The Vatican's gay document: articles and editorials

How gay is too gay?

The Vatican has decreed anyone with 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies' need not apply to the priesthood. Those with only a 'transitory problem' are, however, now welcome. Can you can ever be just a little bit gay, wonders Emily Wilson

Guardian November 30, 2005

Can you be just a little bit gay? Is gayness ever just a phase? These are serious, difficult questions, as Michael Portillo, for one, will tell you. But yesterday some light was thrown on the subject by none other than the Catholic church. The Vatican published a new edict on its position on priests and homosexuality, one approved by the new pope, and the answer to all these questions, it emerges, is "yes".

The Vatican's document states that candidates for the priesthood with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" and those who actively support "gay culture" need not apply, on the basis (in precis) that they are past saving. But candidates who have suffered only a "transitory problem" with gayness need not give up hope of a place in the seminary, just so long as three years have passed between them "overcoming" the "problem" and them entering the priesthood.
In short, young priests may have a closet, and they may once have peered out of the keyhole, or even stepped out for a moment, but from now on, the closet door must remain tight shut. Or, to put it another way, homosexuality is very much like smoking - a few years off the fags, and you're all nice and pure again.
There is no mention, in this document, of the 30-50% of priests already in the church who are claimed (by Catholic gay rights campaigners, but still) to be gay. And it goes without saying that while transitory problems with gayness may, with time, be acceptable, celibacy remains a strict requirement for all priests, and gayness in general remains un-OK for lay Catholics. (Quite how this can claim to be any sort of response to the church's record of child abuse is unclear, but that is another matter.)
It will not surprise many readers to learn that this document has been condemned as homophobic. (Can gayness be just a temporary problem? "It's just a 'no'," says Andy Forrest, of the gay rights group Stonewall.) It's no surprise either that the Vatican's edict has been described as not only confused but confusing in other quarters. ("Seminaries are full of gay men! What about them?" asks Mark Dowd, a former trainee Dominican friar, and the chair of Quest, a group of gay and lesbian Catholics.) But then the Catholic church has never been too concerned with groups such as Stonewall and Quest, just very concerned indeed - or so Dowd and others claim - with bums on seats in the developing world, where gay rights tend not to be much of a winner in the pulpit.
The Catholic faith is far from the only church to have come over all hot and bothered at the thought of man-on-man action. And it is far from the only church to have tied itself into elaborate knots in its efforts to explain whatever curious position it has chosen to adopt on the subject, taking into account all relevant scriptures and the social mores of the day.
In fact, in this country at least, it can be argued that the major religions between them constitute the last great bastion of official homophobia. As David Allison of Outrage!, another gay rights group, puts it: "The churches have stood against every form of social progress since the year dot. The further people go towards civil liberties, the less reliant they are on the church."
In America, according to Chris Barron, political director of Log Cabin, a gay and lesbian Republican organisation, gay rights in the US "lag behind most of Europe". Gay marriages are still only possible in a few areas and, of course, campaigners have the infamous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the armed forces to focus their ire on. This supposedly enlightened policy has led, Barron says, to about 10,000 discharges since it was first introduced in 1983.
In this country, though, official homophobia of the sort once practised by institutions such as the Foreign Office - which refused gay jobseekers on the basis that they might be blackmailed, and besides, how on earth would one seat their boyfriends at a dinner party? - is yesterday's story. Allison says that, "to be fair to Tony Blair", his government has done its best to stamp out anti-gay legislation. Homophobia has not gone away, but it has been taken out of the rulebook. The army may have odd ideas about broomsticks, but in the navy homosexuality has long been "practically compulsory", he says, and those in charge do seem to be doing their bit for equality. The police force may not be perfect, but at least there is a Gay Police Association. Same-sex civil marriage services may not be perfect either, but at least gay couples are now to be allowed some sort of legal protection. Portillo may have had to abandon all hope of being prime minister, but homophobia is not actually official Conservative party policy.
Ah . . . but in the houses of our gods and goddesses. In the churches, official bodies still talk with straight faces about homosexuality as a "tendency", and most of them are still dancing, in gorily drunken fashion, with their rules on gayness, and how gay is OK, and whether priests should be allowed to be as gay - or less gay, or even more gay - than lay people.
Take the Anglican church. The Reverend Martin Reynolds, a Welsh priest who is gay and is engaged to be married to a man (with whom he has a foster child), is our guide to the subject. According to him, the rules, as of today, are thus: in England, a vicar may be gay, and may have a gay partner, and they may live in the vicarage together. As of December 21 this year, they may even get married. But! On no account must they have sex. Ordinary members of the Church of England, however, are free to have gay sex before and after marriage. Why the discrepancy? "That's a very good question," says Reynolds.
In Wales, however, as the Welsh bishops made clear only last week, gay priests will be free not only to marry but to "frolic". Ditto in Scotland. The situation in Ireland, Reynolds says, is "bitty". What may be OK for the southern bishops probably will not be OK for the northern bishops. Is kissing and cuddling, but no rude stuff, OK? No one is sure, Reynolds says.
Clear so far? You can be very gay indeed and an Anglican priest in Scotland, Wales and some parts of Ireland, but only quite gay and an Anglican priest in England.
How gay is too gay in Judaism? In the orthodox branches of the church, even a tiny bit gay can be too gay, although one may find interesting (anonymous) pieces on the internet by men purporting to be gay orthodox rabbis. But in more liberal branches of the faith, you can be very gay, whether you are a lay person or a rabbi.
Rabbi Danny Rich is the chief executive of an organisation called Liberal Judaism, which today, as it happens, publishes a liturgy formally giving the thumbs-up to same-sex marriage ceremonies in its synagogues - once the couples have signed the civil partnership register. Rich says his organisation has two gay and four lesbian rabbis on its books. And are they allowed to actually have sex? "It's not our business," he says. Which means yes.
The situation in the Reform movement that sits somewhere between the orthodox groups and the 10 to 12,000 members of Liberal Judaism is less clear. There are gay rabbis, but, Rich says, "they don't have a policy on same-sex marriages" as yet.
No one from Queer Jihad was replying to messages yesterday, but it is probably fair to say that the number of openly gay imams in this country may be counted on one hand, and that many Muslim groups are as open about their homophobia as is the Catholic church.
Homosexuality in Hinduism is an interesting one. While some Hindus are as proudly anti- gay as their counterparts in other churches, accepted Hindu religious texts do not explicitly mention homosexuality at all and, according to Wikipedia, "to this day in modern India there are hijras, transgendered men who have sex with men. They religiously identify as a separate third sex, with many undergoing ritual castration. In Hindu thought, a man who penetrates a hijra is not defined as gay."
A curious thing, in all this, is that lesbians really do not get much of a mention (apart from the four lesbian rabbis to whom Rabbi Rich lays claim); it is all very Queen Victoria. When the Anglican church frets over gay vicars, it is really men and men's bits it is worrying about. What about all those gay nuns and gay lady vicars out there? People just tend to "fret" less about what women get up to, says Reynolds.

