I'm tired of the "Gay Priests Are Evil" stuff

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Other Eric:
What bothers me is the assumption that somehow SSA is a condition that inherently prevents a chaste life. If this is the assumption that we mean to use to deny the sacrament of Holy Orders to a candidate, why would we expect chastity from him in any other context?
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Greetings Eric,

If every layman is qualified for clerical positions, where’s my pointy bishops hat? On a more serious note:

Rather than present my own opinion, let’s refer to “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders”, Sacred Congregation for Religious, February 2, 1961:

*'Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.
  1. Very special investigation is needed for those students who, although they have hitherto been free of formal sins against chastity, nevertheless suffer from morbid or abnormal sexuality, especially sexual hyperesthesia or an erotic bent of nature, to whom religious celibacy would be a continual act of heroism and a trying martyrdom. For chastity, in so far as it implies abstinence from sexual pleasure, not only becomes very difficult for many people but the very state of celibacy and the consequent loneliness and separation from one’s family becomes so difficult for certain individuals gifted with excessive sensitivity and tenderness, that they are not fit subjects for the religious life. This question should perhaps receive more careful attention from novice masters and superiors of scholasticates than from confessors since such natural tendencies do not come out so clearly in confession as in the common life and daily contact.’*
Section 5 is different than the section before, but many of things it says still applies. Priesthood involves much greater temptation and trials than life as a layman.
  1. The life is much more lonely and affords less opportunity to receive the emotional support of friends. As example, I see my friends who are priests twice a year, if that. They are busy and their day off is Thursday or Wednesday, not a weekend.
  2. Clergy often don’t live close to family anymore or see them as often. Family can be a moderating influence, they can call a member to account as no friend can.
  3. People regard clergy with a great deal of trust, moreso than they would accord to a laymen.
  4. Priests have much more opportunity to abuse youths than an average laymen. The trust, respect, and authority accorded to clergy makes this easier.
  5. Life lived in same-sex community (seminary, cloister, convent) presents stronger temptations to those with SSA than the outside world. Living together in a confined community, people get to know each other at a much deeper level than would take place in the outside world. For those having the inclination, this invites turning the intimacy of friendship into erotic intimacy.
In short, there are a number of temptations peculiar to clerical life that would require someone with SSA to continually practice heroic virtue. “…and lead us not into temptation” It’s wrong to put someone with SSA in that position.

As I’ve pointed out, 90+% (and some estimate 98%) of the clerical sexual abuse that we are seeing do not involve children, but involve youths of the same sex. This widespread corruption is FAR from new and has cropped up now and then throughout the ages.

I am convinced that we have only heard of perhaps 10% of the cases of sexual abuse. I think that many cases have gone unreported. Further, unchaste priests and bishops who have focused their attentions on youths over 18 have pretty much gotten a pass and still retain their positions.

Thank God for our justice system. We apparently can’t rely on the Church to police itself.

Further, many priests and bishops with SSA modify theology to suit their sexual prefererances (I could send you a list if you like). Instead of Christ’s message, they preach relativism and modernism. They become the false teachers that Christ warned about and recommended millstone accessories for.

In short, clerical life presents temptations to those with SSA that life as a layman does not.

Please do not interpret my condemnations of unchaste or heretical clergy with SSA as a blanket condemnation of those with SSA. It is not. For those with SSA struggling to live a chaste life, I bear deep compassion and empathy.
 
Other Eric:
Hi fix!

Well, heresies of the left ar not the only ones that we should be wary of. There are also clerics who wish the Church to be more along the lines of SSPX.
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I was alluding to the fact that heterodoxy is in large supply, mostly from the left. This environment has allowed dissent from Church teachings. This same environment helped along the abuse scandal in that some felt a liberation from the moral law.
 
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felra:
Again, you continue to erroneously link a man’s fitness/qualifications for priestly ordination with the salvation of their soul. Why is this?

I have never in any of my posts this thread equated SSA with sexual compulsion (i.e., uncontrollable sexual acting out) and the inability to “properly give oneself over to Christ”. Please quote me where I have stated so.

