It’s a huge relief to find that the Long island priest shooting is not apparently related to the current controversy over pedophile priests. It isn’t such a relief to read the story in the Catholic News Service about the context for Joaquin Navarro-Valls’ outburst ten days ago against gay priests, celibate or otherwise. Unidentified “Church leaders,” whoever they are, are apparently “pressing harder so that people of permanent homosexual orientation are screened out as candidates for the priesthood. So far, this has been handled through prudent local decisions rather than explicit orders issued from the Vatican, they said.” In the United States, it’s a fair bet that the bishops will simply ignore this initiative. Ominously, though, some of the forces now running the Church in the pope’s senescence are considering a new letter to institutionalize the discrimination. They cite a 1961 document on selection of candidates for the priesthood, ignoring the critical 1976 and 1986 letters on homosexuality and Catholicism that significantly altered the Church’s teaching on such matters. But what’s more amazing is the justification for this new blanket zero-tolerance policy. Here’s the relevant passage:
In response to questions by Catholic News Service, Navarro-Valls declined to elaborate on his comments. He said he did not want to draw more attention to this topic, especially while U.S. church leaders were dealing with the more immediate problem of sex abuse by clergy. Yet many at the Vatican see the two issues as related — if not causally, then at least circumstantially. Most publicized cases of sex abuse by clergy against minors have involved homosexual acts.
That’s what it comes down to: gays, even celibate, orthodox ones, are guilty of pedophilia in advance thanks to mere “circumstantial” evidence. So much for basic notions of fairness and justice. It’s also true, of course, that all the instances of priestly sexual abuse have been committed by men. By the Vatican’s logic, that’s even more compelling “circumstantial evidence.” You think the Vatican will start questioning its policies with regard to exclusively male priests now? Yeah, right.
THE PRICE OF FREE TRADE: “How is the U.S. steel industry supposed to compete with steel industries that pay inhuman wages and poison the environment, and which have the government available to pay for medical needs of workers and retirees? Why should it?” This and other rejoinders to me – on Israel, for example – are now up on the letters page.
The Dish 