So I see we are still in the era of ambiguous doctrinal / disciplinary statements being trumpeted by certain corners of Catholic and secular media as evidence of the Church "opening up" or "getting with the times" or "modernising" before being eventually followed-up by a non-ambiguous denial of such a change taking place.
I won't hold my breath waiting for a correction from Religion News Service ("Vatican approves document allowing gay men to become priests in Italy"). Or for that matter, America Magazine or National Catholic Reporter who syndicated that column...
Religion News Service is a secular organization, which I presume holds a secular viewpoint, so I would assume they would encourage "fake news" as a means to advocate for a secular position on this question. As to the other two, qui sais?
It seems like we're just circling around the ever-present confusion about deeper definitions: should "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" be understood broadly as referring to "affective" tendencies of temptation/desire, or does it refer more narrowly to "behavioral" tendencies of virtue/vice? And until that truly gets ironed out, I'm afraid we'll just keep going in these circles: where this persistent ambiguity about what SORT of "deep-seated tendencies" we're actually talking about leads different schools of thought to accuse the other of not being in line with the Church's teaching.
You know and I know that what's going to happen is that when a guy applies to a seminary, he'll get a subjective evaluation by those in charge of admissions. And if he gets turned down by Seminary A, he may well go try Seminary B, etc, until he either gets accepted somewhere, runs out of options, or gives up on a priestly vocation.
There's no way to draw a bright line rule because it's like having gay men in the military: some of them work out fine, and some don't.
Obviously, if a candidate can "shop around" for seminaries with differing standards, then that seems like a serious problem. But at the same time, if we have different schools of thought/interpretation on this question existing at all, then that's indicative of a much deeper deeper problem – which I happen to think that links back to (even if it also goes beyond) the definitional disagreement/confusion I was referencing above. In any case, there will always be a component of subjective evaluation, even when measuring against the most clear-cut requirements. But we can't successfully create or enforce a clear requirement at all if we don't fully agree on what that requirement should be, and why it should be that way. To be clear, I do happen to believe that the best "bright line" rule should be linked to behavior, and corresponding evidence of successful adherence to chastity/celibacy, regardless of orientation (which is, after all, a very modern notion/category lacking deep roots in the Church's moral tradition, which is far more concerned with actions and habits of vice/virtue than it is with "orientation"), etc.
there was a guy who got busted while I was in seminary, and turned out he applied to like a dozen different dioceses. The big problem is there's no protocol for keeping tabs on that sort of thing, outside of maybe vocation directors talking to each other. Most competent vocation directors will just ghost guys who don't pass their smell test, and that was probably most of the places that this guy and other weirdos apply. All I can think of for a system would be for parishes of baptism to note whenever a baptismal certificate is requested for seminary application, but that's also pretty far along in the process. They ask if you've applied anywhere else early in the process, but there's nothing stopping one from just lying about that.
I understand that the Bishops of England and Wales are setting up a database to record all applications from all 22 dioceses in England and Wales. This should prevent a guy attempting multiple applications within those two small countries.
It is obviously not going to detect a guy who has made unsuccessful attempts in other countries. We would need some serious international cooperation for that. But a USA only database with Social Security Number as a key could be very useful, if not bombproof.
I know a good priest who suffered rejection before being allowed to go through seminary and be ordained. He did some stupid non-sexual things in his youth and grew out of them.
As Catholics we should be in favour of forgiveness. I am glad to hear that this priest has proved to be good after a rocky start as a youngster. As long as the bishop and all concerned in his formation were fully aware of his earlier problems and scrutinised him very carefully for any problems before he was ordained. And the bishop was not acting out of utter desperation at the lack of vocations.
A few years ago there was the sad case of the assistant priest in the parish next to mine. Our previous bishop had asked him to leave the seminary. A few years later our current bishop ordained him. Not long afterwards his misadventures were out on the Internet - drunkeness and making sexual advances to the parish Master of Ceremonies. He has been "care of Bishop's House" for a few years now.
Obviously there are loads of gaps in this tale which we peasants may never be told. His case is common knowledge in local parishes, so there is no way he can ever be assigned to another parish. And no one seems eager to laicise him.
In this case the problem was what one might call extreme verbal forcefulness with respect to being righteous. He is still totally faithful but I think he is a bit more tactful to their face about other people's failings than he used to be.
This wise Church policy must be understood primarily through theology and only secondarily through psychology. Psychology can help understand a seminarian and the Church's policy to not accept men with deep-seated homosexual tendenices into the seminary, but, in the end, it is a theological discernment.
The discernment requires an understanding of the distinctions between celibacy, chastity, and, continence, as well as the important description of homosexuality being a disorder of the natural inclination to procreate and propogate the species.
On a practical level, it is clear that when a local church/seminary follows the policy, the number of seminarians increase. When the local church/seminary doesn't, their numbers drop.