I have never once equated a (seminarian) candidate’s “entire identity about his sexuality”. This is a misrepresentation of my articulated position. To repeat myself a third time this thread: sexual orientation in and of itself can be the primary/determining indicator of fitness for priesthood depending on the individual seminarian candidate (based on honest asnwers and sophisticated screening/assessment tools). It sounds more like you have a problem with the pervasive influence of our sexuality on all aspects of our affective and relationship functioning (see CCC 2332), than determing degree of psychological disorder for a seminarian candidate as a contra indicator for priesthood.

Again, I will re-ask my question to you which you have not yet aswered: if a seminarian candidate has SSA disorder to the degree that he would not be a viable candiate for marriage/fatherhood, why in the world would you (or seminary ordinary) consider this person as a viable candidate for priestly ordination?
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Hi felra!

Well, you are using fitness and qualifications for the priesthood that would necessarily have bearing on a candidate’’s potential for salvation. That’’s why I link the two. If the seminary is free to presume that a man with SSA is theologically unfit for ordination, before we even address the question of whether he can be orthodox, then all I am saying is the same handicap that prevents him from licitly aspiring to Holy Orders prevents him following Christ unless we mean to articulate special exceptions for these people.

It seems to me you want sexual orientation to be “the primary/determining indicator of fitness for priesthood” to the exclusion of anything else that we could know about the candidate. It may be that we would say of such a candidate that a trial period would be prudent or that we otherwise pay more attention to his priestly formation, but this is completely different than creating an all-encompassing prohibition on candidates to the priesthood with SSA.

You ask that I answer whether or not we should ordain a man not fit for either marriage or fatherhood. This question assumes that the presence of SSA automatically renders a man ineligible for either of these. It also crudely presumes that the ability to be a good husband or a good father rests entirely upon sexual function. I reject the question’s premise. The ability to be a good father, husband or priest rests on things other than the mere presence of SSA.
 
Other Eric:
Hi felra!

Well, you are using fitness and qualifications for the priesthood that would necessarily have bearing on a candidate’’s potential for salvation. That’’s why I link the two. If the seminary is free to presume that a man with SSA is theologically unfit for ordination, before we even address the question of whether he can be orthodox, then all I am saying is the same handicap that prevents him from licitly aspiring to Holy Orders prevents him following Christ unless we mean to articulate special exceptions for these people.

It seems to me you want sexual orientation to be “the primary/determining indicator of fitness for priesthood” to the exclusion of anything else that we could know about the candidate. It may be that we would say of such a candidate that a trial period would be prudent or that we otherwise pay more attention to his priestly formation, but this is completely different than creating an all-encompassing prohibition on candidates to the priesthood with SSA.

You ask that I answer whether or not we should ordain a man not fit for either marriage or fatherhood. This question assumes that the presence of SSA automatically renders a man ineligible for either of these. It also crudely presumes that the ability to be a good husband or a good father rests entirely upon sexual function. I reject the question’s premise. The ability to be a good father, husband or priest rests on things other than the mere presence of SSA.
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In all due respect Other Eric, your posting responses evidence that you are either in 1) denial of reality, 2) that on this issue off SSA you can only advance polaristic categories of framing the discussion (black/white, all/nothing, either/or) to further your argument, and/or 3) you have a pre-disposed underlying agenda (yet to be disclosed).

I resist the temptation to enter in to a circular, squirrel cage rebuttel. I have made my point. I will not tap dance around the elephant in the room of this forum discussion topic (i.e., man is more than his sexuality, but, a degree of disordered desire can usher into primacy SSA as a central organizing factor in a person’s pscyhological make-up). You have only responded in recent exchanges by attempting to distort my position and reframe the argument in terms that fail to address the reality that SSA is first and foremost a psychological disorder with mutifaceted implications. To treat and normalize and minimize SSA otherwise is a dispassionate and cruel response to a fellow brother in Christ and disservice to the Church. 😦
 
Promotor Fidei:
Greetings Eric,

If every layman is qualified for clerical positions, where’s my pointy bishops hat? On a more serious note:

Rather than present my own opinion, let’s refer to “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders”, Sacred Congregation for Religious, February 2, 1961:

'Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.

