Homosexual clergy in the Catholic Church

The canon law of the Catholic Church requires that clerics "observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven".[1] For this reason, priests in Roman Catholic dioceses make vows of celibacy at their ordination, thereby agreeing to remain unmarried and abstinent throughout their lives. The 1961 document entitled Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders stated that homosexual men should not be ordained. However, this was left to bishops to enforce and most did not, holding homosexuals to the same standards of celibate chastity as heterosexual seminarians.[2] In 2005, the Church clarified that men with "deeply rooted homosexual tendencies" cannot be ordained. The Vatican followed up in 2008 with a directive to implement psychological screening for candidates for the priesthood. Conditions listed for exclusion from the priesthood include "uncertain sexual identity" and "deep-seated homosexual tendencies".[3]

Church directives

Careful Selection and Training of Candidates (1961)

The 1961 document entitled Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders stated that homosexual men should not be ordained. However, this was left to bishops to enforce and most did not, holding homosexuals to the same standards of celibate chastity as heterosexual seminarians.[2]

Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations (2005)

In November 2005, the Vatican completed an Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders. Publication was made through the Congregation for Catholic Education. According to the new policy, men with "transitory" homosexual leanings may be ordained deacons following three years of prayer and chastity. However, men with "deeply rooted homosexual tendencies" or who are sexually active cannot be ordained. No new moral teaching was contained in the instruction: the instruction proposed by the document was rather towards enhancing vigilance in barring gay men from seminaries, and from the priesthood. As the title of the document indicates, it concerned exclusively candidates with homosexual tendencies, and not other candidates.

The Catechism distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies. Regarding acts, it teaches that Sacred Scripture presents them as grave sins. The Tradition has constantly considered them as intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law. Consequently, under no circumstance can they be approved. ... In the light of such teaching, this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called "gay culture".[4]

While the preparation for this document had started 10 years before its publication,[5] this instruction has been seen as an official answer by the Catholic Church to several sex scandals involving priests in the late 20th/early 21st century, including the American Roman Catholic sex abuse cases and a 2004 sex scandal in a seminary at St. Pölten (Austria).[6] Two months before his death in 2005, Pope John Paul II, troubled by the sex scandals in the US, Austria, and Ireland,[5] had written to the Congregation for Catholic Education: "Right from the moment young men enter a Seminary their ability to live a life of celibacy should be monitored so that before their ordination one should be morally certain of their sexual and emotional maturity."[7] The document has attracted criticism based on an interpretation that the document implies that homosexuality is associated with pedophilia or with sexual abuse more generally.[8] There have been some questions on how distinctions between deep-seated and transient homosexuality, as proposed by the document, would be applied in practice: the actual distinction that is made might be between those who abuse and those who do not.[9]

Implementation

The Belgian college of bishops elaborated that the sexual restrictions for seminary and priesthood candidates apply equally to men of all sexual orientations.[10] The Vatican followed up in 2008 with a directive to implement psychological screening for candidates for the priesthood. Conditions listed for exclusion from the priesthood include "uncertain sexual identity" and "deep-seated homosexual tendencies".[3]

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has been quoted as saying that the Vatican's directive was not tout court a "no-gays" policy.[11]

Opposition to gay clergy

Over recent years Catholics on the religious right have tried to connect the incidence of homosexuality within the priesthood to the sexual abuse scandal facing the Church arguing that the direct root "was not abuse of power, or pedophilia, or clericalism, or the distortive psychological effects of celibacy and institutional homophobia, but gayness itself."[12]

Cardinal Raymond Burke has called for the Church to be "purified" of its "homosexual culture". Bishop Robert Morlino of Wisconsin has suggested a "homosexual subculture" was wreaking devastation and the Church therefore needed to show "more hatred of homosexual sexual behavior". Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute has suggested removing all gay clergy from the church, even though this might cause a shortage of priests.[12]

