Vatican Document Forbidding Homosexuals to Priesthood Ready for Release

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Ok fix, maybe I was a bit off on my take of what you were saying, I will give you the benefit of the doubt but… (more on this at the end)

fix:

Other Eric:

Well, Canons 1095.2 and 1095.3 would also prevent a man with any degree of SSA from marriage. This would make a “gay vocation” out of the single life. Perhaps the real answer is that the Church has no vocation to offer such a man. After all, they destroy whatever they enter into by the intrinsic nature of their extreme depravity.

Eric, your logic is tortured. We have been round and round this many times.

Not only that, but those Canons do not say what he says they say.

Now back to the issue from the start.

I think maybe this goes to our definition of words. I guess that my definition of homosexual differs from the one you are using. For me a homosexual is someone who partakes in the act of homosexual sex, someone who gives in to the inclination, to the temptation. Yes those men should not be allowed to enter into the priesthood or seminary or even the diaconate (I do not know why all of you are separating the priesthood from teh diaconate here) just as a heterosexual man who is engaging in sex should not be allowed to enter.

I so not see how we can fault someone who, while having a certain temptation, from entering formation. Yes maybe they need to be watched a bit closer in that formation program but I do not see how any temptation should exclude one from entering.

I will add that using the argument that you just used, that I am being “PC” or that I am saying that there is “a right to ordination” do not address the issue but is only an unfounded attack.

And yes I do feel that they are addressed at me as I was the first one to question this “document” in the beginning of this thread.

 

[Edwin1961]

ByzCath:

Ok fix, maybe I was a bit off on my take of what you were saying, I will give you the benefit of the doubt but… (more on this at the end)

Not only that, but those Canons do not say what he says they say.

Now back to the issue from the start.

I think maybe this goes to our definition of words. I guess that my definition of homosexual differs from the one you are using. For me a homosexual is someone who partakes in the act of homosexual sex, someone who gives in to the inclination, to the temptation. Yes those men should not be allowed to enter into the priesthood or seminary or even the diaconate (I do not know why all of you are separating the priesthood from teh diaconate here) just as a heterosexual man who is engaging in sex should not be allowed to enter.

I so not see how we can fault someone who, while having a certain temptation, from entering formation. Yes maybe they need to be watched a bit closer in that formation program but I do not see how any temptation should exclude one from entering.

I will add that using the argument that you just used, that I am being “PC” or that I am saying that there is “a right to ordination” do not address the issue but is only an unfounded attack.

And yes I do feel that they are addressed at me as I was the first one to question this “document” in the beginning of this thread.

David,
On this issue I DO agree with you.
Someone may have ‘tendencies’ and some may have a ‘habit forming problem’. Don’t reject those who can be of FULL service to the Church if they have a ‘tendency’. Look out for those who show habits of sexual inclinations.

IF this is what people’s attitudes are, then why not get rid of all the alcoholic priests too? Everyone is tempted at some part of their life where it may have consequences in their life, but DON’T discredit those who ‘Have The Calling’.

 

[Libero]

I think maybe this goes to our definition of words. I guess that my definition of homosexual differs from the one you are using. For me a homosexual is someone who partakes in the act of homosexual sex, someone who gives in to the inclination, to the temptation. Yes those men should not be allowed to enter into the priesthood or seminary or even the diaconate (I do not know why all of you are separating the priesthood from teh diaconate here) just as a heterosexual man who is engaging in sex should not be allowed to enter.

I so not see how we can fault someone who, while having a certain temptation, from entering formation. Yes maybe they need to be watched a bit closer in that formation program but I do not see how any temptation should exclude one from entering

I aggree entirely here, it is very important to establish between an acitve homosexual, and a man who is inclined to other men.
To resist temptation is a great challenge by God, it is no harder for a homosexual to resist temptation for sexual activity than it is for a heterosexual. The catholic church does establish that a chaste homosexual must be accepted, loved and treated with respect. Does being a chaste homosexual priest prevent your ability as a priest or the devotion that you have to God. Not all homosexuals are happy with being gay.