5. Very special investigation is needed for those students who, although they have hitherto been free of formal sins against chastity, nevertheless suffer from morbid or abnormal sexuality, especially sexual hyperesthesia or an erotic bent of nature, to whom religious celibacy would be a continual act of heroism and a trying martyrdom. For chastity, in so far as it implies abstinence from sexual pleasure, not only becomes very difficult for many people but the very state of celibacy and the consequent loneliness and separation from one’s family becomes so difficult for certain individuals gifted with excessive sensitivity and tenderness, that they are not fit subjects for the religious life. This question should perhaps receive more careful attention from novice masters and superiors of scholasticates than from confessors since such natural tendencies do not come out so clearly in confession as in the common life and daily contact.’

Section 5 is different than the section before, but many of things it says still applies. Priesthood involves much greater temptation and trials than life as a layman.
  1. The life is much more lonely and affords less opportunity to receive the emotional support of friends. As example, I see my friends who are priests twice a year, if that. They are busy and their day off is Thursday or Wednesday, not a weekend.
  2. Clergy often don’t live close to family anymore or see them as often. Family can be a moderating influence, they can call a member to account as no friend can.
  3. People regard clergy with a great deal of trust, moreso than they would accord to a laymen.
  4. Priests have much more opportunity to abuse youths than an average laymen. The trust, respect, and authority accorded to clergy makes this easier.
  5. Life lived in same-sex community (seminary, cloister, convent) presents stronger temptations to those with SSA than the outside world. Living together in a confined community, people get to know each other at a much deeper level than would take place in the outside world. For those having the inclination, this invites turning the intimacy of friendship into erotic intimacy.
In short, there are a number of temptations peculiar to clerical life that would require someone with SSA to continually practice heroic virtue. “…and lead us not into temptation” It’s wrong to put someone with SSA in that position.

As I’ve pointed out, 90+% (and some estimate 98%) of the clerical sexual abuse that we are seeing do not involve children, but involve youths of the same sex. This widespread corruption is FAR from new and has cropped up now and then throughout the ages.

I am convinced that we have only heard of perhaps 10% of the cases of sexual abuse. I think that many cases have gone unreported. Further, unchaste priests and bishops who have focused their attentions on youths over 18 have pretty much gotten a pass and still retain their positions.

Thank God for our justice system. We apparently can’t rely on the Church to police itself.

Further, many priests and bishops with SSA modify theology to suit their sexual prefererances (I could send you a list if you like). Instead of Christ’s message, they preach relativism and modernism. They become the false teachers that Christ warned about and recommended millstone accessories for.

In short, clerical life presents temptations to those with SSA that life as a layman does not.

Please do not interpret my condemnations of unchaste or heretical clergy with SSA as a blanket condemnation of those with SSA. It is not. For those with SSA struggling to live a chaste life, I bear deep compassion and empathy.
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Hi Promotor Fidei!

I am aware of the 1961 document. It interests me greatly that when the Code of Canon law was updated in 1983 that none of the recommendations from this letter were implemented. One would expect that they would have been included if they were meant to still be in effect, but they were not. Until the Vatican speaks again on this matter at the end of the summer, I assume that the 1961 document has been overruled.

Nevertheless, this document does have a salient argument to make regarding whether the unique challenges presented by the priesthood constitute an objective impediment. I respond that this has already been answered in the negative by the work of Fr. John Harvey and Fr. Groeschel who have worked with and counseled men in exactly this situation.

Further, we should ask ourselves what other environments could approximate the seminary experience that we do not at first consider. Like a college dormitory. Certainly in this environment we expose a person who has SSA to living in close quarters with people of his own gender for months at a time, far removed from family. Should we similarly ask ourselves whether this aspect of higher education is suitable for such a man?
 
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felra:
In all due respect Other Eric, your posting responses evidence that you are either in 1) denial of reality, 2) that on this issue off SSA you can only advance polaristic categories of framing the discussion (black/white, all/nothing, either/or) to further your argument, and/or 3) you have a pre-disposed underlying agenda (yet to be disclosed).