Estimating numbers

Historical incidence of homosexual clergy

In Adomnan of Iona's biography of Columba there is an anecdotal story about two priests with a strong attachment to one another "in a carnal way". One was Findchan, described as the founder of the monastery of "Scotic Artchain" in Tiree. The other priest was Aed Dub.[13]

Peter Damian, in the 11th century, wrote a book called the "Book of Gomorrah" about homosexuality among the clergy in his own time period. He harshly condemned homosexual practice among the clergy.[14]

In 1102, Anselm of Canterbury demanded that the punishment for homosexuality should be moderate because "this sin has been so public that hardly anyone has blushed for it, and many therefore have plunged into it without realising its gravity".[15] It is argued that probably only in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that a mass condemnation of homosexuality began in Europe. This condemnation moderated considerably in the final decade of the twentieth century with the distinction now made by Catholic church authorities between homosexual orientation and homosexual activity—forbidding the latter while regarding the former as intrinsically disordered but not sinful in and of itself.[15]

Inside the Vatican

Pope Francis has directly faced questions from journalists about whether a "gay lobby" effectively operates within the Vatican itself, and investigative journalists have caught several high-ranking Vatican clerics engaging in homosexual sexual activity or relationships.[16]

In October 2015, on the day before the second round of the Synod on the Family, a senior Polish priest working in the Vatican, Krzysztof Charamsa, stated publicly in Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper that he was gay and had a long-term partner.[17] By doing so he had intended to draw attention to the Church's current attitude towards gay Catholics which he felt was regressive and damaging. In his resignation letter he thanked Pope Francis for some of his words and gestures towards the gay community. However, in contrast strongly criticized the institution of the Catholic Church for being "frequently violently homophobic" and "insensitive, unfair and brutal" towards people that are gay; noting the irony that he felt there were significant numbers of gay men active at all levels within the Church (including the cardinalate). He called for all statements from the Holy See that are offensive and violent against gay people to be withdrawn, citing Pope Benedict XVI's signature of the 2005 document that forbids men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies from becoming priests as particularly "diabolical".[18]

United States

Studies find it difficult to quantify specific percentages of Roman Catholic priests who have a homosexual orientation (either openly gay or closeted) in the United States.[19] Nevertheless, several studies suggest that the incidence of homosexuality in the Roman Catholic priesthood is much higher than in the general population as a whole.[20][21] While a Los Angeles Times survey of US priests find that 15% say they are completely or mostly homosexual, estimates of homosexual priests run as high as 50%.[19][22]

Studies by Wolf and Sipe from the early 1990s suggest that the percentage of priests in the Catholic Church who admitted to being gay or were in homosexual relationships was well above the national average for the country.[23] Elizabeth Stuart, a former convener of the Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian movement claimed, "It has been estimated that at least 33 percent of all priests in the RC Church in the United States are homosexual."[24]

The John Jay Report published in 2004 suggested that "homosexual men entered the seminaries in noticeable numbers from the late 1970s through the 1980s".[25]

Another report suggested that from the mid-1980s onwards, Catholic priests in the US were dying from AIDS-related illnesses at a rate four times higher than that of the general population, with most of the cases contracted through gay sex, and the cause often concealed on their death certificates. A follow-up study the next year by the Kansas City Star found the AIDS-related death rate among priests was "more than six times" the rate among the general population in the 14 states studied. Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the Archdiocese of Detroit, has suggested that this was because, "Gay priests and heterosexual priests didn't know how to handle their sexuality, their sexual drive. And so they would handle it in ways that were not healthy." Additionally, the report suggested that some priests and behavioral experts believed the Church had "scared priests into silence by treating homosexual acts as an abomination and the breaking of celibacy vows as shameful".[26] Gumbleton has gone on to argue that the Church should openly ordain gay men.[27]

