Wednesday, November 30, 2005
HAS THE CHURCH DECIDED TO ACCEPT HOMOSEXUAL CLERGY ?
In a conversation with my husband at dinner last night I brought up "The Document." He quickly interrupted to tell me that the Church had decided to accept homosexual clergy with this document, that it was a change from what the Church had previously believed, and that he was "turned off" (not his words, but I won't use those here) by this decision.
He doesn't follow Catholic news and is not a regular Mass goer. All of his information comes from secular news sources. Apparently this is the interpretation from the sources he had heard. How did they come to that conclusion? Perhaps this explains it.
A reader sent in a link to this Washington Post story about Bishop Skylstad's statement which says in part:
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday that under a new Vatican directive on homosexuality, men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation.
Bishop William S. Skylstad's flexible interpretation of the document, which was officially issued in Rome yesterday, was sharply at odds with the position of some other U.S. bishops. They said the Vatican intended to bar all men who have had more than a fleeting, adolescent brush with homosexuality.
"I think one of the telling sentences in the document is the phrase that the candidate's entire life of sacred ministry must be 'animated by a gift of his whole person to the church and by an authentic pastoral charity,' " Skylstad, the bishop of Spokane, Wash., said in an interview. "If that becomes paramount in his ministry, even though he might have a homosexual orientation, then he can minister and he can minister celibately and chastely."
Bishop Skylstad, President of USCCB, is one of four bishops the USCCB Media Relations Office has arranged to speak officially for the organization. The other three include Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, Bishop Blase J. Cupich, and Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, so his message carries weight, and it seems to be a change from what the Church has taught down through the centuries according to an article from LifeSite:
ROME, November 30, 2005 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - A Vatican consultant, in an interview with the I Media news service, has observed that the Church has always taught that homosexuals should not become priests, since they suffer from a "structural incoherence" in their approach to human sexuality. The question of whether homosexual men should become priests has been raised repeatedly by Church leaders, and always answered negatively said Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a French Jesuit who is a consultant to the Pontifical Council on the Family. The French priest-psychologist cited decisions by the Council of Paris in 819, and the 3rd and 4th Lateran Councils in 1169 and 1215.
Writing in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, in an article that appeared alongside the newly released instruction on homosexuality and the priesthood, Msgr. Anatrella wrote that the new Vatican Instruction barring homosexuals from Catholic seminaries was necessary because "homosexuality has become an increasingly worrisome problem," adding that the acceptance of homosexuality could have a "destabilizing" effect on the lives of individuals and on society at large.
Msgr. Anatrella said that homosexuality is "a tendency and not an identity." The Catholic Church, he argued, has a duty to warn against the acceptance of an "incomplete and immature" approach to human sexuality.
Bishop Skylstad's interpretation certainly had a "destabilizing" effect on my husband's opinion of the Church! It was bad enough before, trying to persuade him to attend Mass. This sure ain't gonna help!
I was unable to retrieve any statements from Archbishop Dolan, Bishop Cupich or Bishop Kicanas. Have they spoken? Can they give an opposing viewpoint once the President of the USCCB has made a statement? Will Skylstad's interpretation, that homosexual celibate men will still be eligible for ordination, be the American interpretation of the document? Meaning business as usual in the seminaries and thus an ongoing threat to the laity's children?
Do we have bishop opposing bishop as predicted in one of the Marian apparitions?
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
