Vatican to Bar Gay Priests
Either the celibacy policy just isn't working or the Catholic church just hates gays. Or both.
As a response to the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the American Catholic church three years ago, the Vatican has reportedly drawn up an instruction that no gay men should be allowed to enter seminaries in order to study for the priesthood. Which begs the question, who would be left?
The Guardian reports that the instruction "tries to dampen down the controversy by eschewing a moral line, arguing instead that the presence of homosexuals in seminaries is 'unfair' to both gay and heterosexual priests by subjecting the former to temptation."
Love that argument. Allowing gays into the priesthood is more unfair to them than not allowing them at all. The Catholic church is one screwed up place.
Posted Aug. 29,2005 at 9:45 AM EST by Andy Towle in Religion | Permalink
Thank you B16 for the end of Catholic Church! :) If gays can't become priests who will? LOL
Posted by: Miguel Cabo | Aug 29, 2005 9:48:39 AM
Am I the only one who thinks that the pope looks demonic?
If these people believe in satan I find it ironic they would elect a pope who looks like he came from the lake of fire himself.
Posted by: Jason | Aug 29, 2005 10:52:19 AM
I have so many gay friends that are Catholic priests. The view of the Vatican is so displaced from reality. The church is in a heap of trouble as some parishes file for bankruptcy and it's numbers dwindle. The church is paying for it's own HUMAN sin. Parishoners have lost faith in the wake of numerous scandals and cover-ups. SADLY, once again, gays will be the whipping horse in a harsh. misdirected policy.
Posted by: Matthew | Aug 29, 2005 11:00:21 AM
That's the new pope? I thought that was Senator Palpatine...
Posted by: Michael | Aug 29, 2005 11:29:47 AM
Ooops, I meant Emperor Palpatine...he rose to power so quickly in those movies I forgot...
Posted by: Michael | Aug 29, 2005 11:40:14 AM
What's next?--hounding all the gay priests they have now out of the Church? Just how stupid are these people? (that's a rhetorical question--I was raised catholic, so I know all too well).
Maybe this new Pope will be the one who turns out the lights and closes the whole obsolete, hate-filled institution down, whether he intends to or not.
Posted by: Will | Aug 29, 2005 12:21:20 PM
That will definitely help all the girls who are molestation victims of priest predators, but don't get press because they don't fit the stereotype. I find the molesting pervert to be the most f*cked - especially given that the vast majority of vicims of abuse are girls.
Posted by: ryan | Aug 29, 2005 12:29:05 PM
"Am I the only one who thinks that the pope looks demonic?"
"That's the new pope? I thought that was [Emperor] Palpatine..."
Personally, every time I see him (especially when he's smiling that shy (or is it insincere?) little smile he has, though not so much in the pic posted here), I think he looks more like Grampa from The Munsters.
Posted by: David | Aug 29, 2005 1:13:51 PM
"That will definitely help all the girls who are molestation victims of priest predators, but don't get press because they don't fit the stereotype. I find the molesting pervert to be the most f*cked - especially given that the vast majority of vicims of abuse are girls."
Ryan, I agree with your general proposition, but the statistic that "the vast majority of victims of abuse are girls" applies only at the level of the general population. While you're right that the Roman Catholic Church downplays the instances in which girls were abused by priests, the court cases filed, organizations of survivors of priestly abuse, and research into the phenomenon of priestly abuse all indicate that, when it comes to sexual abuse by Catholic priests, the great majority of the victims have in fact been boys.
To confuse and conflate pedophilia with gayness, as Ratzi and other Catholic leaders do, is absurd and intellectually dishonest, but we who criticize them for that need to be intellectually honest ourselves and acknowledge that the data do indicate that this has been and is an issue *primarily* of priests (who in many/most wouldn't identify as "gay" or "bi") molesting boys.
Posted by: David | Aug 29, 2005 1:22:50 PM
"Maybe this new Pope will be the one who turns out the lights and closes the whole obsolete, hate-filled institution down, whether he intends to or not."