A 2002 Los Angeles Times nationwide poll of 1,854 priests (responding) reported that 9% of priests identified themselves as gay, and 6% as "somewhere in between but more on the homosexual side". Asked if a "homosexual subculture" (defined as a "definite group of persons that has its own friendships, social gatherings and vocabulary") existed in their diocese or religious order, 17% of the priests said "definitely", and 27% said "probably"; 53% of priests who were ordained in the last 20 years (1982–2002) affirmed such a subculture existed in the seminary when they attended.[22] Shortly after the poll was published, the Vatican ordered an "apostolic visitation" to examine American seminaries. The visitation began in 2005, and the final report issued in 2008. The report spoke about "difficulties in the area of morality ... Usually, but not exclusively, this meant homosexual behavior." Steps were subsequently taken to deal with the issue, including correcting a "laxity of discipline".[28]

Italy

In March 2018 Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Archbishop of Naples, submitted a 1,200-page dossier to the Vatican that sought to identify 40 actively gay Catholic priests and seminarians across the country, after the list was compiled by a male escort called Francesco Mangiacapra.[29]

Homosexuality and the episcopacy

Although gay lifestyles have been condemned by the church, a number of senior members of the clergy have been alleged to have engaged in homosexual activity. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who retired in 2002, was alleged to have been in a relationship with a former graduate student;[30] Juan Carlos Maccarone, the Bishop of Santiago del Estero in Argentina, retired after video surfaced showing him engaged in homosexual acts;[31] and Francisco Domingo Barbosa Da Silveira, the Bishop of Minas in Uruguay, resigned in 2009 after it was alleged that he had broken his vow of celibacy.[32]

Religious orders

The General Chapter of the Dominican Order held in Caleruega in 1995 "affirmed that the same demands of chastity apply to all brethren of whatever sexual orientation, and so no one can be excluded on this ground."[33]

In February 2006, the president of the Religious Conference of Spain, Alejandro Fernández Barrajón declared that "[sexual and affective] maturity is what must be insisted on, when selecting candidates for priesthood or religious life. Conditioning persons on their sexual orientation is not evangelical. Jesus would not do so."[34]

As stated in the Acts of the General Chapter of Diffinitors of the Order of Friars Preachers meeting, the text read "Ö as a radical demand, the vow of chastity is equally binding on homosexuals and heterosexuals. Hence, no sexual orientation is a priori incompatible with the call to chastity and the fraternal life."

This series of meetings were conducted from July 17th to August 8th in 1995 in Caleruega, Spain. Radcliffe indicated that it really did not matter what sexual orientation a person has, but warned against potential division that could arise if sub-groups based on sexual orientation threaten unity and make it more difficult to practice chastity.[35]

Notable gay priests

• Robert Carter was one of the first gay priests to publicly come out as gay. He co-founded the LGBT advocacy group the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.[36]
• Krzysztof Charamsa announced he was gay and living with his partner on the eve of the Synod of the Family in October 2015. In response, he was immediately removed from his Vatican post within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.[37]
• Daniel A. Helminiak is an American Catholic priest, theologian, and author. He is a professor in the Department of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology at the University of West Georgia, near Atlanta. He is most widely known for his international best-seller, What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality.[38]
• Mychal Judge, O.F.M. (aka Michael Fallon Judge, May 11, 1933 – September 11, 2001), was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest who served as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. It was while serving in that capacity that he was killed, becoming the first certified fatality of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[39]
• John J. McNeill (September 2, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1959 and subsequently worked as a psychotherapist and an academic theologian, with a particular reputation within the field of queer theology.
• Bernard Lynch became the first Catholic priest in the world to undertake a civil partnership in 2006 in the Republic of Ireland (he had previously had his relationship blessed in a ceremony in 1998 by an American Cistercian monk[40]). He was subsequently expelled from his religious order in 2011, and went on to legally wed his husband in 2016.[41]

