Vatican Rules: You’re Out If You’re Out

The official Vatican document that excludes gays from the priesthood will be released on November 29th. But a leaked version has been circling the globe for weeks. The NYT reported this morning that an Italian reporter who saw the Vatican document two weeks ago attests that the leaked version is the real deal. The document, only five pages with footnotes, bans “candidates who are actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called 'gay culture.'" And there don’t seem to be any loopholes, except of course, the loophole which has always been favored by the RCC: lying. But the Vatican seems very sure that no Roman Catholic candidate for the priesthood would ever lie, and certainly not about his sexual orientation. Right? Right. The document is clear about active gays. They are not welcome. But exactly what are "deep-seated homosexual tendencies”? The term was not defined. However, a deep-seated tendency seems to be the opposite of what the Vatican calls a “transitory” tendency. A transitory tendency allows a candidate to be ordained if it was “overcome” at least three years before ordination. So okay. Pope Ratz wants to purify the RCC priesthood. Will this Draconian edict accomplish his aim? Some statistics say that 25% percent of the RCC priesthood is gay. Some statistics put the figure at 50%. And most RCC gay-counters agree that two out of three are in the closet. Richard Sipe, a retired priest and psychotherapist opines that 30 percent of RCC priests are gay. He says banning gays from the priesthood is "like a gay bar refusing to serve homosexual patrons. It doesn’t make any sense." In addition to the obvious problem that Pope Ratz’s gay-squad will have in separating deep-seated tendencies from transitory tendencies, there are two enormous difficulties the Vatican’s document does not address: 1) The flap that started this gay purge is that pedophile priests are molesting little children. But most pedophiles are heterosexual not homosexual. 2) The Vatican has no plan for dealing with its gay bishops, archbishops and cardinals. Obviously, the RCC has no intention whatsoever of ridding itself of one-third to one-half of its workforce. It simply wants to seem to be stamping out a life-style that it actually promotes and needs. And the RCC wants to deflect attention away from its pedophile and homosexual hierarchy by claiming the problem will go away if they ban gay candidates. Funny how the Republican Party and the Roman Catholic Church have come to the same conclusion about how to solve their problems: Protect the top dogs and lie.