Distinctly without prejudice

Leader [Editorial]

Guardian November 30, 2005

The most important thing about the Vatican's new document on gay priests is that it is not bigoted. Celibacy is a career open to any man, and the Vatican makes no distinction between the temptations to be resisted. Catholic leaders in this country have also been quick and clear in their support for homosexual clergy. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has said that a homosexual orientation must "never be considered sinful or evil in itself. Nor should anyone ever suffer discrimination or prejudice as result of such orientation." This is a position so unlike the bullying prejudice of much rightwing Christianity - American or even Anglican - that it is worth reflecting on the arguments that the Holy Spirit might have used to persuade Pope Benedict of its truth.

The most powerful is surely that gay priests are not a novelty. Some must have helped to draft this document. The seminaries are full of them and have been for years, all across the western world, and especially in the US. There, by some estimates, as many as 50% of the candidates in some seminaries are gay. Some of these men have been largely responsible for the disasters of the child sex abuse cases that have so damaged the church in the last decade.
But the problem could not be solved by expelling all gays from the priesthood, even if that were either just or possible. The church has a huge shortage of truly celibate priests, whatever their orientation. Although the sex scandals in which the victims were mostly adolescent boys from rich countries have outraged the world, and cost a fortune in law suits, a Pope might suppose that God is just as outraged by the abuses whose victims are young girls in poor countries who will never sue anyone for anything. It is in this light that the document's attempt to draw a line between "transient" and "deep-rooted" homosexual orientations must be understood.
It looks as if the Vatican is trying to distinguish between priests whose temptations will always be homosexual, and those who are merely frustrated heterosexuals. Perhaps that is how some of the drafters meant it. But it will be interpreted in an entirely different spirit. In practice, the distinction between deep-seated and transient will become a way of labelling good and bad gay priests to differentiate between those who will abuse their positions, and those who will not. The Catholic church will remain dependent on faithful and celibate gay clergy for as long as it rejects the ordination of married men. It is good that it is at least trying to deal honestly with them.

