Celibate means being unmarried. I think you meant to say chaste: not having sexual relations outside of marriage.

How are these homosexual tendencies going to be determined? I knew the Church was powerful, but I didn't know they could read minds or predict the future.

Posted by: jd watson at September 19, 2005 9:19 PM

Tough one. Did anyone think that we were going to let the trial lawyers raid the Church coffers by trashing the statute of limitations and not see serious consequences. Allowing fairy rings in the clergy is far too expensive to continue.

Celibacy of the Clergy

Celibacy is the renunciation of marriage implicitly or explicitly made, for the more perfect observance of chastity, by all those who receive the Sacrament of Orders in any of the higher grades.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 19, 2005 11:02 PM

Brooks:

No, it doesn't and I didn't:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=celibate

cel·i·bate
n.

1. One who abstains from sexual intercourse, especially by reason of religious vows.

jd:

The problem is that the institution had become sufficiently corrupt that the homosexuality was/is open:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030316094143/http://24.104.35.12/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/344fsdzu.asp

It's going to take some time to purge the American seminaries (interesting word, that) of the homosexual citizens within. And, the problems with actively homosexual or heterosexual priests preying on boys/men and women, respectively, won't be resolved until it happens. There's going to be lots of pain in the American Church till then.

I don't think there will be as much pain as you think Mr. Coupal. The active ones have decided that their urges are more important than their vows. I expect most of them to resign in a pointless attempt at sympathy.

If they try and have an inquisition, they might end up with a pool of approximately zero.

I was brought up Catholic. Looking back, I honestly can't think of a single one who, if he wasn't a priest - and thus excused from normal masculine behaviour - wouldn't be thought of as being 'a very nice chap and all that, but a bit that way inclined, if you know what I mean. Good to his mother. Bats for the other side."

Time to start ordaining women, perhaps.

Brit -- no church has ever been hurt by returning to orthodoxy.

Our local Catholic church has 1500 families attending and is very conservative with a thriving school and a large number of home-schoolers. Most of my Catholic friends have families of at least 6 children and still growing. Pope Benedict is a hero around here.

Randall:

Agreed. My contention is that the Catholic priesthood, since it requires celibacy, is virtually founded on non-practicing gays.

Getting rid of practicing gays could work. Getting rid of all those with an inclination is impossible, and if it were possible, it would be suicidal.

An inclination toward what? Sex or having sex with men? Spiritual commitment requires sacrifice. I've never met a gay who accepted scripture. It's always one excuse or another, and it's always about "me". Very pathetic and nothing to build a church around.

I would bet that in 20 years most priests will be African or Chinese. And they won't be gay. And the Roman Catholic church will be thriving -- as will all other conservative churches.

An inclination towards finding men rather than women sexually attractive. Which doesn't necessarily mean that they will act upon it. Stephen Fry is a famous non-priestly example of a celibate gay.

According to the article, these are the ones the Vatican wants to root out: those who have merely have 'homosexual tendencies.'

Unfortunately, the priesthood is positively bursting with Stephen Frys, so they've got their work cut out.

I'm not sure how priests will be able to prove they do or don't have homosexual tendencies. Will they be forced to look at girlie magazines and monitored for a reaction?

Perhaps they should be recruting exclusively from among the asexual?

Homosexuality violates Scripture so how could they accept it?

Brit:

If you're celibate you aren't gay.

oj -- well said.

Brit -- there is no such thing as a celibate homosexual. And if someone's struggling with his sexual identity, I agree wholeheartedly with the Pope, he has enough problems of his own to be advising others.

The priesthood is very appealing to spiritual men, but not as a den of sodomites.

Brit -- my previous post may have sounded trite, but the fact is that deviancy is defined by the act. A celibate homosexual is kind of like claiming to be a vegetarian who doesn't eat food.

How breathtakingly ignorant.

So if you can't get laid, you're asexual?

Very few things in this world are as varied, complicated, strange and tragicomic as human sexuality.

Brit:

Yet you can't fathom celibacy-=-so it's unvaried when you don't want it to be?

Of course I can fathom celibacy.

My whole contention is that the priesthood is massively over-represented by perfectly celibate men with homosexual tendencies.

Which is apparently the Vatican's latest target group.

Your belief that celibacy is a function of homosexuality indicates you can't.

Where did I say that I believed that?

