Homosexuality & the priesthood
McBrien, Richard P.
HOMOSEXUALITY & THE PRIESTHOOD QUESTIONS WE CAN'T KEEP IN THE CLOSET RICHARD P. McBRIEN Recent articles in such diverse publications as Newsweek^ Atlantic Monthly, and National Catholic...
...It is not the last word on the subject, by any means...
...In the absence of serious academic deficiencies or undeniably overt pathological behavior, the candidate will advance inexorably from first-year philosophy (or theology) to ordination and a pastoral assignment...
...It is no secret that a least some of these applicants are not attracted primarily by the work of the presbyteral ministry but by the status and freedom from the ordinary demands of life that ordained ministry has often conferred...
...but no one — homosexual or heterosexual — chooses his or her underlying sexual predisposition...
...We can't have it both ways...
...Are gay seminarians and gay priests more, or less, committed to the church's social teachings than are their heterosexual brothers...
...Indeed, some inactive homosexuals may be better qualified for ministry than some of their heterosexual counterparts...
...The church does not condemn the homosexual...
...it censures only homosexual behavior...
...After all, how does one calculate the number of gay priests...
...Does the nature of these various relationships differ if the gay priest is sexually inactive rather than sexually active...
...How many heterosexual seminarians have decided to leave the seminary and abandon their interest in a presbyteral vocation because of the presence of significant numbers of gays in seminaries and among the local clergy...
...The ordained priesthood is also sacramental in a deeper theological sense: the priest, like the bishop, must embody the sacred realities with which he deals every day...
...To the extent that potential candidates are steering clear of the 382: Commonweal ordained priesthood because of obligatory celibacy, or the manner in which authority is exercised in the church, or for any similar institutional reason, the current shortage can only be corrected by institutional means...
...The church will have to draw increasingly from the homosexual community for its priests and seminarians, whether it likes it or not, and whether it wants to admit it or not...
...Have gay priests left the priesthood in any significant numbers...
...Too much research remains to be done...
...Is homosexuality a factor at all in the appointment of bishops themselves...
...Has the percentage of gay men attracted to the ordained priesthood increased in recent years...
...It needs, fourthly, the scholarly judgments of Christian ethicists and moral theologians, because the issues of human sexuality, and of homosexuality in particular, are not without profound moral content...
...We don't have the answers to most of these questions...
...Thus, one doesn't become a minister to become a minister...
...Whatever limited measure of competence I may enjoy is in the last of these disciplines...
...Now no sensible person — and I hope I fall in that category — would enter a discussion of this sort without a good deal of hesitation...
...Of the thousands of priests who have resigned from the active ministry since Vatican II, how many of those priests were gay...
...The alternative is leaving them to gossip, to unexamined, closed-door decisions, or to policy by default...
...Are gay priests opposed to the ordination of women to any greater degree than are heterosexual priests...
...Are gay seminarians and gay priests, more, or less, interested in politics, and in questions of social justice, human rights, and peace, than are heterosexual seminarians and priests...
...How many U.S...
...My own reflections, I should underline, are highly tentative and not offered motu proprio, as it were, but in response to an inquiry by the editors...
...Many gay priests don't even know they're gay, or cannot admit it to themselves arid others...
...It is a matter of simple logic that the more gays we have in the priesthood and in our seminaries, the less pressure there will be, from within the body of Catholic clergy itself, for a fundamental change in the present discipline of obligatory celibacy...
...Over the course of time, the presbyteral ministry has been transformed into something one aspires to rather than something to which one is called...
...How many of those are active homosexuals...
...Individuals, including those otherwise heterosexual, may choose homosexual behavior...
...In the ordination rite the bishop is urged to remind the ordinandi: '' Let the example of your life attract the followers of Christ, so that by word and action you may build up the house which is God's church...
...It is not the sort of terrain one ordinarily chooses to cross, at least not without an ample supply of protective gear and a painful awareness of the suspicions and misunderstandings that can be provoked by almost anything one says...
...It is clear from the very listing of all these questions that the phenomenon of gay priests and gay seminarians is exceedingly complex...
...Has the public image of the Catholic priest in the United States changed in recent years, and, if so, to what extent is homosexuality in the priesthood a factor...
...Nonetheless, these'are questions that must be articulated and addressed, however haltingly...
...To this day, Catholic priests in other rites are married, and the Latin-rite church itself has recently admitted former Episcopal priests into the Catholic priesthood, allowing them to function as married priests...
...0 If there is, in fact, a large body of gay priests in the United States, is there any relation between this phenomenon and the increasing visibility of child-molestation cases involving Catholic clergy...
...3. The presbyteral ministry is sacramental in more than the conventional sense, i.e., as a dispenser of sacraments...
...Indeed, it is not inconceivable that the ordained priesthood is attractive to certain people precisely because it excludes marriage...
...What impact does the presence of a large number of gay seminarians have on the spiritual tone and moral atmosphere of our seminaries...
...Dean Hoge notes that "the celibacy requirement is the single most important deterrent to new vocations to the priesthood, and if it were removed, the flow of men into seminaries would increase greatly, maybe fourfold...
