homosexuals in priesthood

[MC Just]

Document re homosexuals in priesthood warranted, prudent, says Catholic League

New York, Nov. 24, 2005 (CNA) - The Vatican document indicating that homosexuals cannot be admitted to the seminary and to holy orders is warranted and prudent, said Catholic League president Bill Donohue. The document was leaked to the press Tuesday but its official release is expected Nov. 29.

The Vatican document says that while homosexuals must be respected, the Catholic Church “cannot admit to seminaries and to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, who present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or who support the so-called gay culture.” Donohue said most practicing Catholics would welcome this decision.

“The Vatican is prudent not to have an absolute ban on admission of homosexuals to the priesthood: there are too many good men with homosexual tendencies who have served the Church with distinction,” said Donohue.

“But there is a monumental difference between someone who is incidentally homosexual and someone for whom the gay subculture is central to his identity,” Donohue pointed out. “Only those blinded by sexual politics will fail to make this distinction.”

Donohue also made reference to the sex-abuse scandal in the Church, stating that while most homosexual priests were not molesters, most molesters were homosexuals.

“The John Jay Report made this clear: 81 percent of the victims are male and almost as many are postpubescent. This is not called pedophilia—it is called homosexuality,” he said.

“The Catholic laity is justifiably angry with molesting priests and their enabling bishops, few in number though they have been,” Donohue continued. “What this [Vatican] document does is to send a signal—those who cannot seriously commit to a celibate lifestyle have no legitimate role to play in the priesthood. This stricture should apply equally to heterosexuals.”

[Church Punk]

As it should be!

Why is it that in the culture if we make a statments like the above we are labled homo-phobics. But at the same time we maintain respect for all peoples.

I got into this a little while ago with several people. How can the Church accept something that is in direct contradiction to its fundemental teaching?

I dont get why people cant see this.

[John Lowell]

Yes, Donohue is right about what he Church owes the laity respecting the priesthood. Now if we could only get him out of that elephant costume he's been wearing so much lately and make sure he doesn't confuse Catholicism with Bush and the Republican Party the way his pals James Dobson and Chuck Colson have their rather over-simplified version of Christianity with them. Donohue has disgraced himself as a Catholic as have Richard Neuhaus and Michael Novak with their unabashed support of the Iraq aggression. No one of importance at the Vatican would even give a hearing to Novak when he went to Rome selling his more than questionable just war scheme. Believing Catholics need better public voices than those that support unjust wars and stem-cell compromises. Haven't we had enough of the closeness to the Bush Administration of a Deal Hudson, for example?

John Lowell

Edited November 25, 2005 by John Lowell

[dspen2005]

uhm. let's examine something. this thread is concerning homosexuals in the priesthood and somehow it has turned into political banter over the Iraq War. why not stick to the topic at hand? then if u wish to discuss the war in iraq, start another thread.

besides, the war in iraq and the notions of just war theory are not dogmatic teachings of Holy Mother Church. As such, variance in opinion concerning these matters are allowed and have been varied down through the centuries, hence the various nuances of Just War, from Augustine through Thomas, and down through the ages....

back to the topic at hand --
donahue was right in his analysis of the situation. the reaction to the document is as if this is a new expectation of the Church. in reality, this is the not the case... people have only to look back at 1961.

[John Lowell]

dspen2005,

If you feel so compelled to object to my taking my comment into the area of just war theory, one wonders why you might have felt so moved to comment on just war theory yourself. To be polite, at minimum, a stange inconsistency it seems. We won't be less charitable than polite, this a Catholic forum, of course.

John Lowell

Edited November 25, 2005 by John Lowell

[MC Just]

as for war, they have been happening since the beginning of time, they happened in heaven, they are going to keep happening. Get over it.

[John Lowell]

MCJust,

Thanks to you and to dispen2005 for the warm, Christian welcome here at the phat-forum. You like war, MCJust? They "happen in heaven"? Come on now, you've really got to do better than that. Can you, or are we being overly generous?

John Lowell

Edited November 25, 2005 by John Lowell

[MC Just]

[quote name='John Lowell' date='Nov 25 2005, 05:05 PM']MCJust,

Thanks to you and to dispen2005 for the warm, Christian welcome here at the phat-forum. You like war, MCJust? They "happen in heaven"? Come on now, you've really got to do better than that. Can you, or are we being overly generous?

