[Andy B]

Originally Posted by NBC 4 (knbc)

VATICAN CITY -- An upcoming church document does not decree a sweeping ban on gays in seminaries, allowing those who have lived chastely for at least three years to become priests, a senior Vatican official said Friday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the Vatican document has not yet been released, confirmed a report in the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that men who publicly show their homosexuality and those who reveal an attraction to the gay lifestyle should be refused admission to the clergy.

The report, by the newspaper's chief Vatican correspondent, Luigi Accattoli, cited sources who spoke to him about the document from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education. The Italian weekly Panorama said Friday that Pope Benedict XVI approved the document during the summer.

One Vatican official said the document would be published very soon but refused to discuss the contents.

The senior official said, "Anyone who knows Catholic teaching should not be surprised by what the document says."

Several Vatican documents and letters over the years have said gays or men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained, regardless of whether they can remain celibate.

The key one is a Feb. 2, 1961, document, an "Instruction on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders," which made clear homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.

"(Advancement) to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers," the document from the then-Vatican's Congregation for Religious said.

Vatican teaching holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered." The church, however, says homosexuals should be treated with compassion and dignity.

The senior official said there is a lot of "ambiguity" about the term homosexual and therefore much depends on the individual in question, therefore making it difficult to come up with an "absolute, sweeping policy."

The new document has been in the works for at least three years. The issue, though, has long been a subject of debate at the Vatican. It received renewed attention after the U.S. church sex-abuse scandal that erupted in 2002.

A study commissioned by U.S. bishops by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice after the scandal broke found most abuse victims since 1950 were adolescent boys. Experts on sex offenders said homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to molest young people, but that did not stifle questions about homosexual seminarians.

Professor Dean Hoge, a Catholic University of America sociologist who studies the priesthood, says that if, as reported, the forthcoming document emphasizes "responsible living and not flaunting," then "most seminary rectors would agree with this and it should be seen as good news for everybody. ... This is not too far from present policy."

In Hoge's view, "an outright ban is not possible. There is no way of enforcing it."

Philip Lawler, conservative editor of the U.S.-based Catholic World News Web site, urged caution because he had been told the document as approved by the pope "did not have that sort of maneuvering room."

Lawler believes "people who have homosexual tendencies, whether or not they're active, should not be in seminaries." He said that "what the document says ends up as much less important than how the document is followed up and enforced."

From NBC 4 (knbc)
http://www.nbc4.tv/family/5071236/detail.html

[Emerican Idol]

What good is that gonna do? Not having had sex in three years automatically gets you in the priesthood?! Stupid. I mean if you're a pervert your gonna be a pervert once given the opportunity. If you're not, then you're not. Being Gay has nothing to do with it. My guyfriend has to gay parents and he's never been molested by them. Reading that would defintely piss him off.

[Andy B]

Whether you Gay or Straight, I don't like the rules on Priests and Bishops not having sex, I mean come on, sex isn't un-holy, unless you cheat on your partner!

[morning]

Some spiritual paths require strict vows of celibacy (indeed that you have been celibate for a period of at least 3 years) in order to progress to a higher mental and spiritual development. Buddhism for example requires Monks and Nuns to take such vows.

[SULLA]

So how do you prove chastity.

[morning]

deleted .

[Angelstad]

Is this the same vatican that pays off priests who do 'strange' things to other people, and cover up crimes?
(from what I read in the papers and see on the news)

[Doc Shmok]

They just want to boost their condom business..

They can't possibly allow potential users to be celibat..


They would have less Salmon and Kaviar to eat on Friday ..

[Doc Shmok]

Originally Posted by Angelstad

Is this the same vatican that pays off priests who do 'strange' things to other people, and cover up crimes?
(from what I read in the papers and see on the news)

No .. the Vatican is NICE ...

And Nice is close to Avignon ... and there was a pope in Avignon at the time and that's about the time Sepp [Joseph] is still living in...

Anyway:

The claim that homosexuality is “unnatural” is more interesting. This could mean one of two things. Perhaps the Pope is suggesting that it lies beyond the scope of “normal” human behaviour. If so, this has uncomfortable implications for an association of old men who wear dresses, hear voices and practise ritual cannibalism.

Alternatively, he might be suggesting that homosexual behaviour is at variance with that of the non-human world. Here too, however, the Church has a problem. “Biological Exuberance”, a book by the science writer Bruce Bagemihl, documents homosexuality in no fewer than 470 animal species. He shows how groups of manatees carouse in gay orgies; how male giraffes start “necking” and end up fornicating, how female Japanese macaques will pair off for weeks at a time, fondling each other and having sex.

As New Scientist magazine records, at the beginning of the last century the embarrassed keepers of Edinburgh Zoo had repeatedly to re-christen their penguins, after they found that the loving couples they observed were not all that they seemed. Female roseate terns sometimes mate with each other for life, allowing themselves to be fertilised by males, but making nests and bringing up their young together. I would hesitate to describe what pygmy chimpanzees, orang-utans or long-eared hedgehogs get up to, even in a liberal newspaper.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2000...-the-pope-gay/



Now aren't nuns sometimes compared to penguins .. this thing has soooooooo many levels.

[Knuxs7]

Maybe its better in the long run if they carry on their anti gay stance, as the rest of the world moves forward and becomes more equal, religion will be left behind, laughed at and mocked for being so out of date, finally meeting its maker. *does a happy dance*

Goodbye oppression

[batgirl]

Originally Posted by morning

Some spiritual paths require strict vows of celibacy (indeed that you have been celibate for a period of at least 3 years) in order to progress to a higher mental and spiritual development. Buddhism for example requires Monks and Nuns to take such vows.

I have no problem with that. If a group of people decide that being celibate is their *thing*, then what harm does it do?

But what really hacks me off is stuff like this:

'"(Advancement) to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers," the document from the then-Vatican's Congregation for Religious said.'

Calling homosexuality evil is bad enough, but they don't even stop at that. It has to be 'homosexuality and pederasty'.