Thank you for the clarification. When I read the secular news articles, I had wondered “so what of this is supposed to be new exactly?” Much ado about nothing.
We speak often of being "called" to the priesthood, and that a vocation is a matter of discernment; but vocational discernment is bilateral. A man doesn't discern marriage in a vacuum, he discerns marrying a particular girl, and he's in conversation with her, and she's discerning marrying him. Same for the priesthood or religious life, formation is also discerning if this candidate is right for orders/vows.
Are men with SSA being called to the priesthood? Perhaps. And it's for the bishop, vocation director, and seminary formation to discern on behalf of the Church. I don't see why a man living an integral life of virtue would not be a suitable candidate for orders, nor that he might not be called due to his particular temptations.
The real problem I see is if a seminary has an outright gay subculture, as the Holy Father has so eloquently put it, then it would be the worst place for such a man to be. That's gotta go first.
Anyone got any information on the Dominicans' reported 1995 change of policy on gay seminarians at their General Chapter at Caleruega?
The policy which the Dominicans allegedly adopted in 1995 looked practically identical to the new policy which the Italian bishops had been reported as adopting in 2025 - ie candidates can be gay or straight, but must be celibate. But the Italian bishops have now denied making any such proposal.
Though I have not got a clue what the article really says about the real current Italian policy: "putting the person at the center beyond immediate categorisation in order to be able to accompany him in making truth about one's sexual orientation". Was this written by a human?
Seeing that the Italians' practical policy (see Fr Inzoli, etc), as per many other Bishops' Conferences, seems to be All Are Welcome.......our only sensible policy is to keep all young people far away from the clergy.
Little will change here mostly because the imprecise psychological testing delivers a false negative for men comfortable with their orientation and a false positive for too many "traditionalists" who are rigid personalities or sexual inverts.
// While such a document would not usually attract attention outside of ecclesial circles, “The Formation of Priests in Italian Churches: Guidelines and Rules for Seminaries,” did exactly that, as large secular media outlets began to report that the text was a change to the Church’s existing policy on the formation of seminarians who identify as gay. //
If the document was written so as to try to please everyone, I think it is reasonable to assume that the secular media read it correctly.
So I see we are still in the era of ambiguous doctrinal / disciplinary statements being trumpeted by certain corners of Catholic and secular media as evidence of the Church "opening up" or "getting with the times" or "modernising" before being eventually followed-up by a non-ambiguous denial of such a change taking place.
I won't hold my breath waiting for a correction from Religion News Service ("Vatican approves document allowing gay men to become priests in Italy"). Or for that matter, America Magazine or National Catholic Reporter who syndicated that column...
Religion News Service is a secular organization, which I presume holds a secular viewpoint, so I would assume they would encourage "fake news" as a means to advocate for a secular position on this question. As to the other two, qui sais?
Someone call Reuters and the New York Times. They need to know.
It seems like we're just circling around the ever-present confusion about deeper definitions: should "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" be understood broadly as referring to "affective" tendencies of temptation/desire, or does it refer more narrowly to "behavioral" tendencies of virtue/vice? And until that truly gets ironed out, I'm afraid we'll just keep going in these circles: where this persistent ambiguity about what SORT of "deep-seated tendencies" we're actually talking about leads different schools of thought to accuse the other of not being in line with the Church's teaching.
You know and I know that what's going to happen is that when a guy applies to a seminary, he'll get a subjective evaluation by those in charge of admissions. And if he gets turned down by Seminary A, he may well go try Seminary B, etc, until he either gets accepted somewhere, runs out of options, or gives up on a priestly vocation.
There's no way to draw a bright line rule because it's like having gay men in the military: some of them work out fine, and some don't.
Obviously, if a candidate can "shop around" for seminaries with differing standards, then that seems like a serious problem. But at the same time, if we have different schools of thought/interpretation on this question existing at all, then that's indicative of a much deeper deeper problem – which I happen to think that links back to (even if it also goes beyond) the definitional disagreement/confusion I was referencing above. In any case, there will always be a component of subjective evaluation, even when measuring against the most clear-cut requirements. But we can't successfully create or enforce a clear requirement at all if we don't fully agree on what that requirement should be, and why it should be that way. To be clear, I do happen to believe that the best "bright line" rule should be linked to behavior, and corresponding evidence of successful adherence to chastity/celibacy, regardless of orientation (which is, after all, a very modern notion/category lacking deep roots in the Church's moral tradition, which is far more concerned with actions and habits of vice/virtue than it is with "orientation"), etc.
Agreed entirely.
there was a guy who got busted while I was in seminary, and turned out he applied to like a dozen different dioceses. The big problem is there's no protocol for keeping tabs on that sort of thing, outside of maybe vocation directors talking to each other. Most competent vocation directors will just ghost guys who don't pass their smell test, and that was probably most of the places that this guy and other weirdos apply. All I can think of for a system would be for parishes of baptism to note whenever a baptismal certificate is requested for seminary application, but that's also pretty far along in the process. They ask if you've applied anywhere else early in the process, but there's nothing stopping one from just lying about that.