You're arguing because you think you ought to disagree with me by tradition. I can't see how our positions on gays verus celibates versus practicing homosexuals differ.

The only thing we disagree about is this: you think the Vatican can practically eliminate celibate gays. I think they can't, not least because there's so damn many of them.

Brit:

They won't. Celibate priests aren't a problem. Gay ones are.

I agree that celibate priests aren't a problem, be they gay or not. Nor ought they to be considered a problem.

Yet the story above says:

"The text, approved by Benedict at the end of August, says that homosexual men should not be admitted to seminaries even if they are celibate, because their condition suggests a serious personality disorder that detracts from their ability to serve as ministers, says the CWN report."

"If you're celibate you aren't gay."

Does that mean you're not heterosexual either? Because I'm celibate (in the sense that I have sex less frequently than the average Vuclan) but I've always thought myself a heterosexual. And now you say that's wrong.

Like Marge Simpson says, "Some people are born celibate and some have celibacy forced upon them."

jd - Before, applicants to the priesthood could be openly gay and be welcomed. The new rule means that homosexuals may get in, but only if they lie to do it. And why would someone lie to take on a lifelong commitment to a community that doesn't want you, and live a life of deceit? I think we can expect the change to be effective.

Brit, for being famously gay and celibate, I've never heard that about Fry. How did this info become famous?

A few comments:

First, the new policy appears to violate doctrine previously established by then Cardinal Ratzinberger, "...The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation... the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a 'heterosexual' or a 'homosexual' and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.." (letter to Bishops, 1986).

Second, if gays are apriori unfit for the priesthood how does one explain Fr. Michael Judge, the heroic "fireman priest" who died on 9/11 while giving last rites to a fallen fire fighter (he was struck and killed by falling debris from one of the towers).

Third, is this anytime to be aggravating the current severe priest shortage?

Fourth, if the Orthodox and the Protestant can have married priests and ministers what is so bad about the RCC doing the same? Celibacy attracted too many men (even the straight ones) who were emotionally immature and sexually unhealthy. Would not a married priesthood by definition be a healthier organization? Perhaps the RCC should expand the roles of married deacons.

Fifth, yes a rigid and uncompromising orthodoxy can hurt a church. The Amish and Hasidic Jews are very orthodox. They are also tiny, isolated, impotent and unimportant. These are not the attributes of a universal church.

daniel:

There would be nothing wrong with the Church letting priests marry and it will in time. It chooses not to right now.

RC:

He revealed it himself. I recall him on a chat show (possibly Parkinson - a bit like our version of David Letterman, I suppose) saying something along the lines of: "Yes I am gay, but I don't actually like the whole messy physical side of things."

Having said that, in his Wikipedia entry it says:

"He famously declared that he practised a celibate lifestyle (which he has since abandoned)."

Which perhaps could be used as evidence in support of the Vatican's latest crusade :)

Against the crusade, of course, is the fact that it is a load of nonsense, but it's their club and they can have whatever rules they like for entry (if you'll pardon the expression).

First, the new policy appears to violate doctrine previously established by then Cardinal Ratzinberger, "...The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation... the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a 'heterosexual' or a 'homosexual' and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.." (letter to Bishops, 1986).

I saw this complaint on Andrew Sullivan's blog as well. There need be no contradiction. Being banned from the priesthood does not negate one's identity as a "child of God". Women are likewise banned.

The reason that the RCC will not give in on celibate priests is because that is one area where they can differentiate themselves from Protestants, and also it would have to reverse itself, which isn't something that an organization which claims to speak infallibly for God likes to do.

Banning women from the priesthood is also discriminatory. Unless you can tell me the difference between "women can't be priests" and say "Blacks can't be priests".

Women aren't fully moral creatures.

Gov:

If the Olsen Twins turned your eye before they were of age but you haven't had sex with minors you aren't a pedophile.

How is:

"Women aren't fully moral creatures."

different than:

"Blacks aren't fully moral creatures."

Gender matters. Race doesn't.

Anon
Yes it is discriminatory, but a person's value isn't tied up in his/her ability to become a priest. I'm not so much defending the Church here as I am trying to point out an erroneous argument, which is to conflate an act of discrimination with an act of dehumanization. In the Church's view, the priesthood is merely one role amomg many which a member of the Body of Christ can play in order to realize God's plan. The priesthood is not the one, single route to God, but one specialized role with its own specific requirements.

