Posted on 02/21/2005 10:06:11 AM PST by donbosco74
During the height of the U.S. homosexual priest sex abuse scandal several years ago, Catholic News Service writer John Thavis revealed the largely unknown fact that in 1961 Pope John XXIII had approved in writing a ban on homosexual ordinations to the priesthood.
Thavis said he was told the ban contained in this 1961 document is still in effect. The document was entiltled "Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders", published by the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for Religious. At the time of its publication, the document was referred to by the Sacred Congregation for Religious as "a matter of public law". The ban, as published in The Canon Law Digest, Vol.5, 1963, Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee, stated:
"Advancement to religious vows and ordinations should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers..." (See also CFN Jn 2002).
In the December 17, 2004 edition of the Los Angeles Archdiocesan publication, the Tidings, the same John Thavis revealed, in effect, that a recent Church effort to keep and enforce the 1961 Papal ban had been rejected, and that a revised Vatican draft document, due for release by early fall, 2005, would in effect allow homosexuals to be ordained as Catholic priests.
Homosexual Victory Imminent?
Unless the revised Vatican draft document is rejected by Pope John Paul II and other Church leaders before its early fall release, it will give a great victory to the strong pro-homosexual faction inside the Cahtholic Church and to the homosexual movement wouldwide. The Catholic Church's apparent "approval" of homosexual priests will create great pressure on other religions to weaken their opposition to ordaining homosexual pastors. It will give the homosexual lifestyle the apparent seal of approval of the Catholic Church, despite any staement to the contrary...
Some Bishops Opposed Banning Homosexuals
In his April 18, 2003 article, Allen [John Allen, Jr., "All The Pope's Men" author and NCR writer] wrote: "A source close to the drafting process told NCR that the new document regarding seminaries (1961) was 'in deep trouble' in part because some bishops, including some Americans, have raised objections." This source told Allen: "They're saying they don't want to drive the problem underground and make being gay a clandestine thing in the priesthood... They feel it's better to have it out in the open..."
In other words, Allen was saying that some Bishops, including some Americans, approve of openly homosexual men in the priesthood. The view of these bishops has prevailed in the most recent draft document, which will soon open the Catholic priesthood to homosexual men including openly homosexual men, unless Catholics and others protest to Pope john Paul II, College of Cardinals members and other bishops around the world, and urge others to protest...
...[sidebar to article, pg 16]...
Proposed Letter to the Pope
Pope John Paul II Apostolic Palace 00120 Vatican City State, Europe
Re: Enforce 1961 Papal Ban against admitting homosexuals to priesthood and religious life.
Your Holiness:
I strongly oppose a new Vatican draft allowing homosexual ordinations scheduled for early fall, 2005. The "closed-door" April 2-5, 2003 symposium on the acceptance of homosexuals to the priesthood and religious life was an outrageous, one-sided, pro-homosexual farce.
I strongly urge you to reject this revised Vatican draft admitting homosexuals to ordination. I stongly urge you to support and renew explicilty the ban on all homosexual ordinations approved by Pope John XXIII on January 23, 1961.
I will not make financial contributions to any diocesan institution whatsoever if the Vatican allows homosexuals to be ordained.
The militant homosexual faction inside the Church is destroying the Church. I urge you to stop this destruction! Please affirm the 1961 ban on homosexual ordinations by your predecessor Pope John XXIII.
Thank you and God Bless you.
Sincerely, Name, address
Also Send to: Papal Secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz Apostolic Palace, 00120 Vatican City State, Europe
and to: Josepth Cardinal Ratzinger Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Piazza del S. Uffizio 11 00193 Rome, Italy
I too wish that I were wrong - and that it all was a very bad dream.
The source is the monthly publication shown under the title. Subscribers get the news first, and my copy arrived last week. I don't know how to scan a text into the computer, so I typed what you see there, which is about one sixth of the text published. You can copy and paste it into Angelqueen if you like, but please use the CFN Feb 05 acknowledgement so people will know where to look, or to get their own subscription. CFN is "in the trenches" on a lot of critical issues facing the Church and our world situation these days, taking up what the "media" apparently abhors.
Incidentally, at the end of the article in CFN, the website to find the complete text of the original 1961 document from the Holy See to all bishops of the world is:
www.rcf.org/docs/1961Text.html
Well, I certainly hope not! I cannot speak for the intentions of the men who are currently running the Church. All I am doing is responding to their actions, and to the reports of people like Thavis and Allen. I appreciate the work of Robert Mauro, without whose effort we might not know much of this, as the "media" would never print an article like this one.
If you are upset reading this, I don't blame you. I am too. But I don't understand your "disagreement." I did not type out the whole article which comes to 3 full pages in 10 point type. I think it's about 4,ooo words. Perhaps if you read the whole thing you will have a different reaction. What I mean is, there's more information in the complete edition, which is currently only available if you buy the Feb. CFN, and that's not found on any newsstands. You have to order it from the publisher or find some guy who carries a stack of them to Church on Sunday.
