Editor’s Note: In his parish bulletin column on the Feast of the Epiphany, Fr. George Rutler of the Church of St. Michael in New York City commented on the dreadful situation facing Christians in the Middle East and warned that we in America may soon become victims as well.
He said that “Iran and Syria are strategic allies now, and Christians there and in Iraq have a history no less complicated than the Magi. The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Syria’s largest city have issued Christmas letters. Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako writes: ‘This year Iraqi Christians will celebrate Christmas in deplorable circumstances . . . victims of segregation and exclusion.’ Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria, describes ‘celebrating the Feast of the Nativity as bombs are raining down’.”
While this is happening, says Fr. Rutler, “our own nation’s captious leaders and diplomats shrink from calling genocide what it is. Pope Francis said: ‘There is no Christianity without persecution. . . . Today, too, this happens before the whole world, with the complicit silence of many powerful leaders who could stop it.’
“For those who think, as Rudyard Kipling versed, that ‘East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,’ the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Amel Shimoun Nona, has a warning: ‘Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future. I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. You also are in danger. . . . If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home’.”
Q. In a recent column, you seem to quote approvingly U.S. Catholic Bishops Review Board attorney Robert S. Bennett, who stated: “There are no doubt many outstanding priests of a homosexual orientation who live chaste, celibate lives.” At least you don’t criticize the comment. It has always been the teaching of the Catholic Church, however, as stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that not only are homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered” (n. 2357), but also that the homosexual inclination itself is “objectively disordered” (n. 2358).
The Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life declared in 1990 that homosexual men must “overcome their homosexual tendencies” before they can enter religious life. Given the accepted meaning of the terms, the congregation appears to be saying that it is necessary for a person with a same-sex attraction to do more than give up homosexual acts in order to enter or remain in a seminary or male religious community. The congregation seems to be requiring that he also overcome his homosexual urges or desires.
Besides, only those who have a desire to marry, or are attracted to the opposite sex, and give this up freely for the sake of the Kingdom of God, are fulfilling the evangelical meaning of the vow of chastity. For a good article on this subject, see “The Validity of Homosexual Vows of Chastity in Religious Life” by Fr. Regis Scanlon, which appeared in New Oxford Review in March 2010. — D.W., California.
A. First of all, we were not quoting attorney Robert Bennett for the part of his statement that you mentioned, but rather for the rest of the statement, where he said that “any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognizant of the fact that 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature.” We’re not sure if the first part of what he said is true or not, but we know from other reliable sources that the 80 percent figure is accurate. From hindsight, perhaps we should have left out the first part lest it give the impression that we approved of his entire comment.
Second, we have always found Fr. Regis Scanlon to be a solid defender of Church teaching on a variety of matters. His article in New Oxford Review continued that tradition. However, we would like to address this issue by quoting from the late Fr. John Harvey, OSFS, who counseled thousands of persons with same-sex attraction (SSA) and spent forty years giving spiritual direction in seminaries.
In his 2007 book Homosexuality and the Catholic Church, Fr. Harvey devoted chapter 8 to answering questions about “Norms for Admission to Seminaries and Holy Orders.” He referred frequently in the chapter to the 2005 Vatican 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. Here are some of the points he made:
• It is an “erroneous notion” to think that “same-sex tendencies are no problem because, after all, heterosexual candidates also have to be chaste.” Fr. Harvey said that “it is helpful to appreciate that the natural attraction of man toward woman and woman toward man is the basis for the institution of marriage in every culture. The person with same-sex attraction generally lacks this natural attraction to the other sex, and he is also uneasy toward members of his own sex. Before he is brainwashed by gay propaganda, he may perceive that sexual actions with his own sex are immoral. In short, SSA is a deficit, affecting a person’s relationships to other men and women.”
• There are two types of norms that bishops, seminary rectors, and spiritual directors must consider when determining whether to admit men with same-sex attraction. They are psychological-spiritual norms, including “affective maturity and spiritual fatherhood,” and moral-pastoral norms, including “homosexual activity, deep-seated homosexual inclinations, and an attitude which regards homosexual activity as a natural alternative for persons with same-sex attraction.”
• Affective maturity “means that the man possesses an emotional balance in which his emotions are subject to reason and will. Very often, persons with SSA are not emotionally balanced, tending to act like teenagers. They tend to have a hostile ambivalence toward members of their own sex which easily turns into undue attachment to a person of the same sex. A mature attitude would require that one be able to relate well to either sex.”
Fr. Harvey said that a candidate has achieved affective maturity “when he has learned through self-examination and prayer to place his intelligence and free will above his emotions. For example, feelings of self-pity, anger, resentment of authority, and inferiority are now under the control of deeply rooted chastity, chastity of the heart. Affective maturity leads to spiritual fatherhood. Such a person comes across as well-balanced.”
• Homosexual activity is defined as “habitual sexual acts with a person of one’s own sex. However, it can also mean one fully deliberate act of homosexuality immediately before the time when the candidate seeks to enter the seminary.” Fr. Harvey contended that if a person involved in an isolated homosexual act then lived chastely for three years, “I would be inclined to consider his readmission, provided there is no other obstacle. This said, I submit my opinion to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”
• Deeply rooted homosexual tendencies means that “a person with same-sex attraction is either habitually or addictively engaged in homosexual acts or in the struggle against them. One must distinguish between a habit and an addiction. A bad moral habit implies that one still retains a measure of freedom, while an addiction means a loss of freedom with regard to a specific act. ‘Deeply rooted’ covers both such habits and addictions. Persons so afflicted do not belong in a seminary, but they may be able to break such habits or addictions through individual therapy, participation in support systems like Courage, and constant prayer.”
• A third group of candidates who should not be admitted to the seminary or to the priesthood, said Fr. Harvey, “are those who ‘support the so-called gay culture.’ It is necessary to define ‘gay culture.’ It is a philosophy of life which advocates homosexual behavior as a lawful alternative to the state of marriage. This philosophy holds that homosexual activity is natural and that one may look forward to finding a life partner. It also advocates that such sexual unions should have the same privileges as traditional marriage.
“If a candidate for the priesthood holds this view, he should not be ordained. Even heterosexual candidates who support the ‘gay culture’ should not be ordained because they would mislead others, particularly persons with same-sex attraction.”
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