John Lowell
[right][snapback]800256[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]


Did you support john Kerry?

[MC Just]

There was "a" war in heaven. There have always been wars here on earth. I dont like the iraq war protesters, why?

Because many of them remind me of those liberal dissenter airheads in the 60's.

[MC Just]

start a seperate thread if you want to debate about the war in iraq.

[John Lowell]

MCJust,

Well, a civil response. God forbid!

You've got me in a pigeon hole, MCJust, and you're assuming too much. No, I did not support Kerry. How could any thinking Catholic support someone with his record on stem-cell research, abortion rights, and the war in Iraq? Neither did I support Bush for the same reasons. He's the first American President ever to authorize federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, someone who can't quite bring himself to favor reversal of Roe vs. Wade, and an unadulterated prevaricator whose blood thirsty rush to war deserves impeachment and/or a war crimes indictment. Ask the mothers in Iraq.

You may wish to examine why it was that you raised this question with me. It would seem to me that any Catholic that takes his faith seriously and places real value on papal leadership could never be comfortable with either of the two birds we were faced with in the last election, even though sell-outs like Donohue and Neuhaus did nothing but shill for one of them. And there is no better prototype of the outcome of such "pragmatism" than White House fan boy, Deal Hudson. This is Catholicism played out at a civic level? Oy gevald!

As to your "airhead" comment, there are countless socially conservative persons that have opposed the war in Iraq, I'm one of them. Unlike some, my opposition is based entirely upon my Catholicism. Something about that makes my stomach turn when I hear the kind of lies we got - and continue to get - in the run up to war. One is reminded of the circumstances and of the spirit prevailing in Berlin in the Summer of 1939. The two have more than a little in common believe me. I opposed the War in Viet Nam as well because of the lying. Call me an airhead for doing that but unlike that at the White House at the time, the air here was clean, thank you.

John Lowell

Edited November 25, 2005 by John Lowell

[MC Just]

Hey I have an album coming out soon dedicated to Orthodoxy. It's called "ultramontane".

I'm sorry for the rude welcoming. William donahue has been a big inspiration of mine. We would rather side with conservativism then with liberalism, which has the majority protests against the war.

[John Lowell]

MCJust,

The good news is that your choice isn't limited to the two sides of the political spectrum, you can always elect being a Catholic above anything else, of course, something that William Donohue seems to have forgotten, your high regard for him notwithstanding. Donohue has gotten himself in bed with the Dobsons, Robertsons and Falwells, his Justice Sunday performance prima facia evidence. It's time Catholics stood clear of the kind of Republicanizing supported by him, Weyrich and Neuhaus. Like their Evangelical cronies they sell-out the faith in favor of their political loyalties just about every time. I'll never forget how Fr. Neuhaus shucked and jived about the Bush stem-cell compromise in 2001. Here, a supposed paragon of Catholic orthodoxy, in defiance of the clear teaching of Donum Vitae, unable to raise his voice against the abuse of the remains of innocent human life. The man is beneath contempt in my view.

There is much more to these issues than liberal and conservative, Republican or Democrat. Too many on the social right have allowed themselves to be lured into a Faustian deal. Catholics need to be much more critical of the kind of spokesman currently claiming to speak for them. Isn't it enough to see where the kind of pragmatism they so admire has led us? How much more Christian has our culture become as they have taken sizeable salaries from the institutions hiring them all the time stoking conservative outrage over abortion, homosexuality and the like? Jay Sekulow does pretty well with this shtick, several million a year, I understand. Now there's "Christianity" with some meat on it, eh? We need lots of distance between ourselves and the Sekulows and Donohue won't be the guy that will give it to us. We need a more authentically Catholic leadership, not the kind Donohue is delivering. Absent that, stick to prayer, you won't have egg on your face.

John Lowell

Edited November 26, 2005 by John Lowell

[argent_paladin]

[cmotherofpirl]

yes its been hijacked, but it was an interesting point
John if you want to pursue this feel free to start a thread on the topic.

Now back to the topic

Edited November 26, 2005 by cmotherofpirl