www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Why homosexual priests?

Just what we need.....a Fundamentalist Byzantine Catholic. Hasn't Mr. Lauffler heard of the "freedom of the East." There will always be "sins of the flesh." As Our Lord said, and I paraphrase, there are many sins.......(of the flesh) I would imagine......but the unforgivable sin is the sin against the Holy Spirit......
I would suggest that less concern be on the "sexual orientation" of the priest. Orthodox married priests are not known for their sexual combustibility, but for their pastoral care....Do we say: "Oh this priest is a heterosexual: therefore lock up your daughters and attractive unfullfilled wives?" LIkewise, Lauffler would fanaticize about the predator gay priest lurking in the shadows of the Icon Screen ready to pounce on some young boy. It is a rare occurence. Imazing how the media molds the weak mind! Talk about white washed tombs! Nothing in life is black and white...lighten up and stop the witch hunt.....

Dan,

I would agree that homosexuality is a disorder and that homosexual acts are sinful. However, I must question the logic of a directive to not ordain a homosexual. It presupposes that a homosexual is more likely to abuse a child than a heterosexual which I am not sure has been proven.

What I think has happened in the priesthood is linked to two seperate but related issues. It would seem that there are a disproportional amount of homosexuals in the priesthood in relation to their numbers in the general population. This makes some sense because before homosexuality became cool in the 90's it was a great stigma. What better place to hide out and not be questioned why you are past 30 and not married or have exclusviely male companionship?

The other issue is that sexual predators, regardless of orientation, have sought out positions that allowed them to prey on the type of victims they were after. This is true not only of the priesthood but teachers, scoutmasters, coaches, and parents who (as horrible as it is to imagine) have even had children for the sole purpose of preying on them.

Refusing to ordain homosexuals might prevent some or maybe many instances of abuse, but I hate to think the Church thinks this is all they need to do and problem solved.

You also state our bishops have knowingly ordained homosexuals against Vtaican directives. I must say I am not aware of this nor do I think our notoriously obediant bishops would do so. That is not to say there are positively no homosexual priests in our Metropolia but I have never heard of any.

In Christ,
Lance

Hi,

Maybe that's exactly what we need........... "a Fundamentalist Byzantine Catholic".The statement "Freedom of the East" is very scary. Folks out there might think we are wife swapping,do it every which way whenever, where ever with whomever swingers.


Nicky's Baba

Dear Dan,

Thank you for posting the source of your information.

Steve

I would like to say I appreciate the compassion and kindness in the consensus of opinion here. It speaks very highly of the Byzantine community that I love and live in.

Personally, to the degree they ask my opinion, I do suggest to my friends who are gay and considering priestly life to re-consider.

Axios

My major concern is the confusion between a person's sexual orientation and a person's eligibility for clerical/monastic life. The Church makes the distinction between orientation and "acting out" based upon one's orientation.

To declare someone ineligible for clerical or consecrated life based upon sexual orientation strikes me as pre-judging an individual's ability to serve God's people in response to a calling from both God and from the community. Should we pre-judge someone based upon his/her intellectual talents? How about a person who is blind? How about people who are susceptible to seizures (a priest might spill the chalice when having a seizure)? What about diabetics (there are 16 million in the U.S.)? What about being deaf?

My point is: we should not judge a class of individuals. We should judge each candidate for priesthood, deaconate, or consecrated religious life based upon his/her ostensible vocation and willingness and ability to serve.

I am more than aware that there are many folks who are very concerned/frightened by homosexuality. And they see themselves as justified in inveighing against a priest or priest candidate who might have a gay orientation. But one should not allow one's personal concerns to override the charity that should be the concern of all Christians. And, to be sure, there are all sorts of other sins that can and should also be considered when considering a candidate. What about a candidate who at one time (or more) smoked a joint? Or the 'straight' candidate who's played around? Or the bettor whose spent a certain amount of money on the ponies or the lottery? Or the person who, on a lark, went to a gypsy tarot card reader? Are these 'diriment impediments' to ordination or vowed life?

Please, let us not just focus on the sexual orientation of an individual because sex scares us.

