Friday, November 25, 2005

Vatican: No Gay Priests



Or more precisely:

The Vatican says sexually active homosexuals and those who support "gay culture" are unwelcome in the priesthood unless the candidate has overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years, according to a church document posted on the Internet by an Italian Catholic news agency.

The long-awaited document is scheduled to be released by the Vatican next Tuesday. A church official who has read the document confirmed the authenticity of the Internet posting by the Adista news agency.

The document said that "the Church, while deeply respecting the people in question, cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture."

"Those people find themselves, in fact, in a situation that presents a grave obstacle to a correct relationship with men and women. One cannot ignore the negative consequences that can stem from the ordination of people with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies," it said.

This is not new; the Vatican has been opposed to gays in the priesthood for a long time, but it is possible that the more conservative bishops will now be given more power to weed out gays.

I wonder how many candidates for the priesthood this will leave? Women can't be priests, married heterosexual men can't be priests, and gay men can't be priests. That leaves just heterosexual men who are celibate. Is this the "correct relationship with men and women" that the quote refers to?

If the Catholic priest is a bridge between God and humanity then we are told that the only ones who are adequately pure and holy for this task are men who would like to go to bed with women but will not. Indeed, I suspect that all the bans have to do with female sexuality and the idea of its filthiness. That rules women out. It also rules out men who enter the dirty bodies of women. And it rules out men who take the female role in bed. So.