Posted on 09/21/2005 5:34:27 AM PDT by marshmallow
Beginning early next month, teams of specially appointed Vatican investigators will visit Chicago area Catholic seminaries to determine whether priests are being trained properly and to what degree homosexuality is present on campus.
The Vatican has ordered "apostolic visitations," as the inspections are formally known, of all 229 seminaries and houses of formation for priests in the United States. The visitations have been anticipated for several years and are, in part, a response to the clergy sex abuse scandal that has rocked the American church since 2002.
While some church leaders insist the visitations are meant to examine how well priests are being trained spiritually and intellectually, others say the inspections are a thinly veiled attempt to root out homosexuals in the clergy.
"They are basically checking to see if we are in compliance with what the church has asked us to do," said the Rev. Thomas Baima, provost of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, the largest seminary in the United States. Nine "apostolic visitors" are to begin their examination of Mundelein's 205 seminarians and 40 faculty members the first week of October. The visitors will also interview about 100 men who have graduated from Mundelein in the past three years, Baima said. "The issue is, if we're training men for chaste celibacy, we want to make sure there's no sexual activity going on at all."
Awaiting a mysterious document
The Rev. Robert Silva, head of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, does not believe the visits are "witch hunts" for gay clergy, but he does think the Vatican is placing undue emphasis on homosexuality.
"We need not to focus on specific homosexuality, but we need to focus on the integration of our own human sexuality and the ability to live a deeply committed virginal life that is fully and wholly sexual," Silva said.
Of the 56 questions in the Instrumentum Laboris, a 13-page instructional document outlining how visitations will be conducted and the kinds of questions apostolic visitors will be asking, six questions are marked "must be answered." Only one -- "Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary?" -- explicitly mentions homosexuality.
The apostolic visitations are getting under way as Catholics await the arrival of a Vatican document addressing homosexuality in the priesthood. The document has long been rumored to exist, but some observers thought it might have fallen by the wayside in light of Pope John Paul II's death, said the Rev. Donald Senior, president of Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, where four apostolic visitors are expected to begin interviewing faculty in December. The visitors will return in March to interview some 170 religious-order seminarians enrolled at CTU.
It is not known what the rumored Vatican document will say, but some observers see hints in comments made recently by Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, the American prelate who is coordinating the apostolic visitations for the Vatican. "Anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary," even if the man has been celibate for more than a decade, O'Brien told the National Catholic Register.
Gay priest derides 'witch hunt'
Such remarks belie the true intent of the apostolic visits, according to one Chicago-area Catholic priest who is gay. "Flying in the face of reality and scientific evidence, rather than dealing with the real issue of psychic immaturity in priests who are either gay or straight -- which is clearly the problem for pedophiles . . . -- they are going on a witch hunt to get rid of all the gays," said the priest, who requested anonymity. "It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
"Why stop at seminaries? Why not deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals? Are they going to be asked if they are homosexuals and if they are, be forced to resign their positions?" he said. "If that happens, there will be many empty offices, many empty parishes and many empty sees."
We should be so lucky.
A smaller, de-sodomited Church works for me.
Isn't a seminary inspection what Monica L. was doing for Bill C.?
OK.
They need to fire this moron for starters.
LOL! That was my first thought, too. Sounds like a plan to me. Especially the bit about the bishops.
I have always thought that one of the things that has protected gay priests has been a cadre of gay (and I mean actively gay) bishops. I'm sure we all have our candidates for this list, starting with the holder of a certain major West Coast see. But until somebody starts rooting out the bishops who have fostered and protected the gay environment that has grown in seminaries, dioceses and religious orders, the problem is not going to be solved.
Remove just one of them for that and all the rest would get the message. After all, they can probably dump their boyfriends faster than they can dump their comfortable benefits, adoring treatment by the press (since they are all liberals, of course), and all the other perks that go with the job.
" they are going on a witch hunt to get rid of all the gays," said the priest, who requested anonymity. "It would be funny if it weren't so sad."
That should cut their pedophilia problem significantly.
Thats not sad at all.
Ten-to-one he's a poof.
If you lisp what he said in your head, it sounds very familiar.
Agreed. This should have been done in the American seminaries 40 years ago. It would have saved so much suffering.
The problem wasn't generally pedophilia, though there might have been a few. It was usually pederasty and the complaintants were males.
The pederast priests didn't go after little children, boys or girls. They went after the altar-boy age, usually close to teenage....pederasts. They are just as sick, only their sickness is rather more specific than pedophilia.
I'm all for it. If that's his main complaint, I say give him what he wants.
YUP!!
In every discussion I ever get into about queers, either with them or their apologists, Ancient Greece comes up. Pederasty raised to an almost official level.
Now, the argument is always made that queers are not pedophiles [and how homophobic of me to suggest such a thing!]and that Greece was a pinnacle of homosexuality[and we so admire Greek culture...].
I would wonder if the same sort of "study" will be done in the nunneries.
Thanks, marshmallow, for posting this!
**Why not deacons**
LOL!
Deacons are usually married! How much does this writer know about the subject?
Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence
POPE APPROVES BARRING GAY SEMINARIANS
Pope bans homosexuals from ordination as priests
Questions Arise Over Seminary Inspections
"We need not to focus on specific homosexuality, but we need to focus on the integration of our own human sexuality and the ability to live a deeply committed virginal life that is fully and wholly sexual,"
Translation: "Please don't root out the poofters!"
NONE. (Pun intended.)
Male homosexuality is disgusting to both men and women.
Female homosexuality is disgusting to women....but a "turn on" in pornography to men. Men just love to see women "do it" to each other.
It's so odd.
Being a straight woman, I never figured that out.
Do they, now? All of them?
"but a "turn on" in pornography to men."
I suppose thats "true" but it certainly is not for me...which makes me wonder how true it really is. I know there is a market for it, however, and many times there is some in a "straight" film....
wait...
I'm starting to sound like an expert, aren't I?
:]
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