The TRUE test is how a person has lived his/her life. And how well an individual will be able to serve the church. There are lots of sins out there, and all sorts of people commit them. (Even the good posters on this forum!!) So, what is the dividing line between "good candidates" and "bad candidates"? And let's not be overly judgemental, because in the long run, ANYBODY who feels he or she is a sinner is going to feel unworthy of even thinking about a vocation. (Perhaps this is a cause of our vocational crisis: "I'm not perfect enough.")

Blessings to all us sinners!!!

Dr. John...........AMEN..SAY YES!!!!
Most persons preoccupied with "sexual orientation" of a priest.......is either homophobic, by design, or by default.......go figure! They discount the power of the Holy Spirit which moves, contrary to Lauffer and others on the current holier than thou witch hunt, through all men, gay or straight...I would think Axios agrees???
Again.....white washed tombs speak the loudest!
Jesus would be appaled..........again...

Brother Lauffer quotes and notes:

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not apply to us. It was written from a Latin perspective for Latins." (Dr John)

Response: "Are you suggesting that we are not really in communion with Rome?

Dan Lauffer"

Oy veh. The answer is: We Byzantines are in communion with the Holy Father as successor of St. Peter. We are, however, a separate ecclesiastical entity, with our own laws, customs and lifestyles.

To be canonically blunt about it: Our Bishops determine with whom they are in communion. We, as their subjects, are beholden to them and to them alone. We Byzantines have NO CANONICAL connection to the Roman Church AT ALL, except through the canonical communion of our bishops.

THUS: unless our bishops direct us to do one thing or another, we are only in communion with our own fellow Byzantines (of our own recension), and what the Roman Church does is its own issue NOT ours. I am in communion with my bishop; what he says goes. Period. What the Romans decide to do is THEIR issue, not ours. To import issues of the Roman Community, and their response to those issues, is of less than no concern to me as a Byzantine Christian. (Yes, I love and care for them as fellow Christians, but to superimpose their issues on me is unfair. Why? Because we Easterns don't have the opportunity for input into their Church affairs.)

The Roman bureaucracy just wants us oftentimes to just accept and obey their strictures. Well, from this cradle Eastern, thats crap. It's our bishops who count, period. And, if they are kowtowing to the Roman bureaucracy in a sense of being 'obedient' servants of the Roman Pontiff, then I'll be there to say: Hey! What the heck are you doing?

So, in determining who is eligible to be our priest, nun or monk, then it's our decision and not subject to some Roman bureaucracy strictures.

The Eastern Churches that came into communion with the Holy See were guaranteed their right to be autonomous churches following our traditional rites, customs and lifestyles. To renege on this understanding is to sin: thou shalt not bear false witness.

So, when us Byzantines decide NOT to follow the particulars of the Roman church, we are NOT being dis-loyal to the Holy Father, but rather re-asserting the traditional obligations and lifestyles that we were guaranteed by the documents of union by previous occupants of the See of St. Peter.

Were we NOT to do this, then we would be no different than the latter-day pilgrims who joined the Roman Church from Protestantism. They joined out of conscience, as we did. BUT, they joined the Roman community because they wanted to re-allign themselves with the Apostolic Church. We Easterns are NOT doing that; we are re-affiliating with Peter, but rather from the status of an equally apostolic origin. And it is an insult to suggest that we have to kowtow to contemporary RC discipline in order to prove our allegiance to the Holy Father.

So, while the Roman community is having an issue with abusive priests, and with 'sexual praxis', there is NO reason whatsoever to superimpose this on us Easterns. We'll take responsiblity for our own Church, our own people (including priests and religious) and we will deal with it on our own terms. For those who are fixated upon the Roman community's problems: then, go there. But, if you're "ours", then leave them be and focus more on our own Church and our own issues.

Blessings!!

Might I offer some suggestions to help focus this discussion? The current scandals in the Church involve two issues, only one of which is getting media attention:

1. Priests who have sex with children.
2. Priests who have sex with other adults.

Issue number 2 can be further divided into two sub-issues:

2A. Priests who have sex with adult women (heterosexual).
2B. Priests who have sex with adult men (homosexual).

This discussion has focused on issue 2B.

Points for consideration:

-The national media is not about to focus on issue 2 because the national morality has now judged that any type of sex between consenting adults is acceptable behavior.