I resist the temptation to enter in to a circular, squirrel cage rebuttel. I have made my point. I will not tap dance around the elephant in the room of this forum discussion topic (i.e., man is more than his sexuality, but, a degree of disordered desire can usher into primacy SSA as a central organizing factor in a person’s pscyhological make-up). You have only responded in recent exchanges by attempting to distort my position and reframe the argument in terms that fail to address the reality that SSA is first and foremost a psychological disorder with mutifaceted implications. To treat and normalize and minimize SSA otherwise is a dispassionate and cruel response to a fellow brother in Christ and disservice to the Church. 😦
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Hi felra!

I see the formulation “man is more than his sexuality, but, a degree of disordered desire can usher into primacy SSA as a central organizing factor in a person’s psychological make-up” as a contradiction. If SSA is the complicated condition that you make it out to be, then it defies a blanket response by the Church. It may be true that to treat and normalize and minimize SSA otherwise is a dispassionate and cruel response to a fellow brother in Christ and disservice to the Church, but to exaggerate the condition and begin one’s entire estimation of a man’s moral, theological and spiritual aptitude based on its presence is to lead those same men into despair, and that can be no different.
 
Other Eric:
Hi Promotor Fidei!

I am aware of the 1961 document. It interests me greatly that when the Code of Canon law was updated in 1983 that none of the recommendations from this letter were implemented. One would expect that they would have been included if they were meant to still be in effect, but they were not. Until the Vatican speaks again on this matter at the end of the summer, I assume that the 1961 document has been overruled.
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I don’t assume that, but we’ll have it confirmed at the end of summer.
Nevertheless, this document does have a salient argument to make regarding whether the unique challenges presented by the priesthood constitute an objective impediment. I respond that this has already been answered in the negative by the work of Fr. John Harvey and Fr. Groeschel who have worked with and counseled men in exactly this situation.
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I would think they are implementing as best they can policies set down by their bishop or superior. Many North American bishops thumbed their noses at the 1961 directive since it was issued, before and after 1983.
Further, we should ask ourselves what other environments could approximate the seminary experience that we do not at first consider. Like a college dormitory. Certainly in this environment we expose a person who has SSA to living in close quarters with people of his own gender for months at a time, far removed from family. Should we similarly ask ourselves whether this aspect of higher education is suitable for such a man?
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Many college dormitories are co-ed. Only in a few colleges are people required to live in a dormitory. And even in those cases you’re dealing with a much larger community, not the concentrated, confined community of a cloister or seminary.

I came across many quotes that attest to what I experienced: That a gay sub-culture poisons the atmosphere of a seminary and destroys vocations:

'Many priests and theologians have commented about the gay sub-cultures in Catholic seminaries:

An anonymous priest from the Boston area commented in an interview with Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald: “there’s a subculture of gay priests and everyone knows it. I went through seminary with a lot of them and got hit on. And when I reported it, I was harassed to a point where, emotionally, it was very difficult to get ordained. I’m not the only one who had to fight to get through it; I know guys who left because of it. It was clear there was a cabal tacitly saying, ‘Don’t bother reporting this stuff.’ You wouldn’t believe the self-justifications, like, ‘Well, celibacy only applies to not getting married, so since we’re not getting married we can do whatever we want.’ It was horrible, with a lot of intimidation, but I stayed because I felt this was what God was calling me to do; besides, if I’d walked, they’d have won.” 8

Father McBrien, a theologian at the University of Notre Dame, commented that some seminary students “…who feel they have a genuine vocation for priesthood go into a seminary and feel very alienated by the gay culture. I don’t say this in any homophobic sense. It’s just the reality.” 2

Pope John Paul II held a meeting with the American cardinals which dealt with the clerical sex scandals. Afterward, Bishop Wilton Gregory, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said: “One of the difficulties we do face in seminary life or recruitment is made possible when there does exist a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexual men think twice [about entering.] It is an ongoing struggle to make sure the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men.” 9

R. Scott Appleby, a history professor at Notre Dame, said: “People I know quite well have left the seminary either in disgust because people are not keeping vows, or in alienation because they’re not gay. In some cases it’s a serious problem.” 3

The Most Rev. Wilton Gregory said: “[T]here does exist a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexual men think twice.” 3

