It's official. According to the Vatican, your priest will be straight, will act straight and will not support gay-related things in any way - or else.
According to a Tuesday Associated Press article, the Vatican is set to issue a document which states that the Roman Catholic Church, "while deeply respecting the people in question, cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture."
Let me repeat that. Not only can you not be a priest if you are gay, you aren't allowed to join the club if you even act gay or support anything in any way related to gay things.
The document went on to say: "Those people find themselves, in fact, in a situation that presents a grave obstacle to a correct relationship with men and women. One cannot ignore the negative consequences that can stem from the ordination of people with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies."
Where, exactly, is the "deeply respecting" in this?
There's no respect present here. What we're looking at is a deep revulsion couched in careful political language.
That isn't to say any of this is a surprise - the Catholic Church has been openly hateful of homosexuals since time out of mind.
So why issue a new statement about the matter?
Simple: Since September, inspectors from the Vatican have been making the rounds of all 229 American seminaries in search of any "evidence of homosexuality." This is in response to the idea put forth by many Catholics that gay priests are more likely to be responsible for - get ready - criminal behavior, including serial molestation of boys.
They are saying homosexuals, aside from being unnatural, are also filthy perverts who would do bad things once ordained. It's all there in plain text. The Vatican has decided the answer to the problem of molestation in the church is to blame it on those dirty, unnatural gay people. Why not? It's clear from this information that its constituency has been doing so for some time now. Why not go with the popular answer?
The Vatican has long held with the belief that homosexuality in any form is wrong, and in 2003, the Church stated that homosexuality was a "troubling moral and social phenomenon." The Vatican teaches that homosexuals are "intrinsically disordered," and it has stood by such statements for years.
At the same time, the Church has stated that gays and lesbians should be treated with compassion and dignity. Unless they want to become priests, of course. Then, by all means, feel free to run those dirty, molesting perverts right out of the priesthood.
This is ludicrous. The Vatican is doing no more than couching its hatred and revulsion of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in pretty and politically correct words - like a warm handshake followed by a slap in the face.
This sort of backhanded, sneaky bigotry is worse than outright hatred. It's easier to get away with, more attractive to many people and harder to prove. But this is the way things are going.
If the movers and shakers of the world ever decide to run out the GLBT community - and friends, it's not that ridiculous of an idea - the phrase we're most likely to hear won't be, "Get out of our country, you filthy perverts," but rather, "While we respect your choice of lifestyle and have nothing but good feelings for your community, it is for the overall welfare of the people that we have decided to implement this relocation program. Now, get in the van."
Write to Jonathan at tenement_cellar@msn.com
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