 

[fix]

ByzCath:

Ok fix, maybe I was a bit off on my take of what you were saying, I will give you the benefit of the doubt but… (more on this at the end)

Not only that, but those Canons do not say what he says they say.

Now back to the issue from the start.

I think maybe this goes to our definition of words. I guess that my definition of homosexual differs from the one you are using. For me a homosexual is someone who partakes in the act of homosexual sex, someone who gives in to the inclination, to the temptation. Yes those men should not be allowed to enter into the priesthood or seminary or even the diaconate (I do not know why all of you are separating the priesthood from teh diaconate here) just as a heterosexual man who is engaging in sex should not be allowed to enter.

I so not see how we can fault someone who, while having a certain temptation, from entering formation. Yes maybe they need to be watched a bit closer in that formation program but I do not see how any temptation should exclude one from entering.

I will add that using the argument that you just used, that I am being “PC” or that I am saying that there is “a right to ordination” do not address the issue but is only an unfounded attack.

And yes I do feel that they are addressed at me as I was the first one to question this “document” in the beginning of this thread.

First, I am not excluding the ordination to the diaconate in my arguments. Second, if one could prove that SSA was “cured” to an acceptable degree then one may make the argument that opening ordination to such persons would be reasonable, that would have to be on a strict case by case situation. The problem is that we are dealing with an all male environment in many ways, the “cure” is not an exact science and the “loophole” that bishops would use could be easily abused by those in the hierarchy who themselves are “gay”. In the end I ask you why take the risk? Is it that crucial that known men with SSAD need to be ordained? There are all manner of standards and reasons men have been excluded over time, why all the fuss about this small issue? IMO, the fuss is because too many with SSAD want access to ordination.

 

[fix]

Edwin1961:

David,
On this issue I DO agree with you.
Someone may have ‘tendencies’ and some may have a ‘habit forming problem’. Don’t reject those who can be of FULL service to the Church if they have a ‘tendency’. Look out for those who show habits of sexual inclinations.

IF this is what people’s attitudes are, then why not get rid of all the alcoholic priests too? Everyone is tempted at some part of their life where it may have consequences in their life, but DON’T discredit those who ‘Have The Calling’.

I think alcoholism is a reason men have been excluded from ordination in many places.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

fix:

I think alcoholism is a reason men have been excluded from ordination in many places.

Do you mean they had a tendency to alcoholism, but were recovering? Were they active alcoholics?

 

[Edwin1961]

fix:

IMO, the fuss is because too many with SSAD want access to ordination.

Of course there is a want in access to the ordination.
Other than “Married to God” or Married to Woman" SINGLE persons seem to be chastized and left to their own devices.
A chaste SSAD male or female has NO WHERE to base a vocation on.

I’m going to stick my neck out on this issue and just say that I am one of thses individuals. At times, I seem to experience a lack of a vocation. I try and pray everyday that my SSAD is lessened but the struggles and sufferings I face are given back to God.

Until the ‘Single’ life is given some respect in the Church point of view, many poeple regardless of orientation will seem ‘lost’. I am just thankful that I am STAYING with the Catholic Church, than to try to find a ‘touchy-feely’ Church.

 

[barnestormer]

Edwin1961:

Other than “Married to God” or Married to Woman" SINGLE persons seem to be chastized and left to their own devices.

A chaste SSAD male or female has NO WHERE to base a vocation on.

Until the ‘Single’ life is given some respect in the Church point of view, many poeple regardless of orientation will seem ‘lost’. I am just thankful that I am STAYING with the Catholic Church, than to try to find a ‘touchy-feely’ Church.

I think the single life gets a considerable amount of respect in the Church. Celibacy (be it vowed or not) is, after all, an objectively higher calling than married life. The Church still teaches this.

Granted, the consecrated single life is not the vocation to which most are called, but it is an important vocation nonetheless, and one that God may want you to live. John Paul II spoke and wrote of this extensively.

