Priests Wary of Summit Results

Las Vegas Sun ^ | April 24, 2002 | Las Vegas Sun

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Priests Wary of Summit Results

The Vatican summit of U.S. cardinals on ending the American sex abuse crisis has made many Roman Catholic priests wary that they will be sacrificed in a frenzy to restore trust in the church.

While clergymen remain committed to ousting pedophiles from their ranks, they worry innocent men will be suspended and priests who could be rehabilitated will instead be discarded.

Many also remain deeply concerned about comments from top-ranking prelates about a renewed need to bar homosexuals from the priesthood, regardless of whether they remain celibate. Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit and Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, emerged from the meeting Tuesday saying the issue is among those the church must address.

"I think that priests, having been overprotected in the past, are concerned there may be a tendency to throw them overboard to save the ship," said the Rev. Philip Murnion, director of the Pastoral Life Center in New York, which is not affiliated with the New York Archdiocese.

"They want to assure that care be taken that the concerns and rights of all will be protected."

Christopher Bellitto, a church historian and academic editor of The Paulist Press in New Jersey, said homosexual clergy have told him they are terrified they will be made scapegoats as the scandal drags on.

"There is a real fear among gay priests that they are going to be seen as the fall guys," Bellitto said.

American church leaders in Rome have been working on a communique expected to be completed at the close of the two-day summit Wednesday. Advocates for victims of priestly abuse have long complained that bishops have protected abusive clergy at the expense of children.

Pope John Paul II, in an address to the cardinals, said there was no room in the priesthood for clergy who hurt young people. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said Wednesday the prelates had agreed on a "one-strike-you're-out" policy on future sex abuse cases involving priests. That means priests who commit sex abuse would be dismissed from the clergy.

But McCarrick said there was still some question about whether such a policy should be applied in old cases that have recently come to light.

After the scandal erupted in Boston in January, bishops nationwide began scouring personnel files for past allegations, suspending dozens of priests and turning over church records to state prosecutors.

The Rev. Robert Bullock, head of the Boston Priests Forum, a group of more than 100 priests formed in response to the crisis, called the "one-strike" approach misguided.

"It's so sweeping that it does not seem to me to leave room for the presumption of innocence. Even for priests there's a presumption of innocence," Bullock said.

At last week's annual conference of the National Federation of Priests' Councils in Montreal, some of the 300 priests at the event were so worried that they proposed creating a national forum to air their concerns, said the Rev. Robert Silva, the federation president.

"It's frightening to us," Silva said.

Removing a man from the priesthood is different from firing them from a regular job, Silva said. Under Catholic tradition, once a man is ordained, the church has a lifelong obligation to him for housing, financial support and other needs. Only the Vatican can remove a priest.

"We are not a corporation, we are not a business and priests are not employees. There is a spiritual relationship which exists between a bishop and his priest," Silva said.

Marianne Duddy, executive director of the gay Catholic advocacy group Dignity/USA, said she's been fielding calls from homosexual priests who are so frightened about the prospect of losing their jobs, they can't sleep at night and have sought counseling.

"One guy has been a priest for 28 years," Duddy said. "Where would he go? What would he do? Would he able to leave with any kind of retirement money?"

Estimates of the number of gays among seminarians and the 46,075 Catholic clergy in the United States vary dramatically, from 10 percent to 50 percent. Experts in sexual disorders warn there is no evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children.

Silva called the idea of weeding out gays "absolutely absurd."

"The problem isn't being oriented one way or the other. The problem is whether you can live a celibate life," Silva said.

--

[Brian Kopp DPM]

The Vatican has stated that the problem in indeed homosexuals in the priesthood, that they must not be ordained, and that homosexual behavior calls into question the validity of their Holy Orders, going so far as to state that the priest who knowingly went into Holy Orders to pursue this disorder may not have been validly ordained at all.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

ping...get the SOBs out of the priesthood and the hierarchy!

Notice the abrupt change in terminology?!?

The hierarchy got a spanking from JPII for covering up the homosexual issue and denying it!!!

