Catholic priest - a faggot profession (Why short fat faggots like George Chmilewsky/Alice Gnatiuk, 4 Cherry St, Garfield, NJ 07026, want to be scoutmasters, was Altopia: warning about irresponsible cross-posting)
SSRIHater
Catholic church alarmed that priesthood is becoming a 'gay profession'
By Paul Vallely
The Roman Catholic priesthood in Britain is fast on its way to
becoming a gay profession. There are significantly more
homosexuals among those training to be priests than there are
proportionately in the general population, according to the
rector of one of the church's seven English seminaries, Fr Kevin
Haggerty of St John's at Wonersh in Surrey.
In addition, an increasing number of gay men are training to be
priests at other seminaries. Fr James Overton, the rector of
Allen Hall in Westminster diocese, has said "a sizeable number"
of his students are now homosexual a trend which could cause
"enormous problems" in seminaries. Allen Hall's internet system
was closed down recently when pornography was found downloaded
onto one of the seminary's computers.
And now a forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, Queer and Catholic,
is to allege that, while many of the gay men remain celibate,
others do not.
Homosexual sex which the Roman Catholic church insists is an
act of "grave depravity" has taken place inside the English
College in Rome, to which élite candidates for the priesthood are
sent. The programme claims that seminarians there have also
cruised Rome's gay bars and parks. Student priests in the college
frequently referred to one another by girls names and the culture
in parts of some seminaries is one of "high camp".
Taken together, all this suggests that a gay subculture is
emerging in some seminaries, similar to that which has developed
in the United States, where it has been suggested that as many as
a quarter of American priests are gay. It was reported last year
that the number of priests who had died of Aids was
proportionally four times that of the general population.
(American seminaries now demand an Aids test before ordination.)
But Donald Cozzens, the rector of one of the leading US
seminaries, St Mary's in Cleveland, Ohio, recently suggested that
among priests under the age of 40 the figure could be as high as
60 per cent. Fr Cozzens wrote recently in a book called The
Changing Face of the Priesthood: "The priesthood of the 21st
century will likely be perceived as a predominantly gay
profession." Seminaries, he said, were becoming "significantly
gay" places.
At Ushaw College in Durham, the rector, Fr Jim O'Keefe, queries
the reliability of the American figures but acknowledges that
there is an issue to be addressed now in English seminaries.
A former seminarian, Chris Higgins, reveals in the Channel 4
documentary, to be broadcast on Saturday, an occasion on which
some of the trainee priests who "had had more to drink than
others" became "very tactile and physical with each other in the
refectory".
Soon after, noises came from one student's room. "It was
obviously two people having sex," the ex-priest says. "To cover
the noise the person in the next room put on a Take That CD at
full volume, which got the attention of most of the students in
college who came down to the corridor to ask him to turn it down.
When he did, everyone could hear the noise of the two people
having sex coming from the room next door."
Students, even before they become priests, have made a promise of
celibacy.
But Chris Higgins says: "Some defined celibacy as not falling in
love, so one-night stands were permitted. It could be in a bush
in a park, but your heart still belonged to God, to the
priesthood and the church. What you did with your body was just
flesh ..." Yet such casuistry is not what will most dismay the
Vatican which is, after all, now used to weathering sex scandals
about priests being found dead in massage parlours, getting
caught downloading huge porn collections from the internet or
being found to have interfered with children. What will set the
biggest alarm bells ringing in Rome is the suggestion that the
Catholic priesthood in Britain could within a couple of
generations become a gay profession.
A variety of reasons are given for the disproportionate figures.
Some commentators suggest that the theology of a male God has
homo-erotic overtones to gay men. Others say that there are more
gays in the caring and acting professions and that the priesthood
is subconsciously assumed to be a mixture of both. (Priests who
obsessively focus on the theatricality of worship are known
irreverently in the church as "liturgy queens"). But seminary
rectors are concerned about those candidates who are confused or
unhappy with their sexual orientation - and who think that a vow
of celibacy will diffuse their internal confusions.
Fr O'Keefe says: "Among some there's a presumption that, once
they're ordained, sexual temptation will be easier to cope with."
He disputes that the number of gay priests is anything like the
US surveys suggest, but acknowledges that disproportionate
numbers of gay seminarians is a real issue. "But sexual danger
does not go away, for heterosexuals or gays.
"The question is not whether a man is homosexual or not," says Fr
O'Keefe. "It is whether he has integrated his orientation into
his personality and ministry. Does he have the emotional
experience to relate to a wide range of people at significant
depth? Anyone who can only find security in an exclusive
homosexual sub-group would find it extremely difficult to cope
with the breadth and depth of relationship needed in parish
life," he says.
Ushaw College has introduced female theology students to the
college, which Fr O'Keefe hopes will broaden the emotional
experience of trainees.
At Wonersh, Fr Haggerty agrees. "It is very limiting to
categorise people by their sexuality; there's no one type of
homosexual," he says. "But subcultures are a danger we're aware
of. They are inappropriate for the priesthood anyway; they are
divisive and ultimately unjust and contrary to the openness
required of a priest."
What worries him is the camp culture that arises among gays in
some seminaries. In the English College in Rome, according to
Chris Higgins, despite instructions that "we must not use bovine,
canine, feline or feminine adjective to describe other men at the
college", his fellow students were known by nicknames including
Daisy, Phyllis, Mavis and Big Shirl.
