Vatican to Reaffirm Ban on Gay Priests

[emad]

Vatican to Reaffirm Ban on Gay Priests

Thursday September 22, 2005 12:01 PM


By NICOLE WINFIELD

Associated Press Writer

VATICAN CITY (AP) - A Vatican document will be released in the coming weeks that reaffirms the Catholic Church's belief that homosexuals shouldn't be ordained priests, a Vatican official said Thursday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the document has not been released, said the ``instruction'' from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education would contain ``some new things and some old things'' and would be released well before the end of the year.

That timeframe means the document will be released just as a Vatican-mandated evaluation of all U.S. seminaries, ordered in the wake of the U.S. clergy sex abuse scandal, gets under way.

Several Vatican documents and letters over the years have said gays or men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained, regardless of whether they can remain celibate.

A Feb. 2, 1961, Vatican document, ``Instruction on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders,'' made clear homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5294926,00.html

[Misunderestimator]

1. Is it gonna be a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" kind of thing?

Otherwise, they are going to lose half the clergy. Idiots.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Given that priests are (allegedly) celibate anyway

What is the difference between a man who is abstaining from having sex with men and a man who is abstaining from having sex with women?

Mindless bigotry.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Hmmmm? Mulling over this philosophical notion

It's making my head explode.

Simple answer: fear and hatred, apparently these are Ratzinger's Papal "virtues"

[Ih8dashrub]

3. bunch of catholic hypocrites

who are they to tell anyone that gay people can't be priests - they got plenty of them already

theyre a bunch of hypocrites because they say youre supposed to love your brother and then they say you cant be a happy priest

these catholics are no better than the nazis who killed gays in ww2 and they ought to be outlawed

[Canuckistanian]

4. Pedophiles, you idiots, not Gay men.

BIG difference. And pedophiles are just as likely to be heterosexual.

[Ih8dashrub]

5. duh

no they were happy - all the kids were boys

[kweerwolf]

9. A sizeable portion of them were boys but ...

... boys are an easier target for male pedophiles because parents (and society) keep a closer watch on girls. An adult male with a young girl is far more likely to arouse suspicion than an adult male with a boy, so boys are often the "target of opportunity" for pedophile.

[FloridaPat]

7. Yes, major difference between the two. Which means they are

still not doing anything about the problem.

[ima_sinnic]

8. whatever. when is this irrelevant and hateful institution going to go

the way of the dinosaurs?