A turn for the worse?
According to all the reports, the Vatican is preparing to forbid self-identified homosexuals from studying for or being ordained to the Catholic priesthood, even if they promise to remain celibate.
On the face of it, this is very wrongheaded.
I suppose one could make a prudential argument for serious consideration whether gay men should present themselves for a life where a) they will be living with other men in close quarters for eight years or more and then b) they will be on their own in the parish, with few opportunities for psychosocial intimacy except with members of their family or (surprise surprise) other men, adults or young adults.
But to ban "them" completely flies in the face of common sense, good judgment, and moral decency. First of all, who are "they?" Someone who has a live-in boyfriend, someone who has a wet dream every couple of months, or both?
Granted, there is a huge problem in seminaries everywhere (Protestant as well as Catholic) with a gay subculture. Seminaries, like universities, have become havens for the gay subculture, or even simply a highly charged sexual subculture with no distinctions between gay, straight, or whatever. This story on NPR tells of a man who sued the Jesuits in the late 1980s for sexual harassment after entering a seminary and finding himself receiving sexually suggestive cards, invited to gay parties, etc.
But the Vatican has to be kidding itself if they think that simply making a rule against gay men is going to work out. You have to invite people into a life of discipleship and make it possible. I knew people (faculty as well as seminarians) at seminary who were not living in compliance with Vision and Expectations, and yet there were some who were. It also begs the question: are you going to ban all egotistical, unforgiving people from the ministry as well? Because if you are, then I ought to turn in my collar too.
I'm willing to see how this plays out, but I hope I don't have to. I would rather see seminaries, non Roman Catholic as well as Roman Catholic, forming sinners in a life of obedience rather than banning sinners from the Church. The policy in V/E expecting those who self-identify as homosexuals to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships has to be enough. What it does is offers a standard. Now we need to form people to live according to the standard. That is the hard work.
posted by Maurice Frontz @ 11:15 AM
2 Comments:
In the past 8 years I've been a member of three seminary communities - two Lutheran seminaries and one Presbyterian seminary - and none of them were "havens for the gay subculture" or a "subculture with no distinctions between gay, straight, or whatever." It seems that this characterization might be a bit dramatic.
Yes, there are isolated stories of sexual oddity that grab headlines and run amok on blogs, but I find it unlikely that entire seminary communities are succombing to sexually abberant subcultures. I haven't seen it in my experience.
Seminaries can easily become targets for polemic misunderstandings. (A professor suggests a historical-critical method for interpreting the Scriptures, and all of a sudden it is claimed that the school teaches that the Bible is false. A student sleeps around and all of a sudden the school is a haven for sexual immorality). But I think we have to question the wild claims of sexual activists (on both sides) about the state of our seminaries and our church.
A salutary warning. However I would submit that our seminaries, instead of forming us in a faithful life, all too often uncritically reflect the assumptions and predilections of the dominant individualistic culture. As this regards to sexuality, we are left to atomistically adhere and separate, looking for "fulfillment" wherever we can find it. Perhaps this should not be surprising. Perhaps this is par for the course and is not a big deal.
The gay subculture was not openly in evidence at my seminary, but then I didn't go looking for it, being married and all. As for it happening at other campuses, I suppose the evidence for that is just as anecdotal as our experiences would be.
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