The media will never report it, and the hierarchy will never admit it, but JPII has told them in no uncertain terms to address the problem:

HOMOSEXUALS gotta GO!!!

[jlogajan]

priests who could be rehabilitated will instead be discarded.

That's a bit of a double standard, considering that men and women outside the church caught in acts of pedophilia are usually destroyed career wise.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Obviously not. The teaching profession, guarded by the liberal NEA, is shot through with pedophile homosexuals, yet not a word from the media.

Damnable hypocrisy.

Are you gay?

[jlogajan]

HOMOSEXUALS gotta GO!!!

Where did the Pope say that? I doubt he wants to lose 10 to 50% of his priests.

[traditionalist]

Experts in sexual disorders warn there is no evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children.

What blatent distortion. While homosexuals are not more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals, male homosexuals are far more likely to be attracted to post-pubuscent adolescents. I've seen studies that estimate as much as 1/3 of all homosexuals men pursue teenage boys.

[jlogajan]

The teaching profession, guarded by the liberal NEA, is shot through with pedophile homosexuals

Huh? I wasn't aware the NEA had the power to prevent pedophiles from getting prison terms.

As for homosexual pedophiles, as I proved the other day with your own premises, there are 33 times more hetero pedophiles than homo pedophiles.

[thinktwice]

From now on, I'm directing my church contributions to go directly to one priest working in a foreign mission.

[Dick Vomer]

It's not a PEDOPHILE problem....
It's not a SEX ABUSE problem.

It's a HOMOSEXUAL PREDATOR problem.

Now it's a problem that costs money, which is a REAL problem now. Where were all the self-righteous hypocrites when this was going on for the last 20-30 years, and probably longer. It's a pity that it took MONEY to bring the Pope into the fray.

Well better late than never is what I say.

[jlogajan]

I've seen studies that estimate as much as 1/3 of all homosexuals men pursue teenage boys.

What age? Age of consent for males is lower in many states than for females.

I think males chase females as young as legally possible too.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Many also remain deeply concerned about comments from top-ranking prelates about a renewed need to bar homosexuals from the priesthood, regardless of whether they remain celibate.

They should take the time and read the 1961 Vatican document "Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes" which is referenced at the link.

[jlogajan]

It's not a PEDOPHILE problem....

You're just saying that because there are 33 times more hetero pedophiles than homo pedophiles.

[BlessedBeGod]

While clergymen remain committed to ousting pedophiles from their ranks, they worry innocent men will be suspended and priests who could be rehabilitated will instead be discarded.

I thought they couldn't be rehabilitated. Has something changed?

[BlessedBeGod]

Where did the Pope say that? I doubt he wants to lose 10 to 50% of his priests.

Whatever it takes to clean up the mess.

[RobbyS]

The Vatican has stated that the problem in indeed homosexuals in the priesthood, that they must not be ordained, and that homosexual behavior calls into question the validity of their Holy Orders, going so far as to state that the priest who knowingly went into Holy Orders to pursue this disorder may not have been validly ordained at all. Sort of like an annulment, right?

[Brian Kopp DPM]

PRIESTS-HOMOSEXUALITY Mar-6-2002 (790 words) Backgrounder. With photo. xxxi
Vatican spokesman's comments highlight debate over gay priests
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official's comments on the priesthood and homosexuality have drawn public attention to an issue that has been quietly debated at the Vatican for several years.

Vatican sources said that, in general, church leaders are pressing harder so that people of permanent(sic) homosexual orientation are screened out as candidates for the priesthood.

So far, this has been handled through prudent local decisions rather than explicit orders issued from the Vatican, they said. But it is something Vatican officials have emphasized to bishops in recent discussions on priestly vocations and seminary programs, the sources said.

A new document on the issue also is being considered. A study on the question of homosexual candidates to the priesthood was completed last year at the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, and sources said a set of guidelines for seminaries may follow.

In January, the same congregation examined proposed guidelines on psychological testing for seminary candidates. Church officials view homosexuality as a potential problem that could be disclosed by such testing.

