C
contemplative
Guest
The Vatican this week formally published its long-awaited document on whether homosexuals should be admitted to seminaries and the priesthood. It barred men “who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture.” Immediately in the U.S. sharp debate broke out, even publicly among some U.S. bishops, about what those words mean.
Father Tom Reese is the former editor of the Jesuit magazine AMERICA and a longtime observer of the Vatican and the U.S. bishops. He joins us from Northern California, where he’s a visiting scholar at Santa Clara University.
Read or watch the report here
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Rev. REESE: I don’t see how they can because, first of all, we don’t know what the words mean. And then, secondly, there’s no psychological test that can definitively show whether someone’s a homosexual or not.
ABERNETHY: So is there wiggle room, then, from diocese to diocese? Each bishop can interpret this for himself?
Rev. REESE: Absolutely. I think that each bishop is going to have to read the document and make up his own mind about what it means.
Could this tone of Fr. Reese be why he is the former editor of America magazine?**
Father Tom Reese is the former editor of the Jesuit magazine AMERICA and a longtime observer of the Vatican and the U.S. bishops. He joins us from Northern California, where he’s a visiting scholar at Santa Clara University.
Read or watch the report here
**
: And how could anybody test to see whether a person, a candidate for the seminary has “deep-seated homosexual tendencies”?
Rev. REESE: I don’t see how they can because, first of all, we don’t know what the words mean. And then, secondly, there’s no psychological test that can definitively show whether someone’s a homosexual or not.
ABERNETHY: So is there wiggle room, then, from diocese to diocese? Each bishop can interpret this for himself?
Rev. REESE: Absolutely. I think that each bishop is going to have to read the document and make up his own mind about what it means.
Could this tone of Fr. Reese be why he is the former editor of America magazine?**