The Rev. Charles Bouchard, president of the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis said: “I think straight priests and seminarians shouldn’t be whining. I just don’t think it’s a big deal.” 3

Father Donald Cozzens wrote: “What impact does the gay subcultrue have on the straight priest and seminarian?..straight men in a predominantly or significantly gay environment commonly experience chronic destabilization, a common symptom of which is self doubt…Their psychic confusion, understandably, has significant implications for both their spiritual vitality and emotional balance.” 10

Timothy Radcliffe, Master of the Order of Preachers, commented on the emergence of a homosexual sub-culture within a seminary or religious order: “It can threaten the unity of the community; it can make it harder for the brethren to practice the chastity which we have vowed. It can put pressure on brethren to think of themselves in a way that is not central to their vocation as preachers of the Kingdom…” 11’

From: religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc1.htm

Parents, if your sons want to study for the priesthood, first talk to a lot of priests you admire who attended there. Check for court cases and articles. Seminaries with a strong gay sub-culture are corrupt, hellish places. Don’t subject them to it!
 
Other Eric:
I assume that the 1961 document has been overruled.
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If the 1961document were over-ruled, shouldn’t canon law have specified that? Or stated clearly that SSA is not a barrier to ordination?
 
Promotor Fidei:
If the 1961document were over-ruled, shouldn’t canon law have specified that? Or stated clearly that SSA is not a barrier to ordination?
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Hi Promotor Fidei!

That applies a different standard to canons involving homosexuals. Canon Law is meant to be the base standard for how the Church is run. If there was meant to still be a definitive bar to the ordination of those with SSA, wouldn’t you expect that there would at least be a footnote referrencing the 1961 document?
 
Other Eric:
That applies a different standard to canons involving homosexuals. Canon Law is meant to be the base standard for how the Church is run. If there was meant to still be a definitive bar to the ordination of those with SSA, wouldn’t you expect that there would at least be a footnote referrencing the 1961 document?
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Hello Eric,

Church law proceeds slowly, as you know. In the meanwhile we should follow the directives of the Holy Father:

'*“It would be lamentable if, out of a misunderstood tolerance, they ordained young men who are immature or have obvious signs of affective deviations that, as is sadly known, could cause serious anomalies in the consciences of the faithful, with evident damage for the whole Church,” the Holy Father said.

The term “affective deviations” is used by priestly formators to describe individuals with disordered sexual orientations - such as homosexuality or ongoing heterosexual activity - that are incompatible with priestly celibacy.*’

opusbonosacerdotii.org/ncr2.htm

But it matters not. Pope Benedict will issue new directives this summer, and I can guess what those might be.

‘“How much filth there is in the church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely to Him. How much pride, how much self-sufficiency.”’ - Cardinal Ratzinger at a Good Friday Mass in 2005, seen by many as a statement about the clergy sex abuse scandal.

At last the cleanup of the seminaries can begin. At last young men called to serve God’s people can be educated without being hit on, or taught that genital homosexuality is just a deeper form of friendship.

Though I believe that he will be strict in regards to homosexuality in priesthood, in general Pope Benedict’s policies have been kind towards those with SSA. He authored, after all, the “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons”.
 
Other Eric:
Hi felra!

I see the formulation “man is more than his sexuality, but, a degree of disordered desire can usher into primacy SSA as a central organizing factor in a person’s psychological make-up” as a contradiction. If SSA is the complicated condition that you make it out to be, then it defies a blanket response by the Church. It may be true that to treat and normalize and minimize SSA otherwise is a dispassionate and cruel response to a fellow brother in Christ and disservice to the Church, but to exaggerate the condition and begin one’s entire estimation of a man’s moral, theological and spiritual aptitude based on its presence is to lead those same men into despair, and that can be no different.
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The only exaggeration and distortion has been on your end. Falsely calling/labeling my sound/valid positions does not make them unsound/invalid.

I will leave you with this final thought on this thread: there is a reason that you obviously struggle with reconciling the issue of SSA and personal salvation; and that you portray those who hold to the orthodox teaching/stance of Church as an obstacle and adversary to a SSA afflicted person from attaining personal holiness of life and person; and refusal to admit that SSA is a treatable psychological disorder with degrees of severity. I pray that you turn to Jesus for hope and salvation, not inward or elsewhere in despair.

