Political Crossfire Forums

ToonArmyIsComing · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 5888 Location: Ontario

Vatican now wants to prevent all the gay people from becoming priests even if they take the vow of celibacy!!! Now, the priests who are gay will be barred because of their sexual orientation!!! :shock: Vatican is proving that they are an organization that are out of touch with modernity and they want to go back to the pre-enlightenment era.

Quote: Vatican plan to block gay priests

The new Pope faces his first controversy over the direction of the Catholic church after it was revealed that the Vatican has drawn up a religious instruction preventing gay men from being priests.

The controversial document, produced by the Congregation for Catholic Education and Seminaries, the body overseeing the church's training of the priesthood, is being scrutinised by Benedict XVI.

It been suggested Rome would publish the instruction earlier this month, but it dropped the plan out of concern that such a move might tarnish his visit to his home city of Cologne last week.

The document expresses the church's belief that gay men should no longer be allowed to enter seminaries to study for the priesthood. Currently, as all priests take a vow of celibacy, their sexual orientation has not been considered a pressing concern.

Vatican-watchers believe the Pope harbours doubts about whether the church should publish the document, which has already been the subject of three drafts.

'Inevitably, such a directive will be met with opposition,' said John Haldane, professor of moral philosophy at the University of St Andrews.

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.

'It will be written in a very pastoral mode,' Haldane said. 'It will not be an attack on the gay lifestyle. It will not say "homosexuality is immoral". But it will suggest that admitting gay men into the priesthood places a burden both on those who are homosexual and those they are working alongside who are not.'

The instruction was drawn up as part of the Vatican's response to the sexual abuse scandal that surfaced in the American church three years ago, which has seen hundreds of priests launch lawsuits against superiors whom they accuse of abusing them.

As the former head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body charged with looking into the abuse claims, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was made acutely aware of the scale of the problem. He is thought to have made clearing up the scandal one of the key goals of his papacy.

Next month the Vatican will send investigators to the US to gauge the scale of the scandal. More than 100 bishops and seminary staff will visit 220 campuses. They will review documents provided by the schools and seminaries and may interview teachers, students and alumni, then report directly to the Vatican, which could choose to issue the instruction barring homosexuals from entering the priesthood as part of its response.

Studies show that a significant proportion of men who enter seminaries to train for the priesthood are gay. Any move signalling that homosexuals will not be allowed to join the seminaries, even one couched in the arcane language of the Vatican, could reduce the number of recruits to the priesthood.

In a further sign of the instruction's deeply controversial nature, it is expected the document would be signed by a cardinal rather than the Pope himself if the Vatican decides to publish it.

The Vatican has been carefully trying to soften Benedict's image since he was elected earlier this year. In recent weeks he has reached out to the Jewish and Muslim communities as well as young Catholics during the church's World Youth Day. The initiatives have been seen as a significant PR success. A decision to publish an instruction that would underscore his religious conservatism would be detrimental to Benedict's standing as he enjoys his 'honeymoon period' on the world stage.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1558063,00.html

Demonic Spoon · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 6845 Location: Ohio

Wait...so let me get this straight. They (at least most Christians do) that as long as a gay person doesn't have sex, they are not comitting sin....but they are banning them anyway?

YEah, makes a lot of sense.

ToonArmyIsComing · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 5888 Location: Ontario

Demonic Spoon wrote: Wait...so let me get this straight. They (at least most Christians do) that as long as a gay person doesn't have sex, they are not comitting sin....but they are banning them anyway?

YEah, makes a lot of sense.

Yup ... quite amusing, isn't it? :shock:

Geneviève · Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 668

Priests are supposed to strive for asexuality.
Gay priests, I can understand, would be unacceptable.
Heterosexual priests should be unacceptable as well.
Priests are not supposed to have any sexual orientation.
Masturbation is a sin. Sexual thoughts and fantasies are a sin.
Priests are not supposed to be attracted to females any more than they're supposed to be attracted to males.
So, yeah, by all means, ban the "gay" priests.
And then, just to be consistent, ban the heterosexual priests too.
Priests take a vow of celibacy for a reason; they are to remain chaste in thought, word, and deed.
Given this criteria, I see no place in the priesthood for any candidate with any sexual orientation whatsoever.

ToonArmyIsComing · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 5888 Location: Ontario

Geneviève wrote: Priests are supposed to strive for asexuality.
Gay priests, I can understand, would be unacceptable.
Heterosexual priests should be unacceptable as well.
Priests are not supposed to have any sexual orientation.
Masturbation is a sin. Sexual thoughts and fantasies are a sin.
Priests are not supposed to be attracted to females any more than they're supposed to be attracted to males.
So, yeah, by all means, ban the "gay" priests.
And then, just to be consistent, ban the heterosexual priests too.
Priests take a vow of celibacy for a reason; they are to remain chaste in thought, word, and deed.
Given this criteria, I see no place in the priesthood for any candidate with any sexual orientation whatsoever.