Films

• Mass Appeal (1984) starring Jack Lemmon and Željko Ivanek as Deacon Mark Dolson, who is struggling with his homosexuality and church authority as a seminarian.
• Priest (1994) drama directed by Antonia Bird, and starring Linus Roache. The plot revolves around a Roman Catholic priest from Liverpool who struggles with his homosexual urges, causing him a crisis of faith.[42]
• Saint of 9/11 (2006) a documentary about Father Mychal Judge, a New York City gay priest, chaplain with the New York City Fire Department, and the first victim of the 9/11 attacks in New York.[43][44]
• Release (2009) is a prison drama from Darren Flaxstone and Christian Martin, recounting the tribulations of a gay priest who has been incarcerated for "what we are primed to believe is pedophilia."[45]
• In the Name Of (2013) film about a closeted gay Catholic priest living in rural Poland.
• Amores Santos (2016) Brazilian documentary about homosexual priests (as well as leaders from other churches) that look for gay cybersex.[46]

Literature

Patricia Nell Warren's third novel, The Fancy Dancer (1976), was the first bestseller to portray a gay Catholic priest and to explore gay life in a small town.[47]

See also

• Catholic abuse
• Catholics United
• Courage International
• Homosexuality and Roman Catholicism
• Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders
• James Alison
• LGBT-affirming religious groups
• Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination
• New Ways Ministry
• On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons
• Ordination of LGBT Christian clergy

