Category: Old Dish

Ryan Sager points out that social conservatives are finally experiencing from this president what libertarian conservatives have endured for four long years.

After an internal uproar from all wings of the Church, it appears that the Pope has backed off his reported intent to ban all gay priests and seminarians, regardless of their commitment to celibacy or priestly vocation. This is hugely encouraging news, although it still leaves an aura of stigma around the issue of homosexual orientation:

A forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals in seminaries will not demand an absolute ban, a senior Vatican official told NCR Oct. 7, but will insist that seminary officials exercise “prudential judgment” that gay candidates should not be admitted in three cases.

Those three cases are:

* If candidates have not demonstrated a capacity to live celibate lives for at least three years;
* If they are part of a “gay culture,” for example, attending gay pride rallies (a point, the official said, which applies both to professors at seminaries as well as students);
* If their homosexual orientation is sufficiently “strong, permanent and univocal” as to make an all-male environment a risk.

In any case, the Vatican official said, whether or not these criteria exclude a particular candidate is a judgment that must be made in the context of individual spiritual direction, rather than by applying a rigid litmus test.

This language is in contrast with earlier news reports that had suggested a much more sweeping ban on gays in the seminary.

I think the sheer theological incoherence, cruelty and bigotry in the previous policy has forced a shift. I worry that celibate gay priests will still be unable to speak about their orientation and reach out to other gay Catholics; and the secrecy and shame that was the prime cause of the sex abuse crisis could linger. But in so far as in some seminaries, there has developed a gay subculture that is not conducive to serious preparation for the priesthood, it’s appropriate to set standards of public and private behavior that allow for priestly formation to take place as it should. I see no problem with that. My other concern is that the standards for celibacy be applied to straight and gay seminarians alike. No straight candidate who has been unable to maintain celibacy for three years should be admitted either, if those are the rules. I don’t think it’s harder for gays than for straights to maintain celibacy. (Of course, if a married clergy is in the works, those rules may change again.) But in general, this is a very welcome moderation of what was an extremist and brutal policy. It’s especially important that those who run seminaries be able to make prudential judgments in individual cases and not to apply broad, discriminatory litmus tests. I cannot express how relieved I am by this news. I hope it holds up. But I will reserve final judgment when I can read and study the document itself.

Esquire has just done an article. Good for them. The news from Rome is also encouraging on that front. Benedict is actually allowing freer internal debate than John Paul II did. There is nothing that would make me happier than seeing Ratzinger return to his roots of tolerance and openness. Of course, the sheer crisis of personnel in the Church has become much worse in the last few years – and some change may simply be required to prevent the complete collapse of the institution, especially the practical difficulty of administering the Eucharist when there are no priests to do it. For the record, I favor optional celibacy for the priesthood. Celibacy is a strange, unnatural way of life – but history has told us it can work for many individuals in sublimating their human nature for divine service. But it doesn’t exhaust the ways of serving God. I also favor, of course, allowing women to be priests. The theological arguments against it are circular and entirely opposed, in my view, to the message of the Gospels where Jesus clearly violates every sexist taboo of his time and treats women as complete equals in ministry and service to God. The idea that women – who discovered the empty tomb – are somehow to be designated second class persons in Jesus’ church is so repulsive and immoral a notion that only an all-male club could sustain it. Oh, wait …

Sometimes an off-hand remark tells you a lot. Here’s Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff’s take on Miers:

Miers will probably be confirmed and probably should be. But this process is going to hurt Republicans. The difference between a Miers nomination and, say, a Jones nomination could be one or two Senate seats come January 2007, and it will be at least that if conservatives who don’t like the Miers nomination decide to “shut up” on election day 2006.

My italics. You know, it’s funny but I thought the issue of who should be on SCOTUS was essentially a decision about judicial skill, philosophy and judgment. And all along, it’s about who gets to win or lose some Senate seats in 2007. Well, at least we now know what the bottom line is for Powerline: partisan power.

“We’ve had quite enough dynastic politics over the past decades… But nominating a constitutional tabula rasa to sit on what is America’s constitutional court is an exercise of regal authority with the arbitrariness of a king giving his favorite general a particularly plush dukedom. The only advance we’ve made since then is that Supreme Court dukedoms are not hereditary.” – Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post today. Has Charles heard of Alberto Gonzales at Justice?