Do you have a good spiritual director? I think that’s essential for you right now. Try to find a solid priest who can help you.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

barnestormer:

I think the single life gets a considerable amount of respect in the Church. Celibacy (be it vowed or not) is, after all, an objectively higher calling than married life. The Church still teaches this.

Granted, the consecrated single life is not the vocation to which most are called, but it is an important vocation nonetheless, and one that God may want you to live. John Paul II spoke and wrote of this extensively.

Do you have a good spiritual director? I think that’s essential for you right now. Try to find a solid priest who can help you.

I understand where Edwin is coming from, about the single life not getting respect.

Look at the writing of the Church. If you go by them you see that there are two vocations in life, married or Holy Orders.

There are many, many people who do not see the single life as a vocation, unless it is in Holy Orders or Religious Life. They view the single life as a holding pattern for one of those, married or Holy Orders/Religious Life. There are many who see the older single person as someone who has missed their calling.

Edwin, I want to thank you for being courageous and saying what you did. You have put a face on this discussion for me.

 

[Other_Eric]

ByzCath:

Not only that, but those Canons do not say what he says they say.

Well, I think the canons in question do. To be sure I asked a canon lawyer if, since same-sex attraction is identified in the Catechism as a psychological disorder and it is seen as serious enough to constitute an impediment to receiving Holy Orders, whether the condition also precluded the necessary discretion for valid consent to marriage under Canon 1095.2. The following is the unedited response that I received:

Generally speaking, yes.

Serious psychological problems only invalidate marriage to the extent they render the deliberation about essential matrimonial rights and duties needed for consent and/or the capacity to assume the essential obligations of marriage. We often say ““fulfill”” when speaking about the capacity to assume, since one cannot assume (give) consent when one cannot fulfill what is consented to.

However, numbers 2 and 3 of canon 1095 are notoriously hard to distinguish in a given case. That’s the reason why they are presented as numbers rather than paragraphs in the way the code is laid out.

Number two focuses on the deliberative capacity to evaluate the proposed marriage. Number three focuses on the capacity, even granted adequate capacity to evaluate, to fulfill the obligations that are pledged. The judges have to sort the facts out very carefully in any particular case to see if 2 or 3 or both apply.

In a particular case the condition might gravely disturb the capacity of the person to evaluate him/herself, the other person and the proposed marriage in terms of the heterosexual nature of marriage and its partnership of the whole of life, which would be an essential element of marriage. This ground for invalidity is derived from a severe defect of discernment of judgment concerning the matrimonial rights and duties to be freely and mutually given and accepted. This judgment is based in a person and therefore looks to criteria found in the subject who places an act. The causes for such a defect of discretion are numerous and not taxative. They can be found, for instance, in one or more of the following: the disharmony of the personality; difficulties relating to human sexual relationships; defective perception of the object of consent; lack of free deliberation; defect of internal freedom.

But this term “defect of discretion” can be understood in two ways. It can refer to a person who did not, as a sheer matter of fact, exercise the discretion required, even though it was possible for the person to do so. It can also refer to a person who lacks the power of weighing the nature of marriage and choosing it with sufficient freedom. The latter is more likely.

A tribunal would also have to measure the extent of the SSA, especially if there is no evidence of actual homosexual behavior. We’’ve had cases in which this has happened.

However, the prevailing jurisprudence of the Roman Rota would be to treat it as a canon 1095, no 3. case, that is one of an incapacity to fulfill the essential obligations due to causes of a psychological nature. The Rota and tribunals, despite the reclassification of SSA or homosexuality by the American Psychological Association a number of years ago, have the presumption in law that one afflicted with homosexuality is not capable of matrimony. Generally the same is true of so-called ““bi sexuality.”” This is by far a more frequent ground.

However, a person may lack both due discretion as well as the psychological capacity to full the essential obligations.

Far less frequent is the possibility of an exclusion of the right to fidelity by a positive act of the will in these cases (see canon 1101, paragraph 2) and occasionally try a case on this ground. An exclusion of the bonum fidei, or right to fidelity , may occur not only by an exclusion of monogamy, but also by a denial to the partner of the exclusive right to conjugal acts, such as by reserving to oneself by a positive act of the will the right to adultery, and the marital consent is vitiated whether the other relationship is heterosexual or homosexual. If the perpetrator intends not to bind himself or herself to sexual fidelity, simulation of marital consent is present.

