Am I able to share in their life and life-style comfortably, cheerfully and generously, without an ongoing sense of anxiety and oppression?  Can I participate in their mission without it constantly draining my inner resources?  Do I find my interactions with the community, its leadership and those they serve replenishing and reinvigorating or intimidating, stressful and overwhelming?

 

Somehow the celibate religious life itself and the ministerial work of the community must suit you and you must suit the life so that you aren't paying a horribly high price just to stay in.  Somehow there must be a meshing of your interests, abilities and competencies with those necessary for you to live your vocation with a sense of purpose and joy.  Both must go together and blend a bit into each other.  Lots of people, very good people, have tried religious life and found they just didn't fit in - they couldn't live it.  Some people are just not cut out for it anymore than some people can't be airline pilots or pharmacists or ranchers or what not.  Celibate religious life just doesn't suit some people - they haven't got the skills, inclinations or grace to handle it.  They may be happy with and very good at some aspects of the life or work, but overall it just doesn't "fit" them.  Again, God does not force people into vocations that he has not given them the grace to handle and talents to prosper at.  He respects the individual gifts and personalities of each of us.

[franciscanheart]

The more important question for me is  "Do I have the ability to live out the life as defined by the rules and expectations of the diocese or community I am thinking about joining?"  Am I able to share in their life and life-style comfortably, cheerfully and generously, without an ongoing sense of anxiety and oppression?  Can I participate in their mission without it constantly draining my inner resources?  Do I find my interactions with the community, its leadership and those they serve replenishing and reinvigorating or intimidating, stressful and overwhelming?
 
Somehow the celibate religious life itself and the ministerial work of the community must suit you and you must suit the life so that you aren't paying a horribly high price just to stay in.  Somehow there must be a meshing of your interests, abilities and competencies with those necessary for you to live your vocation with a sense of purpose and joy.  Both must go together and blend a bit into each other.  Lots of people, very good people, have tried religious life and found they just didn't fit in - they couldn't live it.  Some people are just not cut out for it anymore than some people can't be airline pilots or pharmacists or ranchers or what not.  Celibate religious life just doesn't suit some people - they haven't got the skills, inclinations or grace to handle it.  They may be happy with and very good at some aspects of the life or work, but overall it just doesn't "fit" them.  Again, God does not force people into vocations that he has not given them the grace to handle and talents to prosper at.  He respects the individual gifts and personalities of each of us.

(Father) Cappie, you have my love. Thank you -- for this and everything else. You're a rock star in a priest's clothing. ;)

[ThatOneCatholic]

I believe that it is perfectly fine if Holy Mother Church has gay priests within her community.  They are doing the best possible thing by making either a vow or promise to remain celibate, seeing as how scripture tells us that is what homosexuals should do. If they feel the need to answer God and follow and serve Him, by all means let them!  They are doing Christ's will for their lives, and that is all anybody could ask of them.  Gay priests out there, MORE POWER TO YA!   :winner:

[cappie]

(Father) Cappie, you have my love. Thank you -- for this and everything else. You're a rock star in a priest's clothing. ;)

 In all things it's just as a follower of Jesus -- as a follower of the Way, we are asked to live our lives with compassion; to seek justice; to care and to do something about that caring. Where Jesus was silent on certain relationships, we should not fill that silence with hateful noise because we simply can't stand the peace and quiet. Amen :proud:

[PhuturePriest]

(Father) Cappie, you have my love. Thank you -- for this and everything else. You're a rock star in a priest's clothing. ;)

 

I think a picture of Cappie with an electric guitar with a stack of Marshall amps behind him would be pretty awesome. :smile3:

[Lil Red]

 In all things it's just as a follower of Jesus -- as a follower of the Way, we are asked to live our lives with compassion; to seek justice; to care and to do something about that caring. Where Jesus was silent on certain relationships, we should not fill that silence with hateful noise because we simply can't stand the peace and quiet. Amen :proud:

 

:love:
 

[nikita92]

Papist- I understood your line of thought! How can you call a priest "GAY" if he is suppose to be celibate?? I've also heard the church to be known as "don't ask, don't tell" just like the military.

[nikita92]

Papist-"have to be call to act in persona Christi. This might be my paradigm of thinking or just my plain ignorance, but I can't get over what I see as inharmoniousness." I agree! (Personally, that is what I have been raised (and I am 55) in relating to as what a Catholic priest represents. "Persona Christi"! Try to get my strict Catholic grandmother (who died in 1985 at 85) to be all warm and fuzzy about a homosexual priest in her confessional box back in the 60's?! Ahh..." CAPITAL N and CAPITAL O WAY!

