[tuesday afternoon]

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and generally a liberal commentator on church affairs, agreed.

"Over the next few months we will hear from plenty of canon lawyers and theologians and bishops, as we have already, arguing, out of a genuine and compassionate desire to help the church continue to accept celibate gay men into the priesthood, that the document needs to be interpreted in the most positive light possible," he said.

"But it is impossible, after reading the Instruction, to escape the fact that when the Vatican says men with 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies,' it means what it says."

The battle lines are being drawn.

[wideawake]

The USCCB is an artficial construct which the Pope can canonically dissolve whenever he chooses to.

I would say the USCCB has outlived its usefulness, but that would imply that it has once been useful.

[frogjerk]

The battle lines are being drawn.

Good.

[billhilly]

"men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation..."

Their constant attraction to eight year old boys is what is bringing the church down.

[ghost of nixon]

men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation.

creepy

[Cicero]

The dissenters still control the U.S. Bishop's Conference. Skylstad is a loser. So are most of their other bishops in positions of power within the organization. And their lay and clerical bureaucracy is stuffed with feminists, gay advocates, and heretics.

On the whole, the organization is about as helpful to Catholic orthodoxy as the UN is to world stability and peace.

[MEGoody]

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday that under a new Vatican directive on homosexuality, men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation.

I suppose the same would be said of heterosexual men. Sure, they might be attracted to women, but not so much that they'd violate their vow of celibacy.

[pgyanke]

I saw Fr Martin on PBS last night debating the subject with Fr Joseph Fessio, Provost of Ave Maria University. My wife and I sat in rapt attention as we finally heard a priest on TV articulate the faith with no qualifiers.

Fr Martin on the other hand loaded his speech with qualifiers and watered down any Gospel message.

When it was all done, we high-fived each other and fired off an email to Fr Fessio praising him for a job well done.

We need to pray continuously for priests such as these. They are under spiritual assault!

[frogjerk]

But in Rome, the head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, said that the problems of homosexual and heterosexual candidates are not equivalent. Although many people think homosexuality is a "normal condition of the human person," he told Vatican Radio, it "absolutely contradicts human anthropology" and violates "natural law."

For the church, denying ordination to gay men is no more discriminatory than "if a person who suffers from vertigo is not admitted to a school for astronauts," the cardinal said.

Excellent!

[A.A. Cunningham]

Skylstad speaks only for himself and answers to the Pope.

Skylstad's comments are the opening salvo in what promises to be a wide-ranging battle within the U.S. church over the document's implementation. Bishop John M. D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., said yesterday that Skylstad's interpretation is "simply wrong" -- a rare public clash among bishops, who usually go to great lengths to preserve an image of collegiality, even when they disagree.

Good for D'Arcy. More Bishops need to publicly state that Skylstad is a navel gazing buffoon. Too bad he has no authority to clean up that cesspool known as Notre Dame.

[Antoninus]

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday that under a new Vatican directive on homosexuality, men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation.

No, your excellency, that's not what it said. Please re-read. If you still don't get it, report to Sister Mary Rita's rumedial reading comprehension class with the rest of the 4th graders.

[FerdieMurphy]

... men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests...

Sorry "Excellency" but you're full of crap!

[PAR35]

Does Skylstad lean that way himself?

[Straight Vermonter]

They seem to be making the point that celibacy is the only measure here. The homosexuality, in their minds, does not matter a bit.