C
CradleCath
Guest
The Catholic Church does not ban the ordination of gay priests.
Yes, the Catholic Church does ban the ordination of men who are attracted sexually to other men. It has since Christ created it through the Apostles. One thing that I can’t seem to explain…& I’ll try again is that the Church** cannot** change any teaching that the gospels embrace. We are the Church created by CHRIST & we CANnot go against his word or His examples, or those of His Apostles. It isn’t that we WILL not, we CANnot. It we do, we will no longer be the Catholic Church. Therefore we CANnot ordain homosexuals just as we canNOT ordain women. This has been Church teaching through the ages.
I’ll go back to the 4th century & Eastern monasticism… in the words of St. Basil of Cesarea. The spiritual and physical penalties declared by the 4th Century architect of Eastern monasticism, St. Basil of Cesarea (322-379AD), **for the cleric or monk caught making sexual advances (kissing) or sexually molesting young boys or men. **The convicted offender was to be whipped in public, deprived of his tonsure (head shaven), bound in chains and imprisoned for six months, after which he was to be contained in a separate cell and ordered to undergo severe penances and prayer vigils to expedite his sins under the watchful eye of an elder spiritual brother. His diet was that of water and barley bread - the fodder of animals. Outside his cell, while engaged in manual labor and moving about the monastery, the pederast monk was to be always monitored by two fellow monks to insure that he never again had any contact with young men or boys"
And I do know that not all homosexuals practice pederasty, however at least, one in three gay men do…sometime in their life.
Moving on in history, I’ll go to the 11th century & St. Peter Damien, the great reformer
“Among St. Peter Damian’s most famous writings is his lengthy treatise, Letter 31, the Book of Gomorrah (Liber Gomorrhianus), containing the most extensive treatment and condemnation by any Church Father of clerical pederasty and homosexual practices. [2] His manly discourse on the vice of sodomy in general and clerical homosexuality and pederasty in particular, is written in a plain and forthright style that makes it quite readable and easy to understand.
In keeping with traditional Church teachings handed down from the time of the Apostles, he holds that all homosexual acts are crimes against Nature and therefore crimes against God who is the author of Nature”
ourladyswarriors.org/articles/damian1.htm
Now, for the present time frame:.
1961: According to a Vatican document approved by Pope John XXIII on 1961-JAN-23: “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.**” 2 The document "was promulgated by the Vatican�s Sacred Congregation for Religious on February 2, 1961.
religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc2.htm (scroll down)
**Indeed, on May 16, 2002, **the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments reiterated the policy: "Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky.
Earlier in 1997 the Congregation for Divine Worship issued a letter to the world’s bishops giving guidelines for candidates for the seminary. One stipulation was "sufficient affective maturity and a clearly masculine sexual identity.
Lastly, we have Pope Benedict’s document, “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”.
The same members of the hierarchy who took Pope John’s beloved Council & twisted it into something that has hurt our Church tremendously…ignored his words on ordaining homosexuals. Now, we have a disproportionate number of gay priests, evil in our Seminaries & boys who were molested. AND we still have Bishops trying to skew the Popes words to mean something that they don’t.
I have the utmost compassion for homosexuals & lesbians. Especially Catholics with same-sex attraction. Their’s is a hard cross to carry & must be a lonely one. However, we must remember that we ALL have crosses, there are men who have lost limbs from serving in Iraq, there are girls like Jaycee Dugard, taken from all that she knew & loved when she was 11, continuously raped while living in a tent, for 18 YEARS. I think that the hardest cross to carry must be that of losing a child. When I get into a “pity party” state, I try to remember that there are so many carrying crosses that make mine look like a toothpick.