all for the nuclear option, raise your hands

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Aug 01, 2005

The nuclear threat delivered:

If they were to eliminate all those [priests] who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb; it would do the same damage to the church's operation.

And again:

Kim Sue Lia Perkes, an avowed lesbian, was Bishop O'Brien's last press liaison. She joked in a recent interview that, "If it weren't for the gay clergy in Phoenix, there wouldn't be any clergy in Phoenix."

And yet again:

Any Vatican document that would ban or otherwise restrict gay men from entering seminaries or religious orders or later being ordained would represent a serious moral error for the Church. It would also be ruinous to the Church at a time of drastically reduced vocations.

Paralyzed with horror yet? Neither am I.

For the sake of argument, let's accept the predictions of the Cassandras at their direst face value, viz., that eliminating gay priests would empty the rectories. Further, let's pretend that we, the faithful, had a say in the matter. Finally, let's oversimplify by reducing the options to two:

Plan A. The Status Quo: Priestly formation -- and parish life generally -- continues as it has been and is presently.

Plan B. The Nuclear Option: After the holocaust, only one priest remains per diocese. For the next fifteen years (i.e., until the effects of the reform kick in), you have to drive 35 miles every Sunday and Holy Day to an outdoor football stadium, where you have a bad view of a valid and licit Mass served by unbuggered altar boys, and hear a scarcely audible but orthodox homily, delivered by an ancient priest in a nearly unintelligible Vietnamese accent.

As for your sunny Uncle D, not only would he go for Plan B like a shot, he'd give almost anything to be able to make the choice in the first place. What about you, folks?