Now I will let you have the last word and commend your respectful dialogue.

God bless.
**“**The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel. Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better “those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God.” They proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil “for the glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man.” ‘(CCC 856).
 
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felra:
The only exaggeration and distortion has been on your end. Falsely calling/labeling my sound/valid positions does not make them unsound/invalid.

I will leave you with this final thought on this thread: there is a reason that you obviously struggle with reconciling the issue of SSA and personal salvation; and that you portray those who hold to the orthodox teaching/stance of Church as an obstacle and adversary to a SSA afflicted person from attaining personal holiness of life and person; and refusal to admit that SSA is a treatable psychological disorder with degrees of severity. I pray that you turn to Jesus for hope and salvation, not inward or elsewhere in despair.

Now I will let you have the last word and commend your respectful dialogue.

God bless.

**“**The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel. Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better “those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God.” They proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil “for the glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man.” ‘(CCC 856).
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Hi felra!

I do not think that my position is necessarily unorthodox. At least not when I can back it up with references from Fr. John Harvey, David Morrison, Canon Law, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the St. Joseph Foundation and Mark Shea. It remains to be seen what the definitive word from the Vatican will be on this, so characterizing one side of this argument as orthodox is at least premature.

I do not hold that the condition of SSA is untreatable and have not written so in this thread. I am sure there are many cases where successful conversion has been achieved. I do not, however, believe this type of conversion to be a moral requirement, nor that it removes an impediment to the reception of certain sacramental graces.

In any event, I thank you for the discussion we have had.
 
Gays Should Not Be Priests by Monica Migliorino Miller

catholiccitizens.org/press/contentview.asp?c=30374

The Vatican Instruction that men with strong homosexual tendencies may not be admitted to the Roman Catholic priesthood is based on a number of very important pastoral and theological considerations. First, we need to appreciate that to permit such men to enter a seminary creates an occasion of sin for them. No one would argue that men attracted to women should be allowed to live in a house full of females. Seminarians live intimate, close lives with one another and are bonded together in a common goal. Even if a homosexual seminarian was committed to chastity, the environment places a spiritual burden on the practice of that virtue.

The John Jay School of Criminal Justice reported that 81% of the victims of sexual abuse by priests were male and the majority of these were over the age of 13. This means that the sex scandal was primarily a homosexual problem. The Instruction demonstrates that the church is facing up to some hard facts and seeks to be responsible.

The church would be rightly criticized if it deliberately allowed men to enter the priesthood who had a strong erotic attraction to children or men who were heterosexual but could not or had not completely resolved to live celibate lives for whatever reason. Yet, many accuse the church of discrimination when it seeks to ban gay men, especially because those men will be in close contact with other males and, when ordained, may often be involved with pastoral work with teen boys.

MORE catholiccitizens.org/press/contentview.asp?c=30374
 
felra said:
“A person should not be defined by their sexual attractions”, however, if a person is *predominantly/substantially *defined in their psychosexual identity by same sex orientation/attraction, then I believe that person lacks the prerequiste capacity, ability to have the priesthood of Jesus Christ to fully exist in and through that person. This is simply because Jesus was fully human, fully divine in His identity, which integral to this was His heterosexual orientation.

How can a male live out the Bridegroom/bride, Beloved/lover relationship of Christ with the Church, of which the priest assumes in his ordination vows, if their predominate, pervasive psychosexual identity is homosexual? I believe that this would posse a serious barrier, limitation to assuming the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Maybe after some time with God’s grace and reparative therapy (formal and informal) a man with predominat same sex attraction may some day be a viable candidate for the priesthood as God is truly calling him.

We do live in a fallen world, and we each have our crosses to bear, and unfortunately some desires will necessarily go wanting this side of the grave, if one is to choose holiness of life and the fullness of their vocational calling.
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Well said felra. Your comments reflect the truth and I know that can be painful for sincere, faithful Catholics like romanryan who struggle with SSA. There’s always hope, however, and nothing is impossible with God. Continue to pray fervently and do the will of God and perhaps in a most surprising way you’re prayers will be answered.
 