Are you disagreeing with the facts reported, or are you presuming they are inaccurate, or is it some opinion of the author you dispute? I never got so far as the Commentary portion, which is about 1,ooo words long.
Regarding your links, these largely address another topic, namely sacerdotal celibacy. That is not the issue of this article. The 1961 document says that the evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty are grounds for not being admitted in seminary, all presuming from the start that celibacy would be practiced. In other words, even a celibate priest would face "serious dangers" trying to live the common life and priestly ministry, if he is afflicted with those tendencies, and THAT'S WHY he should never enter the seminary, and OF COURSE he should never be ordained.
If you want on/off the ping list see my profile page.
"...what exactly are the loopholes that would permit homosexuals to come pouring into the Church legally...?"
I do not pretend to know about what is being done "legally." But like I started to explain in the comment following the truncated article which I typed in here, in this diocese, anyway (and since Mahony was buddies with Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago who died in the middle of a sex scandal, it's probably all over the country, if not the world), I know from personal experience that at St. John Seminary in Oxnard, CA, they have been expelling good seminarians who are caught being too traditional for many years. I have personally met some and have heard their story. What are the offenses that warrant expulsion? Watch:
1. A seminarian caught learning Latin on his own (all Latin studies were expunged long ago) was put on the list.
2. Any seminarian caught studying the Traditional Latin Mass propers, rubrics or trappings was put on the list.
3. Any seminarian found praying the Rosary or encouraging others to pray the Rosary was put on the list.
What was the "list" for? A record of the seminarians was kept, and those on the "list" were tailed most maliciously. Anything they did that could be used as grounds for dismissal was prosecuted to the hilt. Of course, a homosexually inclined seminarian could do the same things and nothing would come of it. Remember this is AFTER the prohibition for letting them in in the first place. They should not have even been there to begin with, but now they were being given preferential treatment!
The offenses used were things like habitual tardiness, disrespect for authority, missing appointments, wearing inappropriate clothing, being in prohibited areas or talking out of turn. That way, the fact of institutionalized discrimination AGAINST good and faithful candidates to the priesthood WOULD NEVER GET RECORDED.
I doubt you will likely find much written on this, but you can listen to the GOOD MEN who were oppressed by this corrupt institution.
Well it certainly looks pretty bleak. Corruption is nothing new to the Church, however. The Church has endured through rough times before, although this is a bit worse than the previous ones. I'm not sure I know what you mean by this:
"...the remaining Catholic clerics in Rome should immediately grant celebrants to all loyal diocesan and validly ordained independent priests."
What do you mean by "celebrants?"
The SSPX has been negotiating (sort of) with Rome for a long time, and Rome keeps trying to bypass the issue of dogma. Bishop Fellay, on the other hand, has attempted to keep dogma in the foreground, since his mentor taught him that unless they do so, there can never be any good to come from any agreements. Now we can see the proof of that in Campos, Brazil.
If you are referring to "indult" I would like to remind you that no need for any indult exists for a priest to say the Traditional Latin Mass. The "indult" should be required for a priest to offer the Novus Ordo! All priests have a right to say the Mass of Ages because Quo Primum grants this right "in perpetuity" and no pastor, not even a pope (a pope is a pastor) can ever take that away. There have been men murdered for saying this.
Once ordained, a Roman Catholic priest can say Mass wherever he wants to, evidenced by the priests in the catacombs, on the battlefields, in the prisons. Now even the local parish is a cave, a war zone, a prison. But getting the Pope and bishops to admit as much is the same problem as getting them to release the 3rd Secret, or to consecrate Russia properly. They won't do it because to do so would contradict everything they have so proudly asserted over the years. They have lied, and they don't want to be found out. What a wicked web their deception has woven.
There is a priest in CA who received something from Rome called a celebrant (I was told). If I understand correctly, it grants a priest faculties similar to that of incardination in a diocese. The celebrant allows the priest to bypass the diocesan bishop all together. He can operate anywhere in the world and need not inform the local bishop of his presence.
I should add this celebrant made the local bishop furious but there isn't a thing he can do about it. This priest has a traditional chapel.
A celebret is a testimonial given to a priest when traveling that he is in good standing, with the accompanying request that he be permitted to say Mass. Diocesan priests receive these from their bishops; religious from their superiors; Eastern Rite clerics, traveling through Latin jurisdictions, from the Congregation for the Oriental Church. The date on them should be recent.
Your information is incorrect. Chapels cannot be set up outside the jurisdiction of the local bishop, and priests cannot licitly celebrate Mass in them without the permission of the local bishop.
Okay.
This priest received his from Rome. The local bishop can't touch him.
