Guardian UK: The Vatican's gay witch-hunt continues

[marmar]

The Vatican's gay witch-hunt continues
The Pope's plan for psychological tests to purge gay men from the priesthood is a new low

Peter Tatchell
guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 20 2008 20.30 GMT


The Vatican has announced the "psychological screening" of all new applicants for the priesthood, in a bid to weed out men who are deemed to be psychologically flawed. It has taken this initiative following the widespread sexual abuse of children by its clerics.

In a diversionary tactic to deflect attention from the child sex abuse scandal, one of the main aims of these psychological tests is to weed out gay men, not paedophiles.

The Vatican identifies homosexuality as a deep-seated personality disorder and psychological flaw; condemning same-sex acts as "grave sins", "objectively disordered", "intrinsically immoral" and "contrary to natural law". Even men who have a gay orientation but abstain totally from sex are condemned by the Pope as possessing a "tendency towards an intrinsic moral evil".

Accordingly, the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education has issued a new document, Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood.

It proposes psychological tests to root out men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from seminaries.

Estimates of the number of gay men in Catholic seminaries and the priesthood typically range from 25% to 50%, according to a review of research in the US by the Rev Donald Cozzens, author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul. A similar proportion of priests is thought to be gay in the UK and Europe, including a number of bishops and cardinals. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2008/nov/20/comment-vatican-gay-testing-priests

[Neshanic]

1. "No one expected the homosexualist inquisition! CONFESS!"

[Canuckistanian]

2. Talk about "intrinsic moral evil"

The equation of paedophilia with homosexuality is tantmount to bearing false witness.

To Hell with all of them.

[ShadowLiberal]

3. ... that's just asking for trouble in places where they already have a priest shortage

I mean seriously, in the US I've heard that for every 20 priest jobs that become unmanned in the Catholic church only 3 people are actually going into seminary training to become catholic priests.

You can't maintain such a large disbalance of 3 applicants for every 20 job openings you have and expect to not have problems.

The real problem in the church is not letting priests marry. They used to be able to, but the church stopped it because of corruption it was causing, where really powerful people in the church would get all their sons assigned really high level jobs simply because of a having a powerful dad near the top of the church power structure.

[mondo joe]

4. Well, the whole set up is like a magnet for repressed and sexually messed up people.

Nothing against the Catholic people, but I think the priesthood is a highly dysfunctional system that draws dysfunctional people.

[readmoreoften]

5. They should also ex-communicate "latently gay" parish members while they're at it.

If I am condemned as possessing a "tendency towards an intrinsic moral evil" then you should want to make sure I don't attend your church weddings either. The stained glass windows should break when I walk in the door.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Is the Pope taking the test?