Skip to main content

Sneaky Ploy

For several weeks now, there has been reports that the Catholic Church was going to ban gay men from seminars. This is due to happen in US seminars only it seems and for the avowed purpose of dealing with the pedophilia scandals which have been plaguing the US branch of the Church in recent years. This obviously shows a blatant misunderstanding of the whole question if not an outright lack of care for the victims and potential victims. While some pedophiles might be gay, likening all gay people to pedophiles is not a credible standpoint, and while the Church deflects the media's attention with those phony measures, the real molesters go undisturbed and unchallenged if not simply protected by the Vatican.

Now we learn that the ban will only apply to non-celibate priests. I have seen a few mentions of this on some of the blogs I read regularly with very little comment on the news, and as far as I can remember the news was on the whole welcomed as a positive step.

I am afraid I can not agree with this rosy view of the situation. Considering the Catholic Church's track record on gay rights (they are considering banning gay friendly politicians from receiving communion for example), I think this is just another ploy to appease the media while pushing through with their nasty witchhunt.

Knowing what is at stake, is the Church seriously expecting future priests to come out? How will the Church decide who to investigate? Or will they investigate anyone?

The idea of this amendment to the original idea is that priests or seminarists will have to prove that they have been celibate for at least three years. Sexual experiences are by definition something that most people will keep private. The occurence of an intercourse would be hard enough to prove several years down the line, but what about the absence of it? What evidence will be considered legitimate? We need to see what happens but I think we can safely expect that the Church will never find itself sufficiently convinced by the arguments put before it.

I is interesting to note, that this move is very much Vatican (Pope?) driven, and that the Church is not united in its speech (the comments on this page are truely enlighteming and show how christian, charitable and loving catholics and religious zealots can be, by the way).

This whole business, once again begs for me the question of why gay men, who can not ignore the position of the Church on who they are, can still consider joining its ranks?
Update:
New Rules Affirm Pope Benedict's Stance Against Gays,
by Daniel Williams, Washington Post Foreign Service.

Originally posted: 08 October 2005, 4.10pm
Tags: , , , , , , .
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please leave your comment here. Note that comments are moderated and only those in French or in English will be published. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and to leave a thought.

Popular posts from this blog

A Short History of the Elephant and Castle and Its Name

Last night I attended a lecture by local historian Stephen Humphrey who discussed the general history of the Elephant & Castle, focussing more particularly on what he called its heyday (between 1850 and 1940). This is part of a week-long art project ( The Elephant Project ) hosted in an empty unit on the first floor of the infamous shopping centre, aiming to chart some of the changes currently happening to the area. When an historian starts talking about the Elephant and Castle, there is one subject he can not possibly avoid, even if he wanted to. Indeed my unsuspecting announcement on Facebook that I was attending such talk prompted a few people to ask the dreaded question: Where does the name of the area come from, for realz? Panoramic view of the Elephant and Castle around 1960/61. Those of us less badly informed than the rest have long discarded the theory that the name comes from the linguistic deformation of "Infanta de Castille", a name which would have become at
19 comments
Read more

Rev. Peter Mullen's Blog

Rev. Peter Mullen is the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange and the rector of St Michael's Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate in the City. Rev. Peter Mullen was also until recently a blogger. Sadly the result of his cyber labour seem to have been deleted but Google has thankfully cached some of it and I have saved a copy for posterity, just in case. The deletion of Rev. Mullen's writings might just have something to do with the fact that last week, the Evening Standard and then the Daily Mail published an article (the same article actually) about some of those very writings (even though the elements of said writings being quoted had been published in June this year, at the time of the blessing ceremony which took place between two members of the Church of England in St Bartholomew the Great - picture ). In the article, we learned what the Rev. thinks about gay people and what should be done to them: We ["Religious believers"] disapprove of homosexuality
8 comments
Read more

Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison Swap Jerseys

I am having a bit of a vacuous evening looking at images of pretty rugby players. Addidas, with its latest viral campaign, Jersey Swap , seems to be squarely aiming at the gay market with a selection of five antipodean rugby players, visitor to the website can select and see take their tops off and... well... swap jersey (those interested can create posters too). My favorites of the bunch are Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison . The pictures of their pretty faