Posted on 12/14/2004 3:09:01 AM PST by NYer
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."
or cardinals. Are you referring to Vicki Gene Robinson? He was ordained into the Anglican Church, not the Catholic Church.
Funny thing... when I read these Vatican documents, in light of Tradition, they seem thoroughly orthodox. Then I run into some raving modernist nutter, who reads them in a spirit of looking for excuses, and she manages to twist them into all manner of heretical distortions. They're written in a bureaucratic gobbledygook style that gives too much room for misinterpretation, to those inclined to misinterpret.
Maybe it's harder--but there are no such things as "new" marital problems; nor are there problems in marriage which cannot be resolved with clear analysis guided by unchanging principles, something which all men of the cloth should have in their bag of tricks.
Do you think the ambiguity is purposeful? I do.
IIRC, the stats tell us that the single largest class of child-abusers is "boyfriends."
Step-parents are not as dangerous as a class, and the cases of natural parent-abusers are almost nil.
The documents are written clearly for those who are obedient. It is unfortunate that many simply are NOT obedient, nor do they wish to be so.
Ask me about church music some day...
I am always amazed at the ability of people to twist clearly written things to fit their personal agenda...
I was referring to all the bishops who are turning out to be homosexual. No wonder they've just been shuffling their friends around.
Knowing that to be the case, and some might argue the rule rather than the exception, isn't it all the more reason for the documents to be clearly unambiguous and unequivocal?
What should I ask you about Church music?
DON'T ask about Church music.
But if you must, then you should start with the concept that it should be ART, which both glorifies God and raises the minds and hearts of the Faithful to God, while edifying and sanctifying the faithful.
Which eliminates about 95% of what's used these days.
What hurts me to see is evangelical, fundamentalist, and certain "cult-like" self proclaimed christian groups wasting millions of dollars building new churches when Christ's Church is already there among the people serving them.
That antique gold on the altar, placed there decades or centuries ago, pales in comparison with the money wasted by independant preachers builting temples to themselves in the same neighborhood as the Catholic Churches, for their very own cult of personality.
No argument there. The straw that broke the camel's back for me at my former parish was the "Gloria (clap clap) Gloria (clap clap)" nonsense.
A very nice fellow named Mongignor Hayburn published a book entitled "Papal Legislation on Sacred Music."
The book consists of Papal documents on SM, from roughly 600AD through 1962.
If you want to be bored, read the book. It's the same thing, over and over and over again.
Even in the Dark Ages, Bishops ignored Rome. The book is a testament to the fact that disobedience (or, at the very best, ignorance) is timeless and permanent.
My best friend's brother is a monsignor and the house plus the money he inherited from his mother (he is an only child) is willed equally to his cousins. His choice whether it goes to the Church or to his relatives.
I think anything can be made ambiguous and equivical if one wants to make it that way. I am reading "A Generation Betrayed" by Eamonn Keane (highly recommended) and he details how more than a few ordained theologians dissented from Humanae Vitae (detailed in one of the chapters, it's not the subject of the whole book) when Pope John Paul II reiterated:
"The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life, (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life."
I don't know how one can 'get around' those words but lots of theologians do, and they do it in 'good' conscience.
Your opinions as to the meaning of Scripture are just that: opinions!
The answer to your question as to why apostates from Catholicism are found in the pews of "Full Gospel", non-"denominational" Christian churches is that it is a human failing to adhere to simplicity and to easy and self-satisfying ways. It is easier for each Tom, Dick and Harriet to find what they want to find in misinterpreting Scripture than to adhere to an objective moral code that is the product of Scripture and the best in Christian thinking over nearly 2,000 years. The liberal/leftist type of AmChurch pseudoCatholic bishops have failed to adequately catechize many Catholics who then find themselves attracted to theatrical whoopdedoo from the pulpits (if any) of the "non-denominational" churches, including speaking in tongues and whatever. Your churches of that sort aren't skimming much in the way of adequately catechized folks off the Roman Catholic Church despite its evident administrative challenges.
These "Full Gospel" churches are not even "Full Gospel" in that they deny the sacraments that, for the most part, they lack the apostolic succession to convey, cannot provide the Mass, deny the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist, etc. No Catholic who IS a Catholic will EVER trade such things for superficially satisfying sermons and Bible studies. As to former liberals who convert to such churches, one is tempted to say that they have already proven, as former liberals, that they will believe anything. Are you an apostate from Catholicism like so many who post such things as you have???
Your God and mine gave us free will. Many exercise it by belonging to the Roman Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ upon Peter and permanently guaranteed by Him as the trendy insight congregation of last week's Bible study is not. Others find their way to evangelical and penteccostal denominations or "non-denominational" churches and, I will concede, that those churches are better than none and often lead their congregants to a substantial compliance with SOME of God's will.
Despite all the fire and fury between Roman Catholics and other Christians such as you, we agree on much and disagree on little. The disagreements are important but so are the agreements. In a society as degenerate as our own, we have a long way to go to earn the right to dispute one another in the public square for the entertainment of our mutual enemies and His.
Now, tell me something, How in the world am I, or anyone for that matter, to know that this thread is strickly for Roman Catholics?
Nobody who seriously thinks about this verse thinks that it means that only married men can enter the presbyterate. Jesus was not married. You do not mean to claim that Jesus was not fit to be priest or bishop, do you? (He's in fact the priest extraordinaire.) St. John was not married, but we know from church history that he served as bishop of Ephesus.
Hint: read the title of the thread.
When it says "Vatican" and "priests" in the same line, it's a pretty good indicator that it will be a Catholic-oriented thread.
As BE so eloquently stated, we have MUCH in common and only a few things not so. It's more helpful to concentrate on the things in common.
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