I understand that the Bishops of England and Wales are setting up a database to record all applications from all 22 dioceses in England and Wales. This should prevent a guy attempting multiple applications within those two small countries.
It is obviously not going to detect a guy who has made unsuccessful attempts in other countries. We would need some serious international cooperation for that. But a USA only database with Social Security Number as a key could be very useful, if not bombproof.
I know a good priest who suffered rejection before being allowed to go through seminary and be ordained. He did some stupid non-sexual things in his youth and grew out of them.
As Catholics we should be in favour of forgiveness. I am glad to hear that this priest has proved to be good after a rocky start as a youngster. As long as the bishop and all concerned in his formation were fully aware of his earlier problems and scrutinised him very carefully for any problems before he was ordained. And the bishop was not acting out of utter desperation at the lack of vocations.
A few years ago there was the sad case of the assistant priest in the parish next to mine. Our previous bishop had asked him to leave the seminary. A few years later our current bishop ordained him. Not long afterwards his misadventures were out on the Internet - drunkeness and making sexual advances to the parish Master of Ceremonies. He has been "care of Bishop's House" for a few years now.
Obviously there are loads of gaps in this tale which we peasants may never be told. His case is common knowledge in local parishes, so there is no way he can ever be assigned to another parish. And no one seems eager to laicise him.
In this case the problem was what one might call extreme verbal forcefulness with respect to being righteous. He is still totally faithful but I think he is a bit more tactful to their face about other people's failings than he used to be.
Seminarian Norm MacDonald: "I'm a deeply-closeted seminarian"
"So... you're gay?"
"What? No! I said I'm deeply closeted!"
This wise Church policy must be understood primarily through theology and only secondarily through psychology. Psychology can help understand a seminarian and the Church's policy to not accept men with deep-seated homosexual tendenices into the seminary, but, in the end, it is a theological discernment.
The discernment requires an understanding of the distinctions between celibacy, chastity, and, continence, as well as the important description of homosexuality being a disorder of the natural inclination to procreate and propogate the species.
On a practical level, it is clear that when a local church/seminary follows the policy, the number of seminarians increase. When the local church/seminary doesn't, their numbers drop.
Thank you for the clarification. When I read the secular news articles, I had wondered “so what of this is supposed to be new exactly?” Much ado about nothing.
We speak often of being "called" to the priesthood, and that a vocation is a matter of discernment; but vocational discernment is bilateral. A man doesn't discern marriage in a vacuum, he discerns marrying a particular girl, and he's in conversation with her, and she's discerning marrying him. Same for the priesthood or religious life, formation is also discerning if this candidate is right for orders/vows.
Are men with SSA being called to the priesthood? Perhaps. And it's for the bishop, vocation director, and seminary formation to discern on behalf of the Church. I don't see why a man living an integral life of virtue would not be a suitable candidate for orders, nor that he might not be called due to his particular temptations.
The real problem I see is if a seminary has an outright gay subculture, as the Holy Father has so eloquently put it, then it would be the worst place for such a man to be. That's gotta go first.
Anyone got any information on the Dominicans' reported 1995 change of policy on gay seminarians at their General Chapter at Caleruega?
The policy which the Dominicans allegedly adopted in 1995 looked practically identical to the new policy which the Italian bishops had been reported as adopting in 2025 - ie candidates can be gay or straight, but must be celibate. But the Italian bishops have now denied making any such proposal.
Though I have not got a clue what the article really says about the real current Italian policy: "putting the person at the center beyond immediate categorisation in order to be able to accompany him in making truth about one's sexual orientation". Was this written by a human?
Seeing that the Italians' practical policy (see Fr Inzoli, etc), as per many other Bishops' Conferences, seems to be All Are Welcome.......our only sensible policy is to keep all young people far away from the clergy.
https://josephsciambra.com/homosexuality-tolerated-in-the-english-dominicans-since-the-1920s/
Little will change here mostly because the imprecise psychological testing delivers a false negative for men comfortable with their orientation and a false positive for too many "traditionalists" who are rigid personalities or sexual inverts.
// While such a document would not usually attract attention outside of ecclesial circles, “The Formation of Priests in Italian Churches: Guidelines and Rules for Seminaries,” did exactly that, as large secular media outlets began to report that the text was a change to the Church’s existing policy on the formation of seminarians who identify as gay. //
If the document was written so as to try to please everyone, I think it is reasonable to assume that the secular media read it correctly.
Here is an update on this story from CNA
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261565/italian-bishop-denies-policy-change-on-ordination-of-homosexuals
They state that the problem was a translation by Fr. James Martin that was inaccurate.
Fancy that.