THhs is a very hot topic. The point of the matter is that the Church has made it’s decision. As Catholics we must obey THE Church. If the Pope says it we must do it. I understand that there are people out there suffering from ssa who have dreamt of becoming priests and nuns, but that doesn’t mean that is what God is calling you to do. There are many ways to be holy and helpful without becoming a priest. There are heterosexuals who are called to live the single life and dedicate themselves to helping teach, build, feed etc. all those who need it. So perhaps God is calling those suffering from ssa to rise above the temptations of their bodies and the way soceity veiws homosexuality (I mean to say that society thinks it’s ok for two men to get married etc.) and to say to the devil and to the world “This will not stop me! I will be holy! I will be chaste! I will be an example for all others out there like myself!”

Besides, think about what it takes to become a Priest, you have to be secluded with other men. Would it make sense to have a man living with 60 women??? No. Would it make sense for a woman to live with 60 men? No way!!! Also, if there were many homosexual men living in a monestary, how much greater would the temptation be? Just because right now you feel as if you can handle it doesn’t mean that you can. You must trust in God and His Church. Even if somehow the Church got it wrong (which is almost impossible because it is guided by the Holy Spirit) then isn’t it better to die and go to Heaven and be able to say " I obeyed even though I didn’t want to and I didn’t understand or think they were right." and to have GOd respond “Thank you for your obiedience, you acted out of Love for Me and My Church”
OR would you rather confront Him and say “To hell with the Church and it’s close-minded views! I did what I wanted because they were wrong!” And to have God shake His head and be saddened by your arrogance and inabilty to obey His Church and His commands?
 
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RomanRyan1088:
I AM SICK BY SOME PEOPLE IN HERE! MY DESIRE TO BE CATHOLIC ARE QUICKLY GOING AWAY. I SUFFER WITH SSA, AND I HAVE HEARD THAT HOMOSEXUALITY IS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL, WE ARE GOING TO HELL, AND MANY OFFENCIVE THINGS. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE WANTED TO BE A PRIEST? SINCE THE 4TH GRADE, BEFORE I EVEN KNEW WHAT HOMOSEXUALLITY WAS!!! NOW I CANNOT SERVE MY LORD BECAUSE I MIGHT MOLEST “LITTLE BOYS”. COMMON PEOPLE, THOSE OF YOU THAT HAVE DAUGHTERS THAT ARE AROUND THE AGE 14-16 , ASK HER HOW MANY OF HER FRIENDS (OR EVEN HER) GO OUT WITH MEN IN THE MID-20’S, EARLY 30’S. “OH BUT IT’S NOT CHILD ABUSE, IT’S TOTALLY SOMETHING DIFFRENT”, I SAY BULLS MONKEYS! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO, I HAVE NEVER HAD A B/F, OR EVEN DESIRED TO HAVE ONE!!! AHHHHHHHH!!! IT’S LIKE IF YOU HAVE SSA, YOU HAVING GAY SEX, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. COMMON PEOPLE GET A GRIP, I WOULDN’T WANNA TOUCH ON LITTLE BOYS, THAT IMO IS SOOOOOOO WRONG. Now that I got that out, what go you want me to do? You know I have wanted to be a priest since the 4th grade? What am I to do? What am I to do?
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I have to say that pedophilia is the disorder for those who touch youths, I see little corrolation between homosexual and pedophilia cases. The newest document from the Vatican states that homosexuals with homosexual tendencies are to be bared from service, but it does not say that all homosexuals are banned from service. If you are confident in your faith and think you can refrain from any homosexual tendency then you should persue your dream, but if you dought your self control you should seek another way to meet your calling. Trust in the Lord and you will find your answer.
 
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nike248:
You better develop some thicker skin. As a priest you’re going to be called a pedophile, get hit while walking down the street, accused of doing certain things by bad bishops and priests, etc… There was a priest that was shot and killed in NY simply because he was a priest. If you want to be a priest, be a priest and stop whining when people say something derogatory. You’re going get it much worse when, God willing, you’re ordained.
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No kidding…If he were my pastor it would bother me more that he was a little whiney crybaby than that he was gay!!!
 
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