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Friday, September 16, 2005




SEMINRY PROBE

A couple of articles linked at New Oxford Review:

A document distributed to faculty and seminarians at America's 229 Roman Catholic seminaries asks pointed questions about homosexuality, dissenting faculty members and aberrant theology.
Known as the "instrumentum laboris," the 12-page working document used by a team of 117 Vatican investigators includes a long list of questions for faculty members, seminarians and all men who have graduated from that seminary in the past three years.
One question, which the document stipulates "must be answered," asks if there is "evidence of homosexuality" in the institution. Another asks if the seminary is free from New Age influences.
Another question with the stipulation that it must be answered: "Do the seminarians or faculty members have concerns about the moral life of those living in the institution?"
Details of the document, a key tool in an investigation known as an apostolic visitation, were released yesterday in the New York Times.


Continue reading...The document quotes Richard Sipe suggesting that the probe should begin in the Vatican.


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Another article indicates some priests are not pleased by the visitations:

Such remarks belie the true intent of the apostolic visits, according to one Chicago-area Catholic priest who is gay. "Flying in the face of reality and scientific evidence, rather than dealing with the real issue of psychic immaturity in priests who are either gay or straight -- which is clearly the problem for pedophiles . . . -- they are going on a witch hunt to get rid of all the gays," said the priest, who requested anonymity. "It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

"Why stop at seminaries? Why not deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals? Are they going to be asked if they are homosexuals and if they are, be forced to resign their positions?" he said. "If that happens, there will be many empty offices, many empty parishes and many empty sees."


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A third article in the New York Post offers a teaser but requires registration to read the whole thing:

September 16, 2005 -- New York Catholics have reacted with a mix of outrage and approval over a controversial Vatican order to investigate evidence of homosexuality in all U.S. seminaries — an effort prompted by the priest sex-abuse scandal three years ago.
Bishops selected by the Vatican will spread out among the 229 seminaries and conduct interviews to determine if any of the 4,500 student priests as well as faculty members are homosexual or dissent from church teaching.

The evaluation "is right. They should have been doing it a long time ago," said one member of St. Patrick's congregation...



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