OJ, please define "fully moral", and explain how men have a greater capacity for morality than women.

"Women aren't fully moral creatures."

Is about the most un-American thing I have heard in quite some time.

Even taking the statement as true, it is absolutely meaningless at the individual level, just as "smokers get cancer" is, while ostensibly true, meaningless when applied to any particular individual.

Just because women as a class are (allegedly) not fully moral creatures does not mean that any particular woman isn't fully moral. Using membership of a class as means to exclude an individual completely ignores the ways in which individuals vary.

I am quite certain that some women are more moral than some men, yet all men are eligible, and no women are.

Clearly a silly outcome, and that is before even assessing the initial assertion.

This whole discussion is further proof, as if such is needed, that irony is the driving force of the universe.

Vocations (I hope I have the right term here) have been declining precipitously in both Europe and the US for some 30 or so years.

The decline is precisely correlated with the cultural acceptance of homosexuality -- men who used to go into the priesthood because it, thanks to the celibacy requirement, shielded them from persistent questioning as to when they were going to get married.

Since that is no longer a problem, gays aren't taking up vocations. Neither are the straights who rarely did in the first place.

So the only way to maintain vocations is to, somehow, roll back the cultural acceptance of gays so they will return to becoming priests in order that the Church can get rid of them.

Well, not the only way. Recognizing celibacy as fundamentally nonsensical, aribitrary, and self damaging requirement is another option.

unAmerican? Why do you think they weren't given the vote?

Robert:

One of the key ways in which men and women differ is that men are more judgemental and severe about moral behaviors and women more nurturing and forgiving, for obvious reasons. The famous results when you ask the Jean Valjean question or anything similar always show that. No decent society could afford women to be as moralistic as men--it would be inhuman.

So there are no judgemental women or forgiving men? Not a one. At all. Ever. Anywhere.

How does

"One of the key ways in which men and women differ is that men are more judgemental and severe about moral behaviors and women more nurturing and forgiving"

differ from

"One of the key ways in which whites and blacks differ is that whites are more judgemental and severe about moral behaviors and blacks more nurturing and forgiving"

Because gender matters and race doesn't and gender matters only in general, not in the particular. But we live by generalities. A black man and a white man are the same and neither much like a woman of either race.

Let me repeat: So there are no judgemental women or forgiving men? Not a one. At all. Ever. Anywhere.

Further, if men are completely and totally lacking in compassion and forgiveness are they not as morally incomplete as women supposedly are?

And further, since part of a priest's job description is to provide the sacrament of reconcilliation it would follow that men (by your definition) are unsuited to be priests andthe job should be exclusively given to women?

And how does

"A black man and a white man are the same and neither much like a woman of either race."

differ from

"A white woman and a white man are the same and neither much like a black of either gender."

You are conflating moralistic and moral. Moralistic refers to the act of being censorious towards the behavior of others, moral refers to one's own behavior.

Yes, women are more tolerant of immorality. It's what one would wish in a mother. The refusal to enforce morality, however, makes them less fully moral.

I think what's confusing you guys is that being fully moral doesn't make men better than women. God Created us so that we'd make each other whole.

Women always and everywhere completely refuse to enforce morality?

Haven't you heard of Judge Judy?

How does

"unAmerican? Why do you think women weren't given the vote?"

differ from

"unAmerican? Why do you think Blacks weren't given the vote?"

unAmerican? Why do you think they weren't given the vote?

Easy -- mindless, theologically reinforced, misogyny.

"Just because women as a class are (allegedly) not fully moral creatures does not mean that any particular woman isn't fully moral. Using membership of a class as means to exclude an individual completely ignores the ways in which individuals vary."

It is American to judge individuals by their merit, not by the attributes assigned to their group, never mind how ridiculous the attributes.

unAmerican? Why do you think they weren't given the vote?

Easy -- mindless, theologically reinforced, misogyny.

"Just because women as a class are (allegedly) not fully moral creatures does not mean that any particular woman isn't fully moral. Using membership of a class as means to exclude an individual completely ignores the ways in which individuals vary."

It is American to judge individuals by their merit, not by the attributes assigned to their group, never mind how ridiculous the attributes.

Jeff:

Mindful.

Anon:

No, there are mannish women just as there are womanly men and we both have elements of each. It is when coupled that we are perfected.