Pope's gay priest ruling is hailed by moderates

Ruth Gledhill, Religion correspondent and
Richard Owen in Rome

The Times 30 November 2005

A VATICAN ruling on homosexuals entering the priesthood received a surprising welcome from leading Roman Catholics in Britain yesterday after it became clear that it was not as severe as had been feared. However, gay pressure groups and liberal Catholics were critical.
Senior Catholics said that the ruling showed a slight softening of Pope Benedict XVI’s hard line against gays. The instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education said that ordination was not permissible for men with “deep-seated” gay tendencies but was permissible for those who could show they had overcome “transitory” homosexuality for three years. It does not apply to those already ordained.

The instruction was welcomed by moderates because it is not an outright ban on all men of homosexual orientation, celibate or not, but it will disappoint traditionalists because it does not call homosexuality a “tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil”, a phrase used by the Pope in his previous post as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac MurphyO’Connor, said: “A priest is primarily a witness to Jesus Christ. Anything that detracts from this impedes that witness.
“Priests are required to live lives of celibate chastity, whatever their sexual orientation, and must be able to relate freely and well to both men and women. Bishops must ensure that men are not admitted to the priesthood for whom its requirements and demands will be too burdensome or impossible to fulfil.
“The instruction is not saying that men of homosexual orientation are not welcome in the priesthood. But it is making clear that they must be capable of affective maturity, have a capacity for celibacy and not share the values of the eroticised gay culture. This is especially important because seminaries are all-male environments.”
In 2004 the bishops of England and Wales said that “a homosexual orientation” was not sinful or evil in itself.
The Cardinal said: “The Church utterly condemns all forms of unjust discrimination, harassment or abuse directed against people who have homosexual tendencies.”
The Vatican ruling was attacked by Peter Tatchell, of the gay rights group OutRage!, who said it was “bigoted and hypocritical”. He said: “If these rules had existed in the past, many existing archbishops and cardinals would have never been allowed to enter the priesthood. Given the high proportion of gay clergy in senior positions in the Vatican, this new policy is rank hypocrisy.
“Given that about a third of Catholic clergy in Britain are gay, the new rules are an own goal that could result in hundreds of churches being left without priests.”
He added that the Church should concentrate on eliminating child sex abusers from the priesthood.Widespread child abuse by Catholic priests has been revealed in the United States and other countries. The Boston Archdiocese agreed to pay £49 million to more than 500 victims in 2003. Last week a Brazilian priest was jailed for 14 years for abusing two children, and Italian police said yesterday that a priest in Tuscany had confessed to molesting 30 boys over the past five years.
Damian Thompson, editor-in-chief of The Catholic Herald, said the Vatican ruling was “a highly intelligent compromise”. He added: “It is not nearly as bad as the gay community was expecting. They were fearing a blanket ban on the ordination of anyone under any circumstances who was gay.”
He conceded that the reference in the document to “deep-seated homosexuality” would offend many but said that the document’s references to showing “respect” for gay people were also signs of a softening attitude. “All this is language that would have been inconceivable coming from the Vatican in the 1980s. The gay community was really worried that Benedict was going to come out with a blanket ban.”
Father Timothy Radcliffe, former Master of the Dominicans, said that it would not be correct to interpret the document as ruling out men with a permanent homosexual orientation as there were “many excellent priests” who were gay and who clearly had a vocation.
The Human Rights Campaign, a gay pressure group based in the US, said gays were being used as scapegoats and called on “all fair minded Catholics” to protest to their local priests. “We urge them to consider what Jesus would do if he saw his neighbour treated this way,” the group said.
Father Donald Cozzens of John Carroll University, a Jesuit foundation in Cleveland, Ohio, said: “Our seminaries are likely to be depopulated to a significant extent.” He added that the hunters might become the hunted, suggesting there were “hidden” gays in the Vatican.