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: “The idea that one is supposed to sacrifice both intellectual distinction and philosophical clarity at the same time is just ridiculous.” – Bill Kristol, Washington Post, today.

QUOTE OF THE DAY III: “The president’s ‘argument’ for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons. He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.” – George Will. Is that a somewhat circuitous way of saying that this president is too stupid to do his job?

The president is left with little Hughie Hewitt chirping loyally on his shoulder. I’m beginning to think that this appointment was an expression of the president’s contempt for the conservative intelligentsia. They are now returning the favor.

DOBSON AND CATHOLICISM: Here’s an interesting remark: “I know the person who brought her to the Lord. I have talked at length to people that know her and have known her for a long time.” That’s James Dobson, talking about Harriet Miers’ conversion to evangelical Protestantism from Catholicism. Isn’t he implying that baptized Catholics have not been “brought to the Lord”? Just asking.

HEADS UP: I’ll be on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher tonight. I’m on a panel with Salman Rushdie and Ben Affleck. I’m not making that up.

“I was born and baptized Roman Catholic, and for the past 16 years have been practicing my faith in the Eastern Catholic Church. We changed churches for spiritual, not political, reasons.

The issues which face the Roman Catholic church today are not theological or spiritual, they are political. There is no theological rationale for only ordaining single heterosexual men and forcing them to be celibate. Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches ordain married men as a matter of course, and the sexual orientation of those who are committed to celibacy is, by virtue of celibacy, rendered theologically indifferent.

The only thing that the Roman church can do by limiting priesthood to those who are celibate and heterosexual is to further separate themselves from the Universal Church in the name of a western political culture war which need not be fought. Overcoming sin is a matter of spiritual warfare, not cultural warfare. Transforming culture to the better is a matter of winning the spiriutal fight, not the political one. As the great Russian Saint, Seraphim of Sarov, teaches: ‘Acquire the Spirit of Peace and a thousand will be saved around you.’

The good bishops of the Roman Catholic church seek to blame the scandal of sexual abuse on homosexuality, on “modernism,” and on liberal cultural permissiveness, but they need look no further than themselves. The whole world throughout history understands “human weakness” and “a few bad apples.” What remains outrageous is not that there are a few really bad priests, but that the shepherds of the flock protected the wolves rather than the sheep.”

Here’s a moving personal tribute to Harriet. Alas, the defenses keep coming down to: a) trust Bush (at this point, who in their right minds would?); b) she’s a deeply good person (she sure seems like one but that’s hardly a reason to put her on SCOTUS); c) she’s an evangelical Christian (this certainly shouldn’t bar someone from SCOTUS, but the idea that a religious conviction is now the criterion for picking a Justice is downright scary). Have we gone from a ban on religious test for public office to the notion that someone’s faith is actually a qualification for office? I hope not. The question should be: is she qualified as one of the nine best legal minds in the United States and will she make judicial decisions that are wise, restrained, prudent and intellectually solid? I’m waiting for the hearings.

Iraq’s referendum on the Constitution will now give Sunnis a slim chance to force a re-write. The entire affair does not bode well for a unified, democratic Iraq, but this change at least increases the odds of success by a smidgen.

That’s how much she’s made in speaking fees in her interim between government jobs. Nothing illegal or unethical, as far as I can see.

There’s a new news black-out on the latest synod in Rome. Some may well interpret this as yet another sign of Benedict’s authoritarian nature. They may be right. But the scope of the subjects discussed – “a purported shortage of priests, proposals to let priests marry, and whether communion should be offered to certain divorced Catholics and denied to politicians who support abortion rights” – strikes me as something that John Paul II would never have even allowed to be on the table. Some sources tell me that Benedict has not shut the door completely to a married priesthood. Personally, I think it is critical to the survival of the Western church at least. It already exists if the priest os a convert from Anglicanism, and if I were a newpaper editor, I would assign a reporter to write a feature on today’s married Catholic priests. Most people don’t even realize they exist. Who knows what might happen? But if the option for clerical marriage emerges under Benedict, you read it here first. I for one would not be surprised.