The ban on gay men from entering the seminary came as a surprise to no one close to the Vatican. First introduced in 2005 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (before he became Pope Benedict XVI), it was part of his attempt to purge the priesthood of homosexuality (both the act and the orientation), in part, as a misguided response to the sex abuse crisis.
Yet many Vatican observers, such as Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and National Catholic Reporter columnist, did not hide their dismay it remains in the manual. [...]
Yet longtime Vatican expert Robert Mickens says euphemisms such as "homosexual tendencies" are just one of the many ways the Catholic Church avoids facing the issue of gayness in its midst. [...]
"The church wants to keep this issue a taboo so that those pious young men will continue to think of the priesthood as the noble way, rather than, 'I'm gay and maybe that's how I should lead my life as a gay man.' If we allow people to live openly their homosexuality, we lose a great pool of our resources for ministry."
No comments:
Post a Comment