Still Running Off at the Keyboard

For American bishops, seminary rectors, and religious superiors, such public statements served a dual purpose. First, they offered justification for the policies that clearly have been followed throughout the American Church for years; seminaries have admitted men who are identifiably homosexual, and bishops have ordained them to the priesthood. Second, the statements implicitly reassured jittery liberal Catholics that no matter what policy the Vatican adopted, most American Church leaders would continue to follow the same policies. If the Vatican banned gay seminarians, American Church leaders would interpret that directive as a ban on active homosexuals only. If the document went further, and closed the doors to those with homosexual impulses, the bishops and seminarian officials would protest that they had no way to identify homosexuals, and refuse to conduct a "witch hunt."