oh, boy: confusion!

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jan 27, 2006

An America magazine editorial observes a "notably wide variety of interpretations" of the Doomsday Document, and, having identified the general confusion, adds to it.

When the Vatican says that gay men should not be admitted to seminaries, does that mean that gay men should not be admitted to seminaries? Hmmm. Hard to say. Requires much thought and study.

There is a valid concern that the priesthood should not become exclusively or even predominantly the domain of gay men. In the same way that one would not want to see all or most priests coming from a particular ethnic group, or from a particular region of a country, one hopes that the priesthood reflects the great diversity of Catholics....

Beautiful. You wouldn't want all priests to be Irish, and you don't want all priests to be gay. But it's implict that you do expect some Irish priests. Notice that homosexual orientation is presumed to be morally and psychologically neutral, like ethnicity-- a presumption directly in conflict with Church teaching.

And that paragraph continues:

...Similarly, the concern that a man not so identify himself with the “so-called gay culture” that it obscures his fidelity to the church is a prudent one.

The DD says that a candidate for priesthood cannot identify with the gay culture at all. The Jesuit weekly figures that the seminarian should give the gay culture such a prominent place in his life that it blots out interest in Catholicism. But if he deems the two influences equally important in his life, or if he identifies with the gay culture only during his weekend off-days, that's another story.