Vatican plan to block gay priests

[emad]

Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent
Sunday August 28, 2005
The Observer


The new Pope faces his first controversy over the direction of the Catholic church after it was revealed that the Vatican has drawn up a religious instruction preventing gay men from being priests.

The controversial document, produced by the Congregation for Catholic Education and Seminaries, the body overseeing the church's training of the priesthood, is being scrutinised by Benedict XVI.

It been suggested Rome would publish the instruction earlier this month, but it dropped the plan out of concern that such a move might tarnish his visit to his home city of Cologne last week.

The document expresses the church's belief that gay men should no longer be allowed to enter seminaries to study for the priesthood. Currently, as all priests take a vow of celibacy, their sexual orientation has not been considered a pressing concern.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1558063,00.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. hahahahaha...it is going to be a very lonely place, those seminaries.

Exactly how are they going to determine if a prospective priest is gay..just ask him?

[emad]

4. The word 'seminary' becomes even more comical as these

new rules come in....

Maybe it should be splled semeneerie

[msongs]

2. pssst, the current pope was in the hitler youth for chris' sake! nt

[Ian David]

3. Pedophile priests, however, are set for life.

Here's a good scam:

1) Become a priest
2) Convince some kid to say you molested him.
3) Church transfers you to another parish.
4) Tell some other kid, "Please tell someone I molested you."
5) Repeat as necessary until:
6) Church "retires" you to a comfortable lifestyle in California where you never have to work another day in your life.

[donco6]

5. Good.

IMO, a gay priest is akin to a Log Cabin Republican. Perhaps this move will force them to re-evaluate their devotion to this "church."

[CatholicEdHead]

7. No, church is bi-polar

with around a third to half just seething in hate and the other half to two thirds is pretty accepting.

[donco6]

8. But it's the seething half that's in power.

Maybe it's just me, but after a while, don't you just get tired of trying to force a place for yourself at the table? If they don't want you there, why bother?

(speaking from very disillusioned, tired, frustrated, position in life.)

[CatholicEdHead]

9. Yes they are mostly in power now

and yes it does get hard. There are a few progressive parishes out there, but they are shrinking in numbers all the time and the new priests are of the regressive style. I do see myself probably going ELCA Luthern or Unitarian in the next few years depending on when I am and what the local parishes offer. My current one is good for around another decade right now.

[CatholicEdHead]

6. This has been talked about for some time

on the other online Catholic sites.

This is coming about because of the myth that often gets pushed that gays are the ONLY sole reason for all the problems of the church. "Lavender Mafia" gets thrown around way too much online as a slander term. The people who believe this think that if this happens, everything will magically go back to what it was before.

The about of scapegoating homosexuals in the Catholic Church nowadays is appaling.