« Paperback Of The Week | Main | Finally, I'm A Missed Connection »
November 27, 2005
Something I Don't Understand
The Vatican's decision to ban gay men from the clergy puzzles me because it seems to undermine the Catholic Church's own stance on homosexuality.
According to the Catholic Church, engaging in a homosexual act is commiting a sin. If homosexuality is a sin, then the idea that anyone could have a 'sexual orientation or identity' that is divorced from specific thoughts and acts doesn't make sense. If sodomy is an immoral act, then a sodomite, like any other kind of sinner, is capable of salvation if he chooses to repent. In order for homosexuality to be a sin, there has to be an element of moral choice involved.
If homosexuality is a sin, it can be renounced . If homosexuality can't be renounced-- if it is so integral to the core of who someone is that one can still be a homosexual even if he does not engage in homosexual acts nor entertain homosexual lust-- than it can't be a sin, seems to me.
Men who choose priesthood vow to be be celibate and resist or overcome lust of every kind. If homosexuality is a sin people commit actively, then the notion of 'gay priests' does not makes sense. It seems, then, that a ban on 'gay priests,' which assumes that there can be such a thing as a 'gay priest,' would undermine the Church's belief that homosexuality is a sin.
Is there something I'm missing?
Posted by hissycat at November 27, 2005 03:49 PM
Comments
i think the missing is that the ban is on practicing homosexuals, that is if you are homosexual who doesn't have "really really gay sex" then you are ok
Posted by: Anonymous at November 29, 2005 08:53 PM
See, but if you are a priest or in seminary to become on doesn't that automatically make you not practicing?
Posted by: hissycat at November 30, 2005 12:10 AM
My mother, not I, is the lapsed Catholic, but my understanding is that all have original sin which is inbuilt, integral. So it wouldn't be necessarily out of keeping to have sin in which there's no moral choice.
Also, exclusion from the priesthood already happens with women, I think for god's image reasons. God's male and hetero, I suppose -- of course, with reproductive organs, you'd think there'd be someone to reproduce *with*...
Anyway, what with the original sin and the women not in the priesthood, I think I could cobble together some convoluted theological exclusion argument, and I'm neither a priest nor Catholic. I imagine they've covered their asses, though.
Posted by: Arwen at November 30, 2005 02:27 AM
You're using logic to form an argument, silly girl. Don't you know logic is Devil Speak?
If they were a logical lot, they'd deduce that witch hunting for homosexuals will cause even MORE repression of sexuality among potential priests, likely causing even more instances of priests expressing their sexuality inappropriately.
Posted by: Karin at November 30, 2005 12:15 PM