References

1. "Code of Canon Law - IntraText". Vatican.va. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
2. Instruction on the Careful Selection And Training Of Candidates For The States Of Perfection And Sacred Orders. February 2, 1961.
3. Zenon Card. Grocholewski, Prefect (June 28, 2008). "Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood". Congregation for Catholic Education of the Roman Curia. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
4. Congregation for Catholic Education. "Instruction concerning the criteria for the discernment of vocations with regard to persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to the seminary and to Holy Orders". Vatican.va. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
5. "'Nothing Extraordinary'? Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine" in Inside the Vatican (ISSN 1068-8579), January 2006
6. In New York Times:
   • "World Briefing: Europe: Austria: Seminary Sex Scandal" (July 13, 2004)
   • "World Briefing: Europe: Austria: Conviction In Seminary Sex Scandal" (August 14, 2004)
7. quoted in "'Nothing Extraordinary'? Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine" in Inside the Vatican (ISSN 1068-8579), January 2006
8. "Statement From The Board Of Directors and Staff of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries" Archived 2009-03-25 at the Wayback Machine November 29, 2005. Accessed June 18, 2007
9. Leader (November 30, 2005). "The Guardian November 30, 2005 Editorial". Guardian. London. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
10. Press communication of the Belgian bishops (29 November 2005):
    *Website of the Catholic Church in Belgium (French): "A propos de la recente instruction concernant l'admission de candidats à la prêtrise" – Regarding the recent instruction concerning the admission of candidates for priesthood Archived 2007-03-11 at the Wayback Machine
11. Allen Jr., John (2009-02-23). "Archbishop Timothy Dolan headed to New York". National Catholic Reporter.
12. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/gay-priests-catholic-church.html
13. Adomnan of Iona, Life of St Columba, Penguin books, 1995, pp138-139
14. "St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah: a Moral Blueprint for Our Times - Part I". Retrieved 26 April 2017.
15. Dynes, Wayne (1990). Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. New York. p. 12.
16. "Pope Francis 'confirms Vatican gay lobby and corruption'". 12 June 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
17. Corriera della Sera. Vatican Theologian Confesses: «I’m Happy to Be Gay and I Have a Partner».
18. Wyatt, Caroline (28 October 2015). "Gay priest decries 'inhuman' treatment of homosexual Catholics". Retrieved 26 April 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
19. Martin, James (November 4, 2000). "The Church and the Homosexual Priest". America.
20. "Boston Globe / Spotlight / Abuse in the Catholic Church / Opinion". The Boston Globe.
21. Attorney: priests claim 70 percent of U.S. bishops are gay Archived June 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
22. Stammer, Larry B. (October 20, 2002). "15% Identify as Gay or 'on Homosexual Side'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 21, 2013.
23. J. Wolf, Gay Priests, New York, 1989; R. Sipe, A Secret World: sexuality and the search for celibacy, New York, 1990
24. Stuard, Elizabeth. Roman Catholics and Homosexuality, quoted by Kate Saunders in Catholics and Sex.
25. John Jay College of Criminal Justice (2004). The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010 (PDF). United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-60137-201-7. Retrieved December 21, 2012.
26. "Report: Priests hit hard by hidden AIDS epidemic". Actupny.org. 2000-01-31. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
27. Gumbleton, Thomas (September 30, 2002). "Yes, Gay Men Should Be Ordained". America. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
28. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect (December 15, 2008). "Final report of the apostolic visitation of seminaries in the United States" (PDF). Congregation for Catholic Education of the Roman Catholic Church. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2011. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
29. "Italian Cardinal Sends List Of Purportedly Gay Catholic Clergy To Vatican". 5 March 2018.
30. "NationalReview". NationalReview. 2002-05-24. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
31. "Queer:Bischof zurückgetreten (german)". Queer.de. 2005-08-25. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
32. derStandard.at. "Der Standard:Bischof trat nach schweren Vorwürfen zurück (german)". Derstandard.at. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
33. Timothy Radcliffe, Letter to the order The Promise of Life Archived 2013-04-25 at the Wayback Machine, 25 February 1998, retrieved 22 December 2012
34. Juan G. Bedoya, El líder de los 64.000 religiosos españoles critica que los obispos protesten en la calle, El Pais, 1 February 2006, retrieved 22 December 2012
35. "St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah: a Moral Blueprint for Our Times - Part II". www.ourladyswarriors.org. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
36. Melloy, Killan (March 15, 2010). "Trailblazing Gay Priest Dies at 82". Edge Boston. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
37. Wyatt, Caroline (27 October 2015). "Synod sows confusion among Pope's faithful". Retrieved 26 April 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
38. "Daniel Helminiak's Web site". Retrieved 26 April 2017.
39. Hagerty, Barbara Bradley. "Memories Of Sept. 11's First Recorded Casualty Endure". NPR. NPR. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
40. "Father Bernard Lynch: 'The Vatican has told them to get rid of me'". 8 April 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
41. "Married gay priest says Catholic Church has got God's message 'very wrong'". Retrieved 26 April 2017.
42. Usborne, David (March 25, 1995). "Good Friday row over gay priest film". The Independent. London. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
43. "Gay Priest Was 9/11's First Recorded Casualty". KMGH Denver. September 9, 2011.
44. Bajko, Matthew S. (September 14, 2006). "Film examines life of gay priest lost on 9/11". Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
45. Catsoulis, Jeannette (September 30, 2010). "Tribulations of a Gay Priest". New York Times. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
46. "Amores Santos". 7 July 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2017 – via IMDb.
47. Warren, Patricia Nell (1996). The Fancy Dancer. Wildcat Press. ISBN 9780964109971.

• Roman Catholics and Homosexuality - Channel 4 Television (1990)
• "'Nothing Extraordinary'?" in Inside the Vatican (ISSN 1068-8579), January 2006

Bibliography

• David Berger, Der heilige Schein: Als schwuler Theologe in der katholischen Kirche, (2010) ISBN 978-3-550-08855-1
• Saunders, K. and Stanford, P., Catholics and Sex, Heinemann, London (1992) ISBN 0-434-67246-7
• Stuart, E, CHOSEN, Gay Catholic Priests Tell Their Stories, Geoffrey Chapman, London (1993) ISBN 0-225-66682-0
• Atila Silke GUIMARÃES, The Catholic Church and Homosexuality, Tan Books & Publishers, Charlotte (1999) ISBN 0-89555-651-0
• Tedesco, Mark, "That Undeniable Longing: My Journey to and From the Priesthood", Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago (2010). ISBN 978-0-89733-599-7

External links

• English version of the 2005 Instruction on the Vatican website
• Homosexual orientation among Roman Catholic priests (statistics)