-The Church (East and West, Orthodox and Catholic) has been fairly consistent in its teaching on the issue of homosexuality. To summarize:

1. It is not wrong to be a homosexual. [This is fair because the scientists simply do not know for sure how much is nature vs nurture. Pope John Paul II has taught that it is not wrong to be a homosexual but it is wrong to engage in homosexual activity.]
2. Homosexual sex is sinful as is all sex occurring outside of marriage (marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman blessed by the Church as a Sacramental Mystery).
3. This teaching applies to all people, whether priest or lay.

Those priests who engage in homosexual activity should be removed from the ranks of clergy. Period. The fathers of the Church and the bishops of the twentieth and early twenty-first century have been quite clear about this even though the Church has failed to act. The same applies to heterosexual priests who engage in sexual activity with women they are not married to.

This problem is not new. Someone posted on this board previously that St. John Chrysostom complained both about priests having sex with children, women they were not married to and other men. No one should express surprise over this problem because it has always existed and almost certainly according to similar percentages.

What to do about it? This is a much more difficult question. Obviously those priests who openly admit this type of activity should be dismissed by their bishops. But is anyone actually suggesting the Church should set up a secret police to follow priests around to obtain evidence? If one does this one should be prepared to ask this same treatment for priests who break the other commandments. Then there is the separate question of how to get a bishop to do this because he is already short on priests. The "Don't ask, don't tell" method doesn't work for the U.S. military and it sure isn't going work in the Church. But what to do?

There is yet another question that needs to be addressed. Why do some bishops tolerate priests living in sinful relationships (either heterosexual or homosexual) yet married men who are exemplary husbands and fathers are denied the possibility of following their vocation to the priesthood? For the Latins this is a theoretical question since their discipline does not currently allow a married priesthood. For us Byzantines it is a very real question that needs to be addressed. I suspect that this is one of Dan's major questions here. My guess is that the answer is simply that those who yell the loudest get the most attention.

Regarding the awaited Vatican statement on this issue it has been the works for over a year (which is when the pope put together a special commission to deal with these issues in the Church throughout the world).

Finally, this whole discussion has neglected to focus on how to minister to those who are involved in homosexual activity. This is an important of the discussion.

Administrator,

For the most part we agree. I've ministered to homosexuals throughout my ministry. Like all sinners some repent others don't.

The one area in which I think I disagree and may vehemently disagree is the apparent excuse you are giving to bishops for not acting against those priests who have acted out their homosexualist tendencies. My confessor said, and I concur, it is better to have two holy priests than thousands of unholy ones.

Sexual sins are sexual sins. Every one that is proved should bring about some kind of discipline. However, homosexual sins, as you all know stem from an unnatural lust for the same sex.

I couldn't care less what Greek man calls me. His silly comments speak more about him than anyone else. His theology, so called, is appalling and empty.

Dan Lauffer

I'm confused about the issue of bishops knowingly ordaining practicing homosexuals. Perhaps I have got this wrong, and it doesn't happen, but if this is an issue, then what does it speak about those who hold high office? I believe I heard or read that a priest must be physically, mentally, and morally healthy. A man with homosexual tendencies who is deeply grievous and repentant for these thoughts can be forgiven. But otherwise, it seems that those who are not repentant for what they do arent real priests, they aren't "in it" for the right reasons, they are simply fakes who should be removed, like practicing doctors who hold no PhD.
This issue like many others is one that I will just pop in to learn more about from you all. Please someone tell me if i've got things all wrong.

God Bless!

MsGuided,

You aren't "Misguided" at all. You are very much correct. Unfortunately, some bishops have chosen what appeared to them to be an easier route. Someone suggested that if someone appeared before them having a head on their shoulders some bishops would ordain it just to get out of a priestly shortage. I don't claim to know this one way or another. All I do know is that there is abundant evidence that, at least in our recent past, some active homosexualists have populated our siminary and apparently some are still active priests.

This should not be.

Dan Lauffer

Lance,

I can't speak for the leadership of the Church but I suspect that the problem they forsaw, and rightly so, is not that a person claiming to be homosexual is by definition a pedophile. I would not even think that the link would always come to mind. We'll leave the statistical studies aside for the moment. I believe the issue was and still is this: "If a person makes their sexual attractions his primary defining category he is not ready to be a priest and is still worldly minded." What healthy person runs around telling everyone that he has sexual intercourse with everything that moves?