...And in a society where homosexuality continues to be stigmatized, the celibate priesthood can offer an esteemed and rewarding profession in which "unmarried and uninterested" status is self-explanatory and excites neither curiosity nor suspicion...
...Do some gay priests and gay bishops actually take a harder line against out-of-the-closet homosexuals than do heterosexual priests and bishops...
...But the essay will have had at least some modest success if it should move the discussion forward by coaxing responsible parties, bishops especially, to confront the phenomenon of gay priests and gay seminarians more openly and more forthrightly, and then to do something about it...
...It needs, fifthly, the expertise of biblical scholars, since so many of the moral pronouncements on these matters presuppose particular interpretations of the classic scriptural references to homosexuality and homosexual behavior...
...It cannot be studied from within a single scientific discipline...
...And that, of course, "goes double" for candidates for the episcopacy...
...Are heterosexual seminarians "turned off" by the existence of such a culture...
...In the earliest days of the church, individuals had to be coaxed, sometimes even cajoled, into entering presbyteral and especially episcopal ministry...
...Are gay seminarians and gay priests drawn to the study and practice of liturgy more than are heterosexual seminarians and priests...
...The repeal of the discipline of obligatory celibacy would remove one of the primary motives for the resignation of priests from the active ministry...
...Is the liturgical interest of gay seminarians and gay priests different from that of their heterosexual brethren...
...Without a change in the discipline of obligatory celibacy, opening the priesthood to women could intensify the phenomenon, excluding heterosexual women for whom marriage is a serious option, and possibly resulting in an influx of lesbian priests and lesbian seminarians...
...Is there any discernible pattern to the opinions of gay priests not only on matters like optional celibacy and the ordination of women, but on the whole range of official teachings concerning sexual ethics...
...Today it works in just the opposite fashion...
...The original apostles were married, and so were priests and bishops for several of the earliest centuries of the church's history...
...Do gay seminarians inevitably create a gay culture in seminaries...
...Thirdly, it would help correct the public's longstanding and deeply rooted perception of the Catholic church as a religion that regards sex as a necessary evil - the principal moral barrier standing between God and humankind...
...I should say that I agree entirely with the central finding of a new and important study by Dean R. Hoge, of the department of sociology at the Catholic University of America, to be published in the fall by Sheed & Ward: The Future of Catholic Leadership: Responses to the Priest Shortage...
...I should hope, however, that representatives of the other disciplines, particularly sociology and psychology, will continue to contribute to the clarification of this complex phenomenon...
...How can one determine the number of young heterosexual men who have left the seminary because of the gay-culture problem or who, for similar reasons, have not seriously considered a presbyteral vocation...
...Catholic bishops are homosexual...
...it contains, by contrast, very few answers...
...Secondly, it would expand the pool of potential candidates for the ordained priesthood...
...It needs, secondly, the insights of psychologists, professionals who can help us understand the polarities between heterosexuality and homosexuality, and between active and inactive human sexuality, as well as the ways, healthy and unhealthy alike, enabling and manipulative alike, in which individuals relate to one another...
...Are gay priests, as a group, generally in favor of optional celibacy...
...REVEREND RICHARD P. McBRIEN is chairman of the theology department at the University of Notre Dame...
...Are there more gays in the seminary today than there were in the years before Vatican II...
...We cannot continue to denounce homosexual behavior in our official teachings and disciplinary decrees, and then adopt an inexplicably lax approach to the scrutiny of candidates for admission to our seminaries and for ordination...
...The Catholic church's continued resistance to change will, in turn, accelerate the current trend wherein heterosexual males are deciding in ever-increasing numbers not even to consider the priesthood as a life-long ministerial vocation...
...This essay has consisted of questions, hypotheses, tentative observations, and only one hard-and-fast proposal...
...The Catholic church in the United States cannot afford either course...
...Is there a social bond of any kind among gay priests beyond the boundaries of the diocese or the religious community, nationally and internationally...
...It needs first, and most obviously, the skills of trained sociologists, people who know how to gather and sift through data and then make some coherent sense of it all...
...Is there a discernible gay influence on parish liturgy, seminary liturgy, college liturgy, and the liturgy celebrated in religious communities...
...The issue here is ministerial aptitude, not sexual orientation — unless the latter should interfere with the former...
...The phenomenon of gay priests and gay seminarians needs, thirdly, the input of historians, both of the church and of culture, in order to situate the phenomenon in a wider context...
...Are gay priests theologically more conservative or more progressive than heterosexual priests...
...What impact, if any, does the presence of gay priests 380: Commonweal have on pressures for change in the church's discipline of obligatory celibacy for priests...
...What impact, if any, does the large number of gay priests have on recruiting candidates for the ordained priesthood, or the presbyterate...
...As Dean Hoge argues in his book, to choose none of the available options (his book examines eleven )is to allow one of two fundamentally unacceptable options to prevail by default: either local communities will simply have to get along without the Eucharist, or lay members themselves will assume eucharistic leadership, with the result that Catholicism in the United States will gradually be replaced by a new form of American high-church Congregationalism...
