Posted on 02/27/2011 3:26:23 AM PST by topher
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Father James St. George says he was fully vetted when he was hired to teach at Chestnut Hill College, a private Roman Catholic institution in Pennsylvania. But the schools says that they did not know he was gay, and has since let him go.
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Father St. George doesn't exactly hide the fact that he's gay. But he says he never brings it up in class.
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Father St. George is part of the Old Catholic Church Of The Americas, a faction that broke away from the Vatican back in 1870. In his church, priests are allowed to marry and be gay.
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His firing coincides with an email sent to Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali and the college from James Pepper, a local lawyer who called the priest a "heretic."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"
Apparently this priest hid the fact that he was Gay by not mentioning it during his interview with the college.
The college might be re-miss for not doing a Google search, but this is a small college (I have never heard of it before this article).
He is part of a schism that disobeys the teaching of the Vatican (either in 1870 or now...)
Ah well, there’ll always be a job for him at the White House.
They should never have hired him in the first place. The “Old Catholic Church” is a well-known US 19th century schismatic group that has since become the hang-out for all sorts of unorthodox people who want to pretend they’re Catholic.
Maybe the administration at this school was so clueless they didn’t realize this? Hard to imagine.
So the Priests that belong to this outlaw group are allowed tobe married, and if they are gay they are allowed to commit adultary.
To whom it may concern: the horses left the barn 40 years ago. But glad you finally closed door.
In other words, he's no more a Christian than Obama is. It's not our place to judge others, but rejecting the Bible and the words of Jesus Christ are clearly and unambiguously non-Christian decisions.
As far as Chestnut Hill, well the Sisters of St. Joseph are not the orthodox nuns that I once knew.
They’re allowed to do whatever appeals to them at any given moment...
LOL! But for some reason, they (liberals) never go away. Deep down inside, they know that going off to some non-Catholic group (Old Catholics, Episcopalians, Metropolitan Community Church [the gay one], you name it) just isn't the same, so they want to stay and drag the Church down to their level instead of going someplace where there would be no problem with their beliefs or lack thereof.
Another way of saying it —he appears more apostate than Catholic? I am not Catholic -but have big problems with any who claim the name of any group-yet rebel against the teachings of the parent organ. At any rate It seems good that he was released. I question only if this publicity isn’t an opening round intent upon embarrassing the College/advancing the cause of homosexual dominance over all things religious?Like when that lesbian Coach got fired by the prissy Christian? college in Nashville.
If he’s part of a schismatic group, he’s not fit to teach at the Catholic College, anyway. Did he not mention THAT in the interview either, or did someone just let it slide, thinking that it wouldn’t matter?
Probably less Cathoilic than you.
This may be a subtle point, but does the church exclude priests because they are homosexually *oriented*? That is, *attracted* to males instead of females, *even* though they do not act on this attraction?
As long as they are chaste, even virginal, this seems to present a doctrinal question. That is, their sexuality is in the realm of their “imaginings”, not practices.
While the answer might seem obvious, there is not overwhelming clarity on the issue.
“While it’s true that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered (contrary to the natural law), and can never be approved, a distinction needs to be made between a practicing homosexual and a chaste homosexual.” (CCC 2357).
“Only those are to be promoted to orders who, in the prudent judgment of the proper Bishop or the competent major Superior, all things considered, have sound faith, are motivated by the right intention, are endowed with the requisite knowledge, enjoy a good reputation, and have moral probity, proven virtue and the other physical and psychological qualities appropriate to the order to be received.” (Can. 1029)
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506805.htm
A possible answer can be found in a 1965 memorandum footnote to a 1985 memorandum.
Dated July 9, 1985, the one-page English-language memorandum was signed by U.S. Cardinal William W. Baum, who was then prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education. It was labeled, “A memorandum to bishops seeking advice in matters concerning homosexuality and candidates for admission to seminary.”
The existence of the 1965 memorandum was not widely known until the more recent Vatican document referenced it in a footnote.
A church source said the memorandum was issued in the middle of the Vatican’s visitation of U.S. seminaries in the mid-1980s and was circulated to many but not all U.S. bishops.
After making it clear that the virtue of chastity and commitment to celibacy are required of all candidates to the Latin-rite priesthood — including heterosexuals — the document stated:
“A candidate who is homosexually active or who leads a homosexual lifestyle (whether he is homosexual or not) is not acceptable.
“A high standard of chastity and integration of the personality is required before admission to seminary, such that latent or repressed homosexuality is also a counterindication requiring that the candidate not be accepted — it would not be fair to the individual nor to the seminary community,” it said.
The memorandum said that in the discussion of homosexuality distinctions needed to be made among practice, orientation and temptation. The first two — practice and orientation — are “counter-indications of acceptability,” when orientation is understood as “commitment to or support of homosexual practices or lifestyles.”
It said temptations not directly linked to that kind of orientation would not in themselves disqualify a priesthood candidate.
“People have to face many and diverse temptations in life, and the mark of a Christian is bearing them and resisting them, with the grace of God, after the manner of Our Lord in the wilderness,” it said.
Homosexual tendencies is one of the criteria that good dioceses reject candidates for.
I’m always cautious about psychological testing, because it is remarkably easy to foul up such tests.
They can be too easy, which can make them both easy to fake, and result with some people over-thinking them and giving wrong answers.
Likewise they can have trick questions, stress inducing questions, questions with unsatisfactory answers, poorly written questions or incomplete answers, and in this case have a correct answer that is in variance with doctrine.
Finally, such tests would need to themselves be tested against well established, good priests. This would be problematic, as if a priest failed, his legitimacy would be called into question, but so would the tests.
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