Gay Priests
I am not that interested in this story, but will attempt to write about it for the benefit of any non-Catholics who might stop by this blog: Vatican May Bar Gays From Seminaries.
I'm sure there have been Roman Catholic priests who suffered from the affliction of same-sex attraction and were every bit as devout, holy, and celibate as Father Seraphim Rose of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
Surely a number of potentially good priests would be turned away from the priesthood under increased scrutiny. Some of these might even be tempted to abandon their salvation and enter into an actively gay lifestyle. We must pray for these. Nevertheless, such a move is needed.
It must be remembered that any move to bar men suffereing from this disorder from joining the priesthood is a matter of discipline, not doctrine. Doctrines illustrate eternal, immutable truths: the Trinity will always consist of three Persons; Christ will always have two Natures; Mary will always be the Mother of God.
Disciplines, in contrast, are mutable in the face of temporal and spatial challenges: the charging of interest was usurious under a feudal ecomomy, but not under a free market economy; married men may become Catholic priests in the Eastern Rite, but not in the Western.
Only recently have people carrying the cross of same-sex attraction decided to turn their affliction into an indentity, some would even suggest, laughably, a "community." Given the situation of a culture that calls good evil and evil good, this new discipline is a necessity.
In the "spirit" (not letter) of Vatican II, the doors of the seminaries we opened, along with the windows of the Church. One result was the homosexual priest crisis* of 2002, the same year I entered Holy Mother Church.
*The media sometimes erroneously refers to this as the pedophile priest crisis: the majority of the victims were post-pubescent males, not children.
I am not that interested in this story, but will attempt to write about it for the benefit of any non-Catholics who might stop by this blog: Vatican May Bar Gays From Seminaries.
I'm sure there have been Roman Catholic priests who suffered from the affliction of same-sex attraction and were every bit as devout, holy, and celibate as Father Seraphim Rose of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
Surely a number of potentially good priests would be turned away from the priesthood under increased scrutiny. Some of these might even be tempted to abandon their salvation and enter into an actively gay lifestyle. We must pray for these. Nevertheless, such a move is needed.
It must be remembered that any move to bar men suffereing from this disorder from joining the priesthood is a matter of discipline, not doctrine. Doctrines illustrate eternal, immutable truths: the Trinity will always consist of three Persons; Christ will always have two Natures; Mary will always be the Mother of God.
Disciplines, in contrast, are mutable in the face of temporal and spatial challenges: the charging of interest was usurious under a feudal ecomomy, but not under a free market economy; married men may become Catholic priests in the Eastern Rite, but not in the Western.
Only recently have people carrying the cross of same-sex attraction decided to turn their affliction into an indentity, some would even suggest, laughably, a "community." Given the situation of a culture that calls good evil and evil good, this new discipline is a necessity.
In the "spirit" (not letter) of Vatican II, the doors of the seminaries we opened, along with the windows of the Church. One result was the homosexual priest crisis* of 2002, the same year I entered Holy Mother Church.
*The media sometimes erroneously refers to this as the pedophile priest crisis: the majority of the victims were post-pubescent males, not children.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
<< Home