But that's where the problem lies. The gay priests who take a vow of celibacy are going to be prevented from becoming priests no matter what.

F'losrix · Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:49 am Post subject:

ToonArmyIsComing wrote: Geneviève wrote: Priests are supposed to strive for asexuality.
Gay priests, I can understand, would be unacceptable.
Heterosexual priests should be unacceptable as well.
Priests are not supposed to have any sexual orientation.
Masturbation is a sin. Sexual thoughts and fantasies are a sin.
Priests are not supposed to be attracted to females any more than they're supposed to be attracted to males.
So, yeah, by all means, ban the "gay" priests.
And then, just to be consistent, ban the heterosexual priests too.
Priests take a vow of celibacy for a reason; they are to remain chaste in thought, word, and deed.
Given this criteria, I see no place in the priesthood for any candidate with any sexual orientation whatsoever.

But that's where the problem lies. The gay priests who take a vow of celibacy are going to be prevented from becoming priests no matter what.

Are priests honestly expected/required to feel no sexual attractions whatsoever? Or are they merely not to indulge them and/or act upon them?

Does God never call a person who has sexual feelings of any sort to become a priest? If the idea is that a person so called is to become celibate in both their thoughts and deeds, why the need to distinguish between the group that prior to accepting that calling had homosexual leanings? Isn't what they become more important than what they were?

Apparently not if we're to accept the Vatican's judgment on the matter. The message continues to be that gay people aren't worthy of serving God and this will only strengthen the opinion held by some that they aren't eligible to be Christians, either.

F'losrix · Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:51 am Post subject:

ToonArmyIsComing wrote: But that's where the problem lies. The gay priests who take a vow of celibacy are going to be prevented from becoming priests no matter what.
Not only that, but they're apparently talking about removing the existing priests who have homosexual leanings as well. In a church that already has a serious shortage of priests, one has to wonder how much success they're going to have in recruiting replacements.

Winchester · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 7094 Location: Montana

Skeptical Mystic wrote: ToonArmyIsComing wrote: But that's where the problem lies. The gay priests who take a vow of celibacy are going to be prevented from becoming priests no matter what.
Not only that, but they're apparently talking about removing the existing priests who have homosexual leanings as well. In a church that already has a serious shortage of priests, one has to wonder how much success they're going to have in recruiting replacements.

If the Vatican does go with this policy the subsequent priest shortage (which is already quite serious) will become catastrophic. The Vatican may have to change its position on allowing women and married priests (one can hope).

F'losrix · Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:44 pm Post subject:

Winchester wrote: Skeptical Mystic wrote: ToonArmyIsComing wrote: But that's where the problem lies. The gay priests who take a vow of celibacy are going to be prevented from becoming priests no matter what.
Not only that, but they're apparently talking about removing the existing priests who have homosexual leanings as well. In a church that already has a serious shortage of priests, one has to wonder how much success they're going to have in recruiting replacements.

If the Vatican does go with this policy the subsequent priest shortage (which is already quite serious) will become catastrophic. The Vatican may have to change its position on allowing women and married priests (one can hope).
Highly doubtful, though. My impression is that they'd rather die than change, especially on issues like these.

ToonArmyIsComing · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 5888 Location: Ontario

Skeptical Mystic wrote: ToonArmyIsComing wrote: But that's where the problem lies. The gay priests who take a vow of celibacy are going to be prevented from becoming priests no matter what.
Not only that, but they're apparently talking about removing the existing priests who have homosexual leanings as well. In a church that already has a serious shortage of priests, one has to wonder how much success they're going to have in recruiting replacements.

True. I guess you can't teach new tricks to an old dog.

Jay2014 · Joined: 31 May 2005 Posts: 1243

i have no problem with this. i dont think a religion has any duty to conform to morals of modernaty.

F'losrix · Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:59 am Post subject:

Jay2014 wrote: i have no problem with this. i dont think a religion has any duty to conform to morals of modernaty.
Nor do I, actually. If the church wants to cling to a policy of scapegoating gay people that's their prerogative. That doesn't mean I won't criticize them for it. Just because I respect someone's right to hold a particular belief, that doesn't mean I'm obligated to respect the belief itself.

Jay2014 · Joined: 31 May 2005 Posts: 1243

Skeptical Mystic wrote: Jay2014 wrote: i have no problem with this. i dont think a religion has any duty to conform to morals of modernaty.
Nor do I, actually. If the church wants to cling to a policy of scapegoating gay people that's their prerogative. That doesn't mean I won't criticize them for it. Just because I respect someone's right to hold a particular belief, that doesn't mean I'm obligated to respect the belief itself. i agree completely. its a stupid belief, but they should run themselves as they see fit. otherwise, they are backwards and lack integrity.