I believe she means "celebret".
I believe you are mistaken, but will do further research. There are not "traditional chapels" set up outside the purview of the local bishop, by Rome or anybody else.
Every priest has a superior, unless he is retired; there are no "free-lancers". Even retired priests have to have faculties to operate in a diocese.
A letter which a bishop gives to a priest, that he may obtain permission in another diocese to say Mass, and for this purpose bears testimony that he is free from canonical censures. The Council of Trent (Sess. XXIII, chap. xvi on Reform) lays down the rule that "no cleric who is a stranger shall without letters commendatory (q.v.) from his own ordinary be admitted by any bishop to celebrate the divine mysteries". Ordinarily permission is not to be given to a priest from another diocese to say Mass without this certificate signed and duly sealed. The seal is obviously the more important requisite, as it is the safer guarantee against forgery. The celebret should be officially recognized by the diocesan authority of the place where a priest may wish to say Mass. One who has his celebret in due form, or who is certainly known to be in good standing in his own diocese, may be allowed to celebrate till he has had a sufficient time to comply with this rule. A priest with proper credentials cannot reasonably be prevented from saying Mass, though he will be expected to comply with reasonable restrictions which may be imposed.
I can find nothing in Google that allows for a Papal celebret which bypasses the local bishop.
I don't know the exact details, but a priest can receive a celebret from Ecclesia Dei for saying the TLM and not need the permission of the local ordinary to do so.
Here's something from the infamous Father Scott of the SSPX, written upon the defection of a Father Vanderputten from the Society:
He himself has obtained a celebret from Cardinal Ratzinger, and now celebrates the Indult Mass, under the condition that he places himself under a diocesan bishop within six months.
Again, I would find it odd that the Vatican would approve of a "free lance" priest celebrating the Tridentine Mass outside the jurisdiction of a bishop. Every priest has to be attached to a bishop or superior.
It seems to me that the Church in the USA has been ignoring the edict for a long time anyway. If anything, the current problems are each very good examples of why this ban should be vigorously enforced rather than eliminated.
I was speaking specifically about the article, I assume you read in whole as I did. After all you posted it.
Perhaps I didn't make my question clear. What exactly about the new document that is due out this fall has the authors panties in a bunch. He apparently thinks it is an open invitation for homosexuals to enter seminaries and be ordained. He thinks this so forcefully that he wants us to write letters to the Pope and all the hierarchy.
The only thing is, I don't understand where exactly the fire is in the new document. It actually states that homosexuals are not to be admitted or ordained.
I thought since you typed some of it, you probably read it also. I did, and when I got to the end I wasn't sure what his problem was (specifically with the doc)
I'm pretty well versed in what you had to say, as are most of us here, and I know more has to be done, not less, to assure orthodox Priests for the future.
That may be the situation. I don't know much about it. It was new to me when my friend told me.
Clear Vatican statement: "a person who is homosexual or has homosexual tendencies is not, therefore, suitable to receive the sacrament of sacred orders."
Found this:
New Vatican Document on Homosexuality and the Priesthood Coming Before Fall 2005
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/dec/04121307.html
VATICAN CITY, December 13, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - John Thavis, the Vatican correspondent for the Catholic News Service, an agency of the US Bishops Conference, reports that the Vatican will soon publish a document concerning homosexuality and the priesthood. The report notes that Vatican officials are preparing an inspection (or visitation) of US seminaries to commence in the Fall of 2005 and the document is expected prior to the visitation.
Bishop John C. Nienstedt of New Ulm, Minn., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Priestly Formation, said in an interview in Rome, "I think they intend to have it out by the time the visitation begins."
The Vatican has confirmed several times that men with homosexual sexual orientations should not be ordained. The December 2002 bulletin of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments contained a letter signed by Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, who has since retired as the head of the Congregation, which said ordaining such men would be imprudent and "very risky."
A prominent Vatican document dealing with the issue was released as early as 1961. The 1961 document from the Sacred Congregation for Religious prohibits the admission of homosexuals to the diocesan priesthood and religious orders. The document states: "Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination," because priestly ministry would place such persons in "grave danger".
The document is being prepared by the Congregation for Catholic Education in consultation with several other Vatican agencies, including the doctrinal congregation. In a report earlier this year, the education congregation described it as an "instruction on the criteria and norms for the discernment in questions regarding homosexuality in view of the admission of candidates to the seminary and to sacred orders."
Commenting on the coming document which has been more than five years in the making, Bishop Nienstedt said, ""I think it's going to be a balanced document, because the whole question of homosexuality not only has psychological dimensions but also has varying degrees of a person acting out or not acting out." He added, "So the whole question has to be nuanced considerably: 'What is homosexuality?' 'What are the homosexual attractions?' and that sort of thing. I think this document will be helpful because it is going to address those questions."
Jhw
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