Here are two quotes from theocon-in-chief, Richard John Neuhaus, on the issue of gay priests. The first is from the summer of 2002. Neuhaus has always held that the scandal of sexual abuse of children and minors in the Church was homosexuality, rather than pedophilia and ephebophila, but even arguing that, he conceded the following:
There was quite a ruckus in March when Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, opined that homosexuals “just cannot be ordained.” He went so far as to suggest, but did not develop the idea, that homosexuals who had been ordained were not validly ordained, homosexuality being an “impediment” to ordination in the same way that there may be impediments to a valid sacramental marriage. This gets into sticky territory, given confused and conflicting notions about sexual orientation. (See above on the distinction between “homosexual” and “gay.”) It seems more than likely that, in centuries past, some priests who have been canonized as saints would meet today’s criteria as having a “homosexual orientation.” The issue was not then, and should not be today, the nature of the temptations resisted but the fidelity of the resistance.
That was his view then. This is his view now:
There are priests and bishops who are afflicted by same-sex attraction, and it is by now no secret that some have acted upon that attraction. Those who are afflicted but have been chastely celibate protest that the instruction cannot possibly mean that, were they candidates for ordination today, they should be refused. But that is precisely what the instruction seems to say.
That does not mean they cannot continue as good and faithful priests. Most certainly it does not in any way throw into question the validity of their priesthood and therefore the validity of the sacraments they administer. But it would seem to mean that they should not have been ordained in the first place, and those with a similar lack of ‘affective maturity’ should not be ordained in the future.
Just to clarify. Neuhaus is now in favor of the proposition that those who he once opined were saints should now be barred from the priesthood? Why the change? What’s the argument? Do we not need saints in the Church?
The Dish 