Vatican To Bar Gays From Becoming Priests

Yesterday, the big news in Philadelphia was that a grand jury had found that the Archdiocese up to and including the recent tenure of Archbishop Bevilacqua had protected pedophiles while doing nothing to protect their victims. Now today we hear that the Vatican plans to bar gay men from becoming priests. An article in today's New York Times about the Vatican's new strict rules against homosexual priests reminds us that Pope Ratz said last spring that there was a need to “purify” the church. Apparently, this is his first step. Yo, Pope Ratz, you ignorant ninny…ridding the church of gay priests will not rid the church of pedophile priests. Pedophiles are nearly 100% heterosexual. The new rules will be published soon, but the information that is now being leaked makes it clear that new recruits to seminaries are the main focus of this item on the church's purification agenda. The NYT reports that a church official said, “the ban would pertain only to candidates for the priesthood, not to those already ordained.” Which must make all the bejeweled red-gowned cardinals in the Vatican sigh in unified relief. The church official also said, “the document did not represent any theological shift for the church, whose catechism considers homosexuality 'objectively disordered'.” But one does wonder exactly how the purge of all the objectively disordered candidates for the priesthood will be accomplished? Maybe an objectively disordered-sniffing dog has been developed? Perhaps a potential-to-become-objectively-disordered gene has been found? One also wonders: If gay men with an urge to get into the god-business are banned, and the RCC won't let priests marry, and women can't be ordained, and priests who are gay are quitting because they don't want to live a lie, how is the RCC going to replenish its priest pool which isn't large enough to serve the church as it is? And maybe that's the whole point. If the Pope and his flunkies can get rid of as many priests as possible and force as many congregants to leave the church as possible, then, finally, the RCC can exist for the Pope and Cardinals alone. And preserving the rich, abundant, sweet and oh-so-private life in Vatican City is the important thing, isn't it?