Chojnacki wrote in the letter, dated Monday, that he had participated in the funerals of several gay Jesuit clergy over the last few years.
No ages are specified but one can conclude by this statement that the acceptance of homosexuals into the Jesuit order predates VCII. Any concrete source information would also be appreciated.
I suspect St. Ignatius would prefer his order not to be nicknamed the lavender mafia, which I have heard the Jesuits referred to as more than once...
Funny...some of the holiest priests I've known were Jesuits, and some of the more wicked (in the sense of rationalizing their sins as ok).
It definitely does, but I suspect that far fewer of them acted on their inclinations, and furthermore, they were not self-defined as "gays" at the time of their application to or acceptance into their orders (which from what I can recall, made real efforts to weed out homosexual candidates, simply because of the danger they posed in an all-male environment).
One of the reasons for the dramatic increase after VatII was the sudden surge in the secular world in people "coming out" - that is, men who may have been vaguely attracted to men suddenly decided they had to act on it and announce to the world that they were gay, asexual people decided that it meant that they were really gay, and men who defined themselves as homosexuals but didn't act on it (that is, they were under vows) suddenly decided that they were being stifled and they had the right to carry out their homosexual activities with no apologies to anybody. This was tied to all sorts of foolish but aggressive "liberation movements" after 1968.
VatII didn't cause this, although it weaked Church discipline and even doctrine to the point that there was no effective way of opposing and controlling the bizarre currents that swept into the Church from the secular world. I think BXVI is trying to reconstruct the Church as the bulwark and barrier against the insane and destructive fads and even politically imposed policies of the modern world.
It might have been easier if we had stayed true to tradition and not let these things through the infamous "open windows" in the first place, but at last some attempt is being made to sweep the place out and close the windows now, before more get in...
"Would appreciate it if one of the better informed catholics in the forum"
I ain't one of the better informed, but I have heard reports of priests dying of AIDS.
I can't cite any sources but it is my opinion that the priests whose funerals he might have officiated at are probably in the 60s -- Maybe the young 70s.
But then, if the HIV/AIDS is the cause of death they are probably dying in their 50s. Just my opinion.
Why? They could have all died of AIDS.
It really lhas nothing to do with Vatican II, but you never know....