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Volume CXVIII, No. XXIII |
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Monastery, campus react to Vatican rule
The Record
Monks, faculty, staff and students are reacting to a five-page document released Nov. 29 by Pope Benedict XVI that will bar certain homosexuals from entering the priesthood.
More than nine years in the making, "Instruction" is Pope Benedict XVI's first policy statement.
It is said to be a response to the sex abuse scandals that have waylaid the Catholic Church in recent decades.
Conflicting words
Key statements assert that priesthood hopefuls who are found to have "deeply rooted homosexual tendencies" or who openly support so-called "gay culture" will be banned from entering the country's 229 seminaries.
In theory, this ban would apply only to seminarian candidates, not to current priests. But many are saying in practice, there's no distinction.
"Today, the Vatican made it official: Gay men should not be priests," said Matt Forman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in a Nov. 29 news release.
Supporting it
"It is very easy for us to react emotionally, but what we need to do is take a step back and look at what the church's ultimate goal is — to foster effective pastors for the church," said junior Shaina Crotteau. "Its ultimate goal is not discrimination."
Gay seminary candidates with a fleeting history of sexual activity may be exempt from this ban if the Vatican deems their behavior a mere transitory problem, or if their tendencies have been overcome for at least three years.
But this doesn't always mean gays will be ordained after three years of celibacy, said theology professor Fr. Michael Patella. To be overcome, he said the tendencies must be gone.
Too vague?
Sophomore Melissa Hund said such vague language is frustratating.
"What is this ‘transitory problem?' Nobody wipes homosexuality away or sweeps it under a rug," Hund said. "Homosexuality has stuck around in every culture since the beginning of time. It's a part of the life we're given to know."
No gay "tests"
Fr. Bob Pierson, director of SJU campus ministry, said last month he wonders how Vatican members are screening America's seminaries for evidence of candidates' homosexuality.
"Tests are designed to detect illness," Pierson said. "There are no gay tests."
Forman explained the Vatican's stance.
"The Vatican is saying to the thousands of gay priests who have given their lives to serving the church that they should never have been ordained in the first place," he said.
But, senior Jeremy Ploof doesn't buy that.
"I am a deep-rooted Catholic in the sense that the church is so much a part of who I am," Ploof said. "When the Vatican says ‘deeply rooted tendencies' I think it refers to people for whom sexuality is so much a part of who they are that they couldn't be themselves without living it."
Patella said he agrees the phrase means more than simply having a homosexual orientation.
"A person can know he's gay and certainly say ‘my relationship with Christ is the most important thing in my life,'" Patella said. "I don't think that would be considered [a deeply rooted homosexual tendency]."
Monastery reaction
Fr. William Skudlarek, assistant to the Abbot, said reactions in the monastery are "all over the place."
Concern and recognition are themes. He said some monks and current priests of the St. John's Abbey are clearly hurt by the Instruction.
Pierson said a seminarian's sexual orientation is independent from his commitment to celibacy.
He also said it's possible gay priests are becoming scapegoats for crimes committed by pedophiles, and that the document will do nothing to narrow the church's gaping priest shortage.
A positive attitude
"The whole issue of homosexuality is still so inflamed," Skudlarek said. "It goes across denominational lines; it goes across societal lines. But we have to recognize there's a more positive attitude toward gay people than there was 20-30 years ago."
Skudlarek said the church and the Instruction document are granting that homosexuals be treated without discrimination.
"Obviously," he said, "that shows some kind of evolution."