Vatican Officially Releases Document on Banning New Gay Priests

Ian Fisher

New York Times 30 November 2005

VATICAN CITY, Nov. 29 - The Vatican officially released a new document on Tuesday that strongly reinforced its ban on ordaining homosexuals as priests, while a cardinal, making the church's first public comment, rejected the contention that the decree was discriminatory.
"It's not discrimination, for example, if one does not admit a person who suffers from vertigo to a school for astronauts," Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican department that issued the document, said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Vatican Radio.
The document's official release ended months of piecemeal leaks on one of the most sensitive issues facing the church. Last week, the entire document was posted on an Italian Web site, inciting debate especially among American Catholics about how restrictive the church meant to be and how the rules would be applied.
It was finally published Tuesday in two forms, as a booklet that ran for seven pages in the English translation with footnotes, and in the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
The newspaper also published a much longer commentary by the Rev. Tony Anatrella, a French Jesuit psychologist who repeated the church's long-held condemnation of homosexuality both in the priesthood and in the wider culture. Generally, he said, homosexuality "presented a destabilizing reality for people and for society."
"During these past years, homosexuality has become a phenomenon that is always increasingly worrying and in many countries is considered a quality that is normal," he wrote. He said homosexuality was a "sexual tendency and not an identity."
According to the text of the document, the church will not admit to a seminary or ordain "those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.' "
Only candidates who had experienced "homosexual tendencies" that were "transitory" will be ordained, the document said, provided they were "overcome" three years before ordination as a deacon.
But the short document did not define terms like "tendencies," "deep-seated" or "overcome," though on Tuesday Cardinal Grocholewski gave several specific instances of homosexuality that could be considered "transitory" and therefore possibly acceptable.
"For example, some curiosity during adolescence or accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness, or particular circumstances like someone who was in prison for many years," he said in the Vatican Radio interview.
A central question is whether the new rules will allow ordination of a candidate who is celibate but believes his basic sexual orientation is homosexual.
The instruction does not apply to priests already ordained, though some liberal Catholics predicted protest resignations of some priests who consider themselves gay.
The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., released a statement calling it a "timely document" in an era when homosexuality and gay marriage are so widely discussed.
He said it was a "valid concern" for the church to seek priests who are chaste, mature and "can faithfully represent the teaching of the church about sexuality, including the immorality of homosexual genital activity."
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York for this article.

A church confused over sexual issues

By Bernadette J. Brooten

Boston Globe November 30, 2005

IF THE VATICAN aims to prevent clergy sexual abuse by barring gay men from the priesthood, it is profoundly misguided. Most strikingly, the latest Vatican statement doesn't ever name clergy sexual abuse as a problem. Instead, the Vatican refers ever so obliquely to the ''contemporary world," which must mean ''a world in which even priests have sex with boys."

The Vatican needs to address head-on the dual problem of priests abusing their power and their bishops protecting them. Otherwise, Catholics and non-Catholics will live with shaken confidence in the Roman Catholic Church, an important social institution by any measure. This document diverts attention away from Catholic bishops who have worked mightily to avoid just settlements with sexual abuse survivors, to open their financial records, or to include clergy as mandated reporters of child sexual abuse.
By defining homosexuality as the problem, the Vatican also masks the fact that numerous priests have had, and are having, sexual relations with adult women. Unlike therapists or physicians, priests are not usually legally prohibited from having sexual relations with the women whom they counsel. Women whose trust priests have betrayed have rarely been able to sue for damages, and the media have therefore seldom reported their stories.
Instead of facing up to these urgent problems in the church, the statement bars all men ''who practice homosexuality, show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, or support so-called gay culture" from seminary and the priesthood. As theological justification, the Vatican explains that a priest must ''represent Christ, head, shepherd, and bridegroom of the church." Christ's maleness is the same reason the Vatican excludes women from the priesthood, although in church history, canon lawyers more candidly explained that women are simply inferior.
Now we see that being a man alone isn't enough. The priest also has to be a real man. He has to be heterosexual in order to function as a head of the congregation and as a bridegroom of the church. Yes, heterosexual and male, but also celibate, while living with other male priests -- a tall order. In a new theological twist, Jesus was not only celibate but also heterosexual.
Even as the Vatican is puzzling out the finer details of theological symbolism, US Catholics face new disappointments each year. The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., a diocese that had sought bankruptcy protection, is appealing the judge's ruling that church property ''can be sold to pay claims filed by victims." Skylstad argues that the bishop doesn't own these church properties, the parishes do. Meanwhile, in Boston, Catholics have held vigils to prevent the archbishop from selling off their churches. Archbishop O'Malley argues that the archbishop owns these churches, not the parishes.
The most heartening sign on the horizon is that US Catholics increasingly see sexual abuse as the problem, not sexual orientation. Both in the courts and in the court of public opinion, Catholics are calling their church to accountability. More and more Catholics support the abuse survivors, want a say in whether their parishes and schools will stay open, and want sexual ethics based on meaningful consent and mutuality.
Bernadette J. Brooten is professor of Christian studies at Brandeis University and the director of the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project