[Dudemaster]

All sensitive attraction is imperfect, but there are degrees. Some here seem to imply that attraction and emotion doesn't matter as long as one does not act on it. This view, i think, displays the modern tendency to more or less reduce ethics to exterior actions. The broad catholic tradition on this point suggests otherwise; the exterior act takes as its formal principle the interior acts and its emotions, intentions and overall rectitude. Meaning that an act is what it is because of its source in the agents character, as its cause and principle. This seem to confirm the common intuition that acts are different, not just because of their external object (i.e. what physically happens) but also because of who does it and the properties of that agent. The same exterior act can be different if performed by a deaf child, or a very girlish woman, or an older man, and so on. This is not at all irrelevant to how acts.
I think the exterior acts required of a religious person, esp. a priest, are such that they benefit from a certain type of character. To do the stuff priests do, you'd need a character whose internal acts (again; emotions, intentions, overall rectitude) give a good form to the external acts. Relating with the proper maturity to other people is not just a matter of physically doing the right things externally, but that these acts come from proper personal dispositions. Attractions and emotions matter a great deal; they make the act into what it is!
A person whose sensitive attraction is imperfect to the degree that he or she is sexually interested in a person of the same sex, will act differently from a person who is disposed to be attracted to the opposite sex. If it really is the question of a sexual orientation to the same sex, it is extremely unlikely that this would not produce a certain kind of interior actions. Which is why many people intuitively know if a person is homosexual or heterosexual, from observing actions; even if the actions as exterior is close to identical, we pick up differences from intuitions about their internal principles. 

 

What i am not suggesting is that homosexual persons cannot act well, or morally. While emotions may be moral or immoral, some we cannot control and that which is out of our control cannot be culpable. I am only saying that the actions that is required of religious persons are such that it is very important that they have a certain integrity, not only with regards to the external act but also the internal. Pastoral work makes large demands on the rectitude of ones actions, parishioners and seeking souls are sensitive (not as in easily offended, but as in perceptive and intuitive) about the quality of actions in this way. The role as spiritual father, i think, requires a character that is specific. A woman can do the same actions as a priest externally or physically, but is very unlikely to act internally with the same properties as a man would. Same thing about motherhood. These offices or vocations or whatever are constituted of acts that require specific qualities in the internal act, and if your attraction is imperfect to the point that you are sexually attracted to the same sex i think you would not be able to do them as they should be done. I am not a donatist, suggesting that the sacraments require qualities in a person beyond those which are conferred in a proper ordination. But i am suggesting that pastoral work requires very precise acts with a high integrity of a particular kind, over time, and that 'deep seated' sexual disorientations are contrary to what these acts requires. Everyone is obviously different, and we all have dispositions that make our actions unique, and this is good. But some dispositions are such that they affect the integrity of an act alot, and in an area where the integrity needs to be of a particular quality (counselling, confessions, and so on) this is very important. I do think eg. homosexual dispositions can be beneficial for different set of actions though, in different settings. Some homosexual men (actively or not) can act in ways that are unique. I think these kind of dispositions can give, for example, acts of a very high sensitivity. Im not sure about the sexual orientation of Keats (he probably wasnt, either), but his interior side shines through beautifully in what he is and does. Compare the style of cardinal Manning to Newman. I am not suggesting i know anything about Newmans sexual orientation. But the acts of Manning have a resoluteness about them, and a masculinity that is different from Newman, in his style of writing and so on. I learned that when Manning died, they found him wearing a necklace with a picture of his wife (he was ordained after she died) under his clothes. No one knew he was wearing it. But certainly, these sort of things contribute to how persons act. I am quite uncomfortable with priests of deep seated same-sex attraction, not because im afraid they would act differently in the external sense but because their actions lack the integrity that i expect from a person of such a vocation.

 

For these reasons i am, like the mainstream of western tradition, against the idea that moral life is only about external acts. This is a very sad way of reducing agency, that makes things like culture, sex, age, and a host of personal dispositions, totally irrelevant. Which is not true in what we experience; we all act differently. Which is a way for God to communicate his goodness. 

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

gay and bi is a sexual sin, being honest.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

 Future priest, i think homosexual feelings doesn't mean your homosexual we have these emotions caused by various reasons,usually stress. But entertaining the feelings to the point of needing sexual gratification outside of the confides of marriage is a sin.

[the171]

Many DO have these feelings, Tab. Don't just discount it by attributing it to stress. ALSO! It is only a sin if you give into the temptation just like any other desire.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Many DO have these feelings, Tab. Don't just discount it by attributing it to stress. ALSO! It is only a sin if you give into the temptation just like any other desire.

 

I don't know but i guess it is Whether you pray for Jesus to save you from the feeling or thought or not i guess. But Jesus says in holy scripture that " i tell you no! Even if a man thinks of a married women lustfully he has already commited the act in his heart." What does this passage of sacred scripture mean, is he being direct and only talking about the commandment of thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife, or sin in general. Another example is the old testament states " do not let the sun set on your anger." I take that as whether harbouring the anger or not. I guess we must cry out to our warrior LORD christ Jesus to fight the battle anytime feelings or thoughts of sin appear hence why st paul said " pray all the time." to be in a constant vigil waiting for the evil spirit/s to come and try rob us of communion with The father,son and holy spirit. All in all i think it says in the o.t. that we are to subdue the beast and the beast is sin, however long it takes personaly and communaly.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

JC "worry won't add a day to your life."