If I hear some young guys bragging about what girl they've made it with, though I don't associate in such circles usually, I'd more than likely tell them in some fashion to "shut their face". If some group of guys prance up and down the street proclaiming that they have intercourse with men and "we are special because of that fact" I'd say "get lost." I would not ordain anyone from either group.

Some on this board may claim this does not make sense, but I doubt that their is anyone who would believe them.

"However, I must question the logic of a directive to not ordain a homosexual. It presupposes that a homosexual is more likely to abuse a child than a heterosexual which I am not sure has been proven."

Dan Lauffer

I thank the Administrator for the excellent post which helps to focus this discussion.

This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I am an RC who attended a diocesan high school seminary. I was one millimeter from attending the college seminary in 1978 (my application had been accepted; my parish priest announced to the congregation at Mass that I would be "moving up") when the scandal about the open homosexual behavior ("parties," "orgies," whatever) there broke. I don't think it was generally known among the faithful, but "priest types" knew about it. (In fact, my mother never understood why I decided not to go on until I explained it to her this year in the wake of all this mess.)

Needless to say I quickly changed my college plans. When I told my pastor, he said, "I don't blame you." Apparently, it was common knowledge around the diocese. Another pastor suggested "putting a torch to the place." I ended up attending a Catholic university 500 miles from home, meeting a young woman, and the rest, as they say, is history.

However, the only thing I have ever felt called to be (since the 4th grade) has been a priest (but I've also always felt I'd be a husband and father, too--go figure). Sometimes I think I abandoned my dream--or vocation--too easily (others I know, for example, left the diocesan seminary and eventually became religious priests). Sometimes I think the good Lord works in mysterious ways (maybe it was a good thing that I did not become a priest at age 26).

In any case, I do not consider myself a homophobe. I would have been equally distressed if it had been common knowledge that the seminarians were entertaining their girlfriends in their dorm rooms. The Church is facing multiple problems of the abuse of sexuality among its clergy, and the reasons for it are complex.

Although it is true that pedophilia and active homosexuality are not necessarily related, it is interesting to note how the secular media and even some within the Church react when, for example, Bishop Wilton Gregory attempts to shed light on the multiple and separate sexual problems, including active homosexuality (I'm not speaking about simply the "inclination to" or "predisposition to"). "Gay bashing!" comes the cry.

I think this is an especially good time to pray that the Master send workers for the harvest.

[ 05-14-2002: Message edited by: Psalm 51 ]

[ 05-14-2002: Message edited by: Psalm 51 ]

Dear Friends,

Yes, thanks to Dan and the Administrator for bringing a proper focus to this type of discussion - that tends to get "heated" (in more ways than one).

As for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I think that it was indeed intended for all Catholics of all Particular Churches. Provision is made there, in black and white, to adapt it to the spiritualities of the different Churches.

Also, as someone who uses it, I think there are many more Eastern elements in it than in any other Latin Catechism in history, including the section on the Jesus Prayer.

And the CCC is more "Byzantine" than the Orthodox St Peter Mohyla's Catechism!

St Aelred of Rievaulx was, as we can tell from his writings, a man of homosexual orientation. A celibate, but homosexual.

But, as a "just suppose," if the church authorities feel they can prevent future sexual abuse from occurring by weeding out those with a gay orientation, then they are sorely mistaken, for reasons some of which have already been given here.

The Administrator's point concerning married priests is most telling.

We Byzantines are in awe about how the Latin hierarchy appears to forgive sexual abuse among priests more quickly than the very idea of a married priesthood.

A priest in Boston suggested, on Easter Sunday, that perhaps it is time to have a married priesthood in the Latin Church. It took only nine days to have him removed . . .

But more and more Latin Laity are also asking the question why the Latin Hierarchy is against a married priesthood, why the proliferation of EEM's and the call for vocations when there are thousands of Latin priests who have left the active ministry to get married and who would like to be received back into their Church to continue their ministry.

At this juncture, the discussion will not be led by theologians and bishops. The Catholic laity, whose own children are at risk here, will also and finally be heard.

Alex