Vatican gay guidelines - Stance will force priests into closet

PERPLEXING paradoxes underlie Vatican guidelines reaffirming the ban on active homosexuals and “supporters of gay culture” becoming priests.

Redolent of an edict from another era, it appears to equate homosexuality with paedophilia, a cancer plaguing the Church as evidenced by the damning report on the scandal of clerical child abuse in Co Wexford.

Not surprisingly, the gay community is outraged over the thrust of the document, describing it as a blatant bid to scapegoat them for the problems besetting the church.

Objecting to its language and tone, they see it as “hateful” and “hurtful”.

Most of all, they resent the Vatican’s claim that homosexuality obstructs gay people from having what it calls a “correct” relationship with men and women.

Already, observers are predicting a dramatic drop in the number of priests, especially in the US, where there is now such a high proportion of gay men in seminaries that, conceivably, a predominantly homosexual clergy could be on the cards.

Not alone does the document fail to draw a distinction between paedophilia, which is invariably predatory, and homosexual relationships, which are generally consensual, it implies that heterosexual relationships are more wholesome.

Yet, for every predatory homosexual priest like Sean Fortune, the serial rapist of boys in Ferns, or the US cleric accused of molesting 50 boys, equally predatory abusers are to be found among heterosexuals.

Unfortunately, the paper fails to address the appalling role of Church authorities in enabling predatory priests to abuse innocent children by moving them from parish to parish.

While it has the approval of Pope Benedict, the paper has not been officially invested with his personal authority. Basically, it describes homosexual acts as “grave sins” that cannot be justified under any circumstance.

Furthermore, it states that “if a candidate practices homosexuality, or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination”.

It goes on to say that “such persons in fact find themselves in a situation that presents a grave obstacle to a correct relationship with men and women”.

Ironically, it emphasises the Church’s deep respect for homosexuals, stressing they should by no means be discriminated against.

Although gays have been banned from the priesthood since the early 1960s, that has singularly failed to deter them. Signalling a change of thinking, the guidelines treat homosexuality as a “tendency” rather than an “orientation”.

This is a classic example of double-think since a gay who has overcome his tendencies can begin training to take holy orders after at least three years have passed between overcoming this “transitory problem” and his ordination as a deacon.

It is ridiculous to suggest that homosexuals could somehow decommission themselves. This is sure to cause confusion among candidates for the priesthood.

With the aim of dissuading gay seminarians from lying about their sexual orientation, the document urges them to tell the truth and warns it would be “gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality”. If anything, gay candidates are less likely to be up-front in future.

Inexplicably, these guidelines do not mention current priests and deal only with those about to join a seminary. Serious difficulties lie ahead because canon lawyers are already divided on what the document means and its implementation will vary from bishop to bishop.

On the vexed question of whether homosexual men should enter the priesthood in Ireland, it is telling that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin believes those who are stable and capable of celibacy can move through the system.