Finally, if a homosexual or person with SSA marries only in order to ““cure him/herself,”” there is even the possibility of total simulation or exclusion of marriage itself by a positive act of the will (canon 1101 , paragraph 2). The person does not consent to marriage itself, but does through the ceremony for a totally extraneous purpose, i.e. a hope for cure.

It seems therefore that homosexuality is also an objective impediment to marriage as well as the priesthood. Does anyone here have the degree necessary to contradict this interpretation and apparent practice?

 

[Other_Eric]

fix:

First, I am not excluding the ordination to the diaconate in my arguments. Second, if one could prove that SSA was “cured” to an acceptable degree then one may make the argument that opening ordination to such persons would be reasonable, that would have to be on a strict case by case situation. The problem is that we are dealing with an all male environment in many ways, the “cure” is not an exact science and the “loophole” that bishops would use could be easily abused by those in the hierarchy who themselves are “gay”. In the end I ask you why take the risk? Is it that crucial that known men with SSAD need to be ordained? There are all manner of standards and reasons men have been excluded over time, why all the fuss about this small issue? IMO, the fuss is because too many with SSAD want access to ordination.

Hi fix!

This is a ridiculous argument. Would you allow a convicted pedophile a job at a daycare because some psychologist pronounced him cured?

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Other Eric:

Well, I think the canons in question do. To be sure I asked a canon lawyer if,

Doesn’t matter.

A canon lawyer is not the authority. All a canon lawyer can do is give you his opinion.

Also you are mistaken as the Catechism does not identify it as a psychological disorder.

The exact wording from paragraph 2357 in the Catechism is, “Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.”

I am not going to put the Canon here that you are attempting to use.

Can. 1095 The following are incapable of contracting marriage:
1° those who lack sufficient use of reason;
2° those who suffer from a grave lack of discretionary judgement concerning the essential matrimonial rights and obligations to be mutually given and accepted;
3° those who, because of causes of a psychological nature, are unable to assume the essential obligations of marriage.

I do not think you can prove that either fits and anyways, the competent authority in this case would be the local bishop in whose diocese the marriage was to take place. The local bishop usually delegates this to his parish pastors.

Now this could come up in an annulment case, but then again, it is the local bishop whose diocese that the annulment was applied for, which he usually delegates to an annulment triburnal.

Again, canon lawyer can only give his opinion.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Other Eric:

Hi fix!

This is a ridiculous argument. Would you allow a convicted pedophile a job at a daycare because some psychologist pronounced him cured?

No this is a ridiculous argument. For one thing, a convicted pedophile has been convicted of a crime for doing something.

Not everyone with a SSA has given in to it.

This is just a case of you comparing apples to oranges, you are deflecting/distoring the argument.

Typical red herring.

 

[fix]

Other Eric:

Hi fix!

This is a ridiculous argument. Would you allow a convicted pedophile a job at a daycare because some psychologist pronounced him cured?

Please read the post again. I said the argument “may” be made. I did not say I would accept it, only that it is not unreasonable. My stance, unless Rome declares otherwise, is that those with SSA should not be ordained.

In fact, I specifically gave reasons why that allowance would be a bad idea.

 

[contemplative]

I really hate to do this but I must to be fair. No one has looked at the flip side. Priests are men. They are either heterosexual, homosexual or in some rare case neither. Heterosexual priests have been known to cause some pretty serious toubles of their own. Problems of an active heterosexual priests can be as serious as a homosexual. As much as I really detest the overpopulation of homosexual priests we currently have I don’t think that refusing their ordination will really solve anything. It could move the tide for a little while but is it really moral to bar one group of men from ordination to temporarily solve an overpopulation problem? There needs to be a better answer…I need to think and pray on this one. So far no one has offered a good resolve on this thread.