Last year, a top Vatican doctrinal official spoke of the negative effects of homosexuality within the priesthood and said: "The Holy See views this as a very serious problem and is determined to take steps to correct it."

The issue was raised again in early March when Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told The New York Times that "people with (homosexual) inclinations just cannot be ordained."

"That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality," he said. "But you cannot be in this field."

In response to questions by Catholic News Service, Navarro-Valls declined to elaborate on his comments. He said he did not want to draw more attention to this topic, especially while U.S. church leaders were dealing with the more immediate problem of sex abuse by clergy.

Yet many at the Vatican see the two issues as related -- if not causally, then at least circumstantially. Most publicized cases of sex abuse by clergy against minors have involved homosexual acts.

Church officials, who asked not to be named, said the Vatican was not trying to impose an arbitrary norm against homosexuals, but was trying to make "prudential decisions" based on individual cases at the seminary level. They noted that the Vatican views the issue as mainly dealing with future priests, not those already ordained.

As for objections that screening homosexuals would violate their rights, the sources said the priesthood was a question of vocation or divine grace, not human rights. In the church's view, no one has a "right" to be ordained, they said.

Some church officials have questioned whether some ordinations might even be considered invalid because of homosexuality. But the sources said that is not how the Vatican plans to approach the issue. For one thing, the validity of orders is a thorny church law question that would in turn raise pastoral problems -- such as the legitimacy of past sacramental acts carried out by a priest whose ordination was judged invalid.

The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" teaches that homosexual acts are a grave sin against chastity and that the homosexual orientation is "intrinsically disordered."

In an interview in 2001 with CNS, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, explained why church leaders view a homosexual orientation as a potential problem in a seminarian.

Archbishop Bertone said that while the homosexual inclination is not sinful in itself, it "evokes moral concern" because it is a strong temptation to actions that "are always in themselves evil."

He defined the homosexual inclination as "a temptation that, for whatever reason, has become so predominant in a person's life as to become a force shaping the entire outlook of the person."

"Persons with a homosexual inclination should not be admitted to the seminary," Archbishop Bertone said.

In 1961, a Vatican document on the selection of candidates to the priesthood said much the same thing. The instruction was issued by the then-Sacred Congregation for Religious and concerned those entering religious orders.

"Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination," it said. It said the community life and priestly ministry would constitute a "grave danger" or temptation for these people.

The document recommended that any person with serious unresolved sexual problems be screened out, saying that the chastity and celibacy required by religious and priestly life would constitute for them a "continuous heroic act and a painful martyrdom."

The 1961 document has never been abrogated, so is still technically valid, officials said. But now, the Vatican is considering a reformulation of these principles, so that the message gets through more clearly to local churches.

END

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[traditionalist]

While I agree with your sentiments, I think you are being far to optimistic about what the pope said.

I have not seen a single report where he is cited as ordering the dismissal of all homosexual clergy. If you have, I would appreciate it if you would direct me to it. The only thing I've seen coming close to such an order is a statement from his spokesman that homosexuals should not be ordained. But these are just empty words (not weak ones at that) until he takes steps to make sure the bishops actually carry them out, which he hasn't done and I would give 10-to-1 odds that he will never do. Also, the fact that only his spokesman, and not the pope himself, has said anything to this effect is quite telling.

The only thing his Holiness has done himself so far has been to make a few statements that do little other than state the obvious, like sexual absue is evil (duh!), and give extremely vague guidelines as to what is to be done about it. These actions are very much in line with Vatican 2's vision of collegiality, whose failure was never so apparent. Let us hope that God will give the next pope the courage and will to reject collegiality and end the state of near anarchy in which the Church currently finds herself.

[RobbyS]

And you are saying that these guys are 33 times as likely to hit on girls as they are boys? Doesn't fit the profile.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

You can repeat your mantra as much as you want (it comes right off the Nat'l Gay/Lesbian Task Force speaking points page---Are you gay?)

but everyone knows now that 95% of these cases are teenage boys.

This is homosexual chickenhawking, a celebrated and embraced part of homosexual culture.

The cat is out of the bag, your comments do not change the Truth of the matter.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

see post 16