...But only heterosexual priests, seminarians, and potential candidates would be interested in marrying...
...Does the gay culture exist within diocesan and religious presbyterates...
...Homosexuals who are not sexually active and who otherwise have all the necessary charisms and skills for presbyteral ministry have as much "right" to present themselves for ordination as heterosexual candidates...
...To what extent are seminary faculty members a part of this culture...
...The actively gay priest sends a morally mixed message to the church and to the wider human community, to say the least...
...No single institutional change would have more far-reaching effects on the composition and shape of the Catholic priesthood in the United States...
...2. The evidence we do have at hand suggests that obligatory celibacy is the most significant negative factor in the recent decline in vocations to the presbyteral ministry...
...How many priests and seminarians are gay...
...It needs, finally, the input of ecclesiologists, for the questions posed above concern the nature of the communities we call parishes and dioceses,,and the purpose of the church's ministries within these communities...
...How does its manifestation in these other communities differ from its manifestation within the Catholic church in the United States...
...I am sure that this article will set a new Commonweal record for Most Question Marks...
...4. By itself, the ordination of women would have no major impact on the phenomenon of gay priests and gay seminarians...
...Is there any relationship between the hierarchy's criticism and disciplining of gay rights groups, such as Dignity, and the presence of gays in the priesthood itself, including the episcopate...
...But fourthly, and finally, such a repeal would remove all ambiguity from the vocational decisions of homosexuals...
...Or is there no noticeable difference between the two groups...
...Or on his relations with heterosexual males and with women...
...By no serious standard — biblical, theological, doctrinal, sociological, psychological, historical — can celibacy be described as an essential requirement for effective presbyteral service...
...As such, it cannot be solved by prayer, fasting, and penance...
...Can a gay priest fulfill such a mandate...
...Young men (and, more frequently than before, older, "second-career" 19 June 1987: 381 men) simply decide that they'd like to be a priest, and apply to a bishop, a seminary, or a religious community...
...But that is a matter for the church to determine, and if the church needs specialized guidance, it can turn to psychologists, not moral theologians...
...At the top of the means-list, in my judgment, is the elimination of obligatory celibacy...
...Obviously, these are serious reasons for the repeal of obligatory celibacy, and they exist quite apart from any questions raised about homosexuality and the clergy...
...How does one measure the impact of a gay priest on a parish community...
...In principle, why not...
...His most recent book is Caesar's Coin: Religion and Politics in America (Macmillan...
...The community, in the first instance, discerned the presence of the appropriate charisms and human qualities in one or another of the baptized, and then proceeded to apply every legitimate pressure upon the designee...
...HOMOSEXUALITY & THE PRIESTHOOD QUESTIONS WE CAN'T KEEP IN THE CLOSET RICHARD P. McBRIEN Recent articles in such diverse publications as Newsweek^ Atlantic Monthly, and National Catholic Reporter have called public atten- tion to a phenomenon that used to be spoken of only by innuendo or in whispers: gay priests and gay seminarians...
...Do homosexual bishops give preference, consciously or not, to gay candidates for choice pastorates and diocesan positions...
...How has the phenomenon of gay priests and gay seminarians manifested itself in other Christian traditions...
...and it is a sad sign of our failings as Christian people that we need to underline something so elementary...
...What difference, if any, does the sexual orientation of a priest have on his pastoral ministry...
...It is as an ecclesiologist, therefore, and not as a sociologist, psychologist, historian, ethicist, or biblical scholar, that I offer the following observations: 1. Ministry is always for the sake of the church, never for the sake of the individual minister...
...In fact, a long list of questions is being widely, if sometimes furtively, raised today...
...To put it plainly: as long as the church requires celibacy for the ordained priesthood, the priesthood will always pose a particular attraction for gay men who are otherwise not drawn to ministry in general or to the presbyteral ministry in particular...
...And some answers, it perhaps goes without saying, are simply beyond the capacity of ordinary research methods...
...One becomes a minister to do ministry...
...We cannot say one thing in our doctrinal statements and countenance something entirely opposed to them in our church leaders...
...Given the shortage of presbyteral vocations, a persistent and enterprising applicant can eventually find a place that will take him...
...If, on the other hand, active homosexuals are admitted and retained in the presbyterial ministry, and if their behavior should become known, then the principle of sacramentality is engaged...
...Homosexuals are human beings and Christians, whose dignity must be respected...
...The editors asked specifically if I might have "any ecclesial reflections" to propose...
...Hoge concludes that the shortage of priests in the United States is an institutional problem, not a spiritual problem...
...How does his homosexuality affect his relationship with heterosexual priests...
...Does it affect the gay priest's ministerial relations with heterosexual males, with women, with families, and with children...
...Are they more attuned, and more pastorally sensitive, to the needs of AIDS victims...
...They would clearly choose the presbyt-eral ministry for the sake of the church, and not for what it might offer in terms of occupational respectability and freedom from social suspicion...
Vol. 114 • June 1987 • No. 12