Bishop Says Edict Allows Some Gay Priests

U.S. Catholics at Odds Over Interpretation of Vatican's New Directive

By Alan Cooperman

Washington Post November 30, 2005

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."
Skylstad's comments are the opening salvo in what promises to be a wide-ranging battle within the U.S. church over the document's implementation. Bishop John M. D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., said yesterday that Skylstad's interpretation is "simply wrong" -- a rare public clash among bishops, who usually go to great lengths to preserve an image of collegiality, even when they disagree.
"I would say yes, absolutely, it does bar anyone whose sexual orientation is towards one's own sex and it's permanent," D'Arcy said of the document. "I don't think there's any doubt about it. . . . I don't think we can fuss around with this."
Although each bishop can apply the document as he sees fit in his diocese, the fallout could reach thousands of Catholic schools and parishes as gay men who are considering the priesthood -- and some who have been ordained -- reevaluate their place in the church.
"I think every gay seminarian faces a question of conscience now," said a 33-year-old gay seminarian from New England who requested anonymity because he has not yet decided whether to leave his seminary. "There's no question of leaving the church. I'll die a Catholic. The question is whether I can with integrity be a priest."
The six-page instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican department in charge of seminaries, was leaked by an Italian news agency a week ago. But most bishops were silent about it until its official publication yesterday. As soon as it was released in Rome, many U.S. dioceses posted statements on their Web sites, and many bishops held news conferences.
The document says that "the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.' "
It adds that men can become priests if their "homosexual tendencies . . . were only the expression of a transitory problem -- for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded." But those whose homosexuality is deep-seated "find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women," the official English translation says.
Several prelates, including Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, indicated that they will continue to ordain seminarians regardless of sexual orientation, as long as the candidates are committed to live in celibacy and to uphold church teachings.
"It is important to look at the whole person. One issue of many that are looked at in the overall evaluation process is in the area of human sexuality," McCarrick said in a written statement. "Applicants for the Archdiocese of Washington must have a demonstrated commitment to living a chaste life and must fully embrace, through belief and action, the Church's teachings, including those on human sexuality."
Asked whether that means the archdiocese will still accept gay seminarians, the cardinal's spokeswoman, Susan Gibbs, said: "We don't anticipate our admissions policy changing based on the document. There can be people whose orientation is homosexual if it's not such a strong part of their makeup that it interferes with their ability to live out church teaching. It's part of the larger picture we have to look at."
Skylstad took a similar approach. He said the barring of men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" refers to those who are "principally defined by" or whose "primary identification" is their sexual orientation. Although the document does not say so, he said, the same implicitly applies to men who have deep-seated heterosexual impulses.
"Absolutely, it cuts both ways. . . . I think if the orientation dominates one's personality, whether that be homosexual or heterosexual," then the candidate is not suitable for ordination, Skylstad said. "You know, a heterosexual person who cannot live the celibate life in fidelity to his mission, in fidelity to appropriate boundaries, is not going to be called by the church to priesthood, either."
The same point was made by Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, N.Y., in a statement on his Web site; it noted that the Vatican's instruction requires all candidates for the priesthood to show emotional maturity.
"I must concur, and add that such criteria also would be applied to a heterosexual man whose sexual behavior would in any way interfere with his celibate service to the Church and to those to whom he would minister," Clark wrote.
But in Rome, the head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, said that the problems of homosexual and heterosexual candidates are not equivalent. Although many people think homosexuality is a "normal condition of the human person," he told Vatican Radio, it "absolutely contradicts human anthropology" and violates "natural law."
For the church, denying ordination to gay men is no more discriminatory than "if a person who suffers from vertigo is not admitted to a school for astronauts," the cardinal said.
The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the conservative Catholic journal First Things, said that "human nature being what it is, those who want to evade the clear statement of the instruction will have ample opportunities to seek loopholes, evasions and rationalizations."
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and generally a liberal commentator on church affairs, agreed.
"Over the next few months we will hear from plenty of canon lawyers and theologians and bishops, as we have already, arguing, out of a genuine and compassionate desire to help the church continue to accept celibate gay men into the priesthood, that the document needs to be interpreted in the most positive light possible," he said.
"But it is impossible, after reading the Instruction, to escape the fact that when the Vatican says men with 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies,' it means what it says."
Special correspondent Sarah Delaney in Rome contributed to this report.

NB English translation of the full text of the Vatican [Congregation for Catholic Education] instruction Concerning the criteria of vocational discernment regarding persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to seminaries and holy orders can be found on: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/churchdocs/2005_11_04_Grocholewski_InstructionOnHomosexuality.htm