Why progressive Catholics don't just finally up and leave for the liberal Anglo-Catholic grouping called "Affirming Catholicism" within the Episcopal Church and the Angican Church of Canada (see http://www.affirmingcatholicism.org/us/default.html ) and other progressive parts of the Anglican Communion (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_Catholicism and http://www.affirmingcatholicism.org.uk/ ) always amazes me. The progressive post-Vatican II church I grew up in and that educated me was long ago euthanized by JP2; B16 is just saying the funeral mass.
Remember: "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You"...
Posted by: David | Aug 29, 2005 1:39:03 PM
David, I see the Grampa resemblance, now that you mention it, but I also can't help seeing something very sinister behind his eyes, which is what I think Jason was expressing as well...
Posted by: Michael | Aug 29, 2005 1:49:38 PM
Insisting upon approaching the issue accurately, which I support, must also involve semantically distinguishing between pedophilia and ephebophilia or hebephilia. The former, technically, refers only to sexual attraction to prepubescent or early pubescent children, the latter to post adolescents. I have no idea which involves the greater number of those reported cases among priests, but this continued misapplication of pedophilia to describe both is symptomatic of the general ignorance about the topic. And, yes, I have agreed since Day One that the current Pope looks demonic. That the mass self-hynosis that caused millions to see someone beatific when they looked upon the thugish face of John Paul has so easily been transfered to Benedict is NOT a good omen.
Posted by: Tagg | Aug 29, 2005 1:54:46 PM
The Catholic Church: Irrelevant.
Posted by: Andy W | Aug 29, 2005 4:15:00 PM
Would that Andy W. were right. As much as, this late in our evolution as a species, any theism should have long ago sunk into the intellectual equivalent of the La Brea tar pits, the lives of billions are still dominated by it, still threatening to destroy all the rest of us as a result. Studies about religiosity in the US may show that finite numbers have changed little over the last several years--what has changed--to our peril--is the politicization of so many of those still believing in a Judao-Xtian god and their would-be messiah George I Am The Way The Truth And The Light Bush.
Posted by: Leland | Aug 29, 2005 4:33:14 PM
Who Cares? The vatican is one of the most evil bigoted corrupt organizations on this planet. Why anyone would want to be a part of it is more shocking then the fact they would ban gays. The KKK also bans gays from joining - what's the difference?
Posted by: Dan | Aug 29, 2005 5:12:51 PM
Mark Twain predicted the demise of the RC Church in about four hundred years. That was almost 100 years ago.
I think the time table has just been moved up!
One day we all woke up and surprise, there was no more Soviet Union. Someday, hopefully soon, we will realize there is no more Roman Catholic Church.
The Vatican is going to be one of the "don't miss" museums of Europe!
Posted by: jessejames | Aug 29, 2005 5:58:54 PM
What a homophobic, hateful peice of excrement. If he knew anything about sexual abuse, it has very little to do with the sexual orientation of the perpetrator (joking aside). Its about power and control.
This is the same kind of spewing illogic which paves the way for agencies to bar gays from adopting.
Posted by: Peter | Aug 30, 2005 1:16:03 PM
Title not to be confused with Gay Bar Priests.
Posted by: Nick | Aug 30, 2005 7:52:20 PM
I'm Catholic and have been all of my life. I'm also living with/having a relationship with a woman. In my 23 years of Catholicism, I've only heard homosexuality mentioned twice in mass. Or at all, really, by anyone of any religious stature. Just twice, in the thousands of services I've attended.
I keep hearing that Catholics are so against homosexuality, that 'the Church' is negative and bigoted, etcetera, but the Church is made up of millions, and in day-to-day Catholicism, in the four different parishes I've been a member of, it really isn't even discussed. Tolerance is, love thy neighbor is, but homosexuality? Not that I've seen. Really.
Food for thought, I suppose. Maybe I've just been fortunate.
Posted by: Gena | Sep 2, 2005 12:15:21 AM
I think the Vatican is right in banning gays. It leaves just that much more room for the PEDOPHYLES!
So much for preaching love.
And yes, the Pope does like Satan
Posted by: Bev | Sep 22, 2005 3:42:53 PM
Why would any self respecting gay person WANT to be part of the Catholic Church. All gay people should simply walk away from the church. That would be interesting. Pope Beatrice will probably be the one who shuts down the whole thing - and yes earlier than Mark Twain predicted.
Posted by: Diogenes | Sep 22, 2005 8:20:24 PM