It's Official - No More Openly Gay Priests

Oh wait, they were all officially celibate anyway, right?


The Vatican's Instruction on homosexual priests came out officially today, and it's of course a setback for any gay Catholic man with a call to the priesthood. Having hit my own ceiling in a different church, I can sympathize.

Some interesting items for thought:

The document differentiates between "deep-seated" and "transitory" gay tendencies. This seems to acknowlege more fluidity of sexuality than I had expected from them. Or else a strange view of homosexuality as being something some people grow out of.

The reasoning behind why gay men should not be allowed to be priests seems to be that it "gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women." Which raises some interesting questions: In what ways should priests treat men and women differently? How on earth would sexual orientation affect those interpersonal relations? How you relate to someone encompasses a wide range of characteristics, not just gender, and has as much or more to do with the parishioner as the priest.

Finally, the priesthood has been restricted to men for a long time--probably at least since Constantine made the Christian faith the religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century. If a requirement for being a priest means, in some way, having the right kind of body - male (and now straight) - then does this mean that the church values some bodies more than others? Does it mean that women are less whole or of less worth than men? Or, must the value of the priesthood be reduced, and priests considered ontologically equivalent to lay people, since, clearly, women are ontologically equal to men, and their exclusion from ordination demonstrates its meaningless.

What is the work that we want the priesthood to do? If we want religious leaders, then gay and straight, male and female, young and old, people of all races and abilities are capable of that work--have been called and will be called. Similarly, if ordination is intended to recognize the movement of the Spirit and the call from God, it will have to include a vast variety of people.

If ordination is intended to maintain a tradition of male leadership, as well as to maintain a bureaucracy and tight control of dogmatic claims, then limiting the priesthood to those with a certain type of body helps maintain what has already existed in the past.

I think you know where I come down on this subject.

I'd like to close out my ruminations with a very nice quote from the article:

The Rev. Timothy Radcliff, former superior of the Dominican order, wrote in the British Catholic weekly the Tablet that the phrase could be interpreted as concerning men with a “permanent homosexual orientation.”

“But this cannot be correct since, as I have said, there are many excellent priests who are gay and who clearly have a vocation from God.”

“Having worked with bishops and priests, diocesan and religious, all over the world, I have no doubt that God does call homosexuals to the priesthood, and they are among the most dedicated and impressive priests I have met,” he wrote.

Unfortunately for those who would will it otherwise, the Holy Spirit has a way of getting its way eventually. Thanks be to God.