 

[barnestormer]

ByzCath:

I understand where Edwin is coming from, about the single life not getting respect.

Look at the writing of the Church. If you go by them you see that there are two vocations in life, married or Holy Orders.

There are many, many people who do not see the single life as a vocation, unless it is in Holy Orders or Religious Life. They view the single life as a holding pattern for one of those, married or Holy Orders/Religious Life. There are many who see the older single person as someone who has missed their calling.

Unfortunately many people treat the single life as a holding pattern for the other vocations, and in a sense it is. But the Church does believe and teach that God calls some people to the single life permanently. Look at groups such as Regnum Christi and Opus Dei—lots of single folks there who have vowed to live single lives, many in community. This presents, among other things, a kind of radical availability for apostolates, missionary work, etc.

Just as people who may be reluctant to become a priest or religious brother/sister need to open their hearts to the possibility of those callings, so too do single people need to open themselves to the possibility that God is calling them to the single life. Just thinking that the single life isn’t a genuine vocation doesn’t change the reality that it IS a genuine vocation for some.

 

[barnestormer]

contemplative:

It could move the tide for a little while but is it really moral to bar one group of men from ordination to temporarily solve an overpopulation problem? There needs to be a better answer…I need to think and pray on this one. So far no one has offered a good resolve on this thread.

I think common sense tells us that, if Rome does this, it will not be intended as a cure-all for the existing problem. This is meant to curtail the problem for the future.

 

[Other_Eric]

ByzCath:

Doesn’t matter.

A canon lawyer is not the authority. All a canon lawyer can do is give you his opinion.

Also you are mistaken as the Catechism does not identify it as a psychological disorder.

The exact wording from paragraph 2357 in the Catechism is, “Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.”

I am not going to put the Canon here that you are attempting to use.

Can. 1095 The following are incapable of contracting marriage:
1° those who lack sufficient use of reason;
2° those who suffer from a grave lack of discretionary judgement concerning the essential matrimonial rights and obligations to be mutually given and accepted;
3° those who, because of causes of a psychological nature, are unable to assume the essential obligations of marriage.

I do not think you can prove that either fits and anyways, the competent authority in this case would be the local bishop in whose diocese the marriage was to take place. The local bishop usually delegates this to his parish pastors.

Now this could come up in an annulment case, but then again, it is the local bishop whose diocese that the annulment was applied for, which he usually delegates to an annulment triburnal.

Again, canon lawyer can only give his opinion.

Hi ByzCath!

Yes, this particular canon lawyer was giving his own opinion as well as the way these cases are typically decided at the annulment tribunal. It may be only an opinion, but given that he refers to the way these cases are decided and it is his job to know, I would give his opinion slightly more weight than that of an amateur. The canon specifically refers to a cause of a psychological nature, which homosexuality undoubtedly is.

We could play with words all day, but the Catechism refers to the homosexual condition as a disorder whose “psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.” If we have a disorder which definitively has psychological origins, what else would it be if not a psychological disorder?

 

[Other_Eric]

ByzCath:

No this is a ridiculous argument. For one thing, a convicted pedophile has been convicted of a crime for doing something.

Not everyone with a SSA has given in to it.

This is just a case of you comparing apples to oranges, you are deflecting/distoring the argument.

Typical red herring.

Hi ByzCath!

I don’t think it’s necessarily a red herring. If we know that 70% of homosexuals are active, then it’s pretty safe to assume a candidate who openly admits to the disorder has, in the past, been active. I have never met a person with this disorder who has not acted upon it.

Let’s make the analogy more equitable. Would you consider a man who, at any time, had a morbid sexual attraction to young children a suitable candidate for a daycare simply because he had not yet acted upon it?

 

[Other_Eric]

fix:

Please read the post again. I said the argument “may” be made. I did not say I would accept it, only that it is not unreasonable. My stance, unless Rome declares otherwise, is that those with SSA should not be ordained.

In fact, I specifically gave reasons why that allowance would be a bad idea.

Hi fix!

Duly noted. I guess I was a touch hasty.