Rectors have two anxieties about this. Donald Cozzens says:
"Heterosexual seminarians are made uncomfortable by the number of
gays around them. The straight seminarian feels out of place and
may interpret his inner destabilisation as a sign that he does
not have a vocation for the priesthood." But more significantly,
Fr O'Keefe says, it reveals something about the emotional
development of candidates. It implies, he says, a lack of adult
psycho-sexual maturity.
Some gay Catholics see the camp mockery of femininity as an
insult to women that most of the gay community tries to
transcend. The gay theologian James Alison says: "The priesthood
has always been a gay profession. It was for centuries the safest
space for homosexuals in Western civilisation." In a century in
which women have entered most of the once exclusively male
preserves - from the law and the press to the army and the police
- "things which were part of the natural world till then now look
like a gay subculture," he says.
What Rome thinks about all this is not clear. Two of its main
bodies, the Congregation for Education, which supervises
seminaries, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, are both believed to be
considering the issue.
Vatican education officials are said to be sympathetic to priests
of homosexual orientation. But the Most Rev Tarcisio Bertone, an
archbishop and the secretary of the body formerly known as the
Holy Inquisition, has let slip that he believes it is
"self-evident" that seminaries should refuse admittance to gays.
Although the homosexual inclination is not sinful in itself, the
archbishop says, it "evokes moral concern" because it is a strong
temptation to actions that "are always in themselves evil".
"Persons with a homosexual inclination should not be admitted to
the seminary." Such a line, if it becomes official, could have
significant repercussions for English seminaries and for the
survival of the Roman Catholic priesthood in Britain in the 21st
century. It could further alienate many of the gay Catholics to
whom Cardinal Basil Hume went out of his way to offer support
over the last two decades with the words "love can never be
wrong".
And yet it is quite possible that the current regime in the
Vatican could take such a line. Elizabeth Stuart, professor of
theology at King Alfred's College, Winchester, who is one of the
Catholic Church's most prominent lesbian theologians, says: "Part
of the panic is the fear that the church's whole sexual ethic is
going to be unravelled." The idea that all sex must be for
procreation is the common link that binds together the Catholic
ban on contraception and homosexuality. Any shift in the
unrelenting attitude to gay sex, she says, "threatens to
overthrow the entire edifice of the Church's sexual teaching".
The crucial thing for James Alison is whether homosexuals in the
Roman Catholic church now acknowledge their homosexuality or hide
from it. "But even that is a threat to Rome, because a man who
openly says 'I am' is a challenge to the teaching that
homosexuality is 'an objective disorder', and once that happens
the Vatican's distinction between orientation and acts becomes
meaningless, which is why it is not the straight people in the
church who are the greatest persecutors of gays, it is the closet
queens in the Vatican.
"The church's teaching is untenable,"he says. "The top men in the
Vatican know that. But they don't know what to do about it." One
response has been to attempt to silence those working to promote
the homosexual cause within the church.
An American nun, Sister Jeannine Gramick was forbidden from
ministering to gays because she refused to condemn those in her
pastoral care. Then she was told she could not even speak
publicly about her silencing. On that she has ignored Rome.
"Homosexuality is a time bomb ticking in the church," she says.
"And I think it is going to explode very soon".
--
"You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abomination"
Leviticus 18:22 "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of
them have committed abomination: they shall be put to death" Leviticus 20:13
"And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed
with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and
receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error." Romans 1:27
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, not adulteres, nor
HOMOSEXUALS, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
robbers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9,10
Cool shirts @ http://straightpride.com
lord_terabyte_and_th...@cox-internet.com
I've never made a fortune
and it's probably too late now.
But I don't worry about that much,
I'm happy anyhow.
And as I go along life's way,
I'm reaping better than I sowed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'Cause my cup has overflowed.
Haven't got a lot of riches,
and sometimes the going's tough.
But I've got loving ones around me,
and that makes me rich enough.
I thank God for his blessings,
and the mercies He's bestowed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'cause my cup has overflowed.
O, Remember times when things went wrong,
My faith wore somewhat thin.
But all at once the dark clouds broke,
and sun peeped through again.
So Lord, help me not to gripe
about the tough rows that I've hoed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
"Cause my cup has overflowed.
If God gives me strength and courage,
When the way grows steep and rough.
I'll not ask for other blessings,
I'm already blessed enough.
And may I never be too busy,
to help others bear their loads.
Then I'll keep drinking from my saucer,
"Cause my cup has overflowed.
A LITTLE SMILE
""" """
(O) (O)
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---
On 04 May 2001 03:00:00 GMT, SSRIHater <AntiA...@thank.God.4AIDS>
wrote:
Fritz
SSRIHater wrote:
Nothing of interest to Normal people.
I wonder if you know the difference between pedophiles and
homosexuals?
--
Fritz
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The time is now!
Natty_Dread
discussion in the article makes it even more clear to me that by requiring
celibacy of its clergy, the Church needs to take responsibility for ensuring
that there is a healthy, internal self-examination of sexuality among
priests and nuns, both during the seminary/convent training process and
on-going as part of their spiritual life. By putting its focus on
interdicting sexual behavior, the Church is forcing the clergy, who are
above all human, to sublimate one of the most human things about themselves.
There needs to be open discussion among the clergy about how to address that
unused psychosexual energy, separate and apart from the religiosity of the
Church, or the feeling that they can "give it all to God." It seems to me
that the lack of an open atmosphere in which to address these issues
increases the chances that priests will perpetrate sexual abuse of children.
Obviously priest is not synonymous with pedophile -- despite what some
people may think -- but looking at this a different way, a covered pot that
is boiling with no way to let off steam will eventually enable that heat
energy to escape, one way or another.
"Fritz" <fsm...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:3AF2F10A...@bcpl.net...