BOSTON, Nov. 22 /Christian Wire Service/ -– “The clergy sex abuse scandal exposed the Chuurch to a deep rooted problem which Pope Benedict XVI could not ignore,” said Ambassador Raymond L. Flynn in response to the Vatican’s release of an instruction on criteria for priestly vocational discernment regarding persons with homosexual tendencies.
“Pedophile priests will be prosecuted and active homosexual men will no longer become priests. Both of these policies will ultimately make the Catholic Church stronger.”
Ambassador Flynn can be contacted for interviews at (617) 269-0909.
Raymond L. Flynn is the former Mayor of Boston and U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican.
Catholics for the Common Good is a national non-partisan and independent organization of lay Catholics dedicated to promoting the common good, especially in regard to the dignity of life, the primacy of the family, human rights and freedom, and solicitude for the poor and vulnerable.
Is thinking a form of “behavior”?
I may have pondered doing some things that I’d never actually do. Example: I think I may have imagined what it would be like to rob a bank, take home a big bundle of booty and roll around on the floor in it for a while. Also, if someone cuts me off on the freeway, I think: “Wouldn’t it be handy to have that James Bond BMW that shoots an oil slick out of the back or an emblem that rises out of the hood to reveal a super duper ballistic missile?”
Do I think obsessively about such things? No. Maybe if I had OCD I would, though, but it still doesn’t mean I’d actually DO any of these things.
So gays (even celibate ones) are “defective” (I’m referring to the refusal of ordination to those with “tendencies”). Okay, but then aren’t I defective as well for having silly fantasies about James Bond cars? The mind’s a difficult thing to control, and what should be running through it on a constant basis anyhow? Perpetual G-rated visions of cute puppies and flowers?
Most of this document is a no-brainer: priests are supposed to be celibate. It’s also much more sensible and fair than detractors originally said it would be. “Tendencies”, however, is still too vague. Perhaps it would have been better to refuse ordination to men who they feel are crippled, in a sense, by overwhelming desires that would make it impossible to execute their priestly duties.