Many of you seem not to understand the issues at all. I cannot believe that there continues to remain this equating of homosexuality with pedophilia. Get it: they are not the same thing! To say they are is not to have an accurate handle on the issues!
Yes, homosexuality is disordered, but so is the desire of a supposedly straight heterosexual man who molests children. They are both disorders of the sexuality. Understand this–they are not two so vastly different things, as if a sexual disorder that is heterosexual in nature is somehow better or less offensive that a sexual disorder that is homosexual in nature.
Yes, a homosexual seminarian may have to practice even more self-control while in the seminary, but once in the role of a priest of a parish, he will undergo the same challenges that a heterosexual man must. There sill be women and men alike in a parish. Homosexual priests will encounter men in the seminaries and parishes, as heterosexuals will encounter women in the parishes, including nuns.
Homosexuality is something to be overcome, but it cannot always be rooted out. Some people think that certain homosexuals can possibly reverse their tendencies through some sort of therapy; however, most homosexuals are born as such and no reversal can be made, just as a heterosexual cannot magically become homosexual.
Finally people, stop making the error of equating homosexuality with pedophilia or fedrophilia (teenage attraction). There is homosexual pedophilia, fedrophilia, and attraction toward adults, just as there exists heterosexual pedophilia, fedrophilia, and adult attraction. So, under the umbrellas of heterosexuality and homosexuality there are these different categories. It seems that both kinds of pedophilic and fedrophilic sexual relations were the problems in the sex abuse scandal, not adult relations, although of course they have always been present.
Homosexuals are people too, who can enter the ministerial priesthood of Christ just as heterosexuals can. The conversion of heart is what makes the difference, that is, the desire to serve Christ completely. A magical “change” is sexuality is not only largely impossible if possibe at all, but not the solution to any problem. Get the story straight, stop the descrimination, and think of what Christ would say. People who are mature and have a handle on their sexuality and faith in Christ pose no threat to the priesthood and the Chuch, but rather show themselves to be assets to it and models of right behavior!
It’s not a big deal. If you spend a lot of time around soldiers, you will hear them talk about “gaol bait”; girls who look older than they are, and around whom one must be careful, lest one end up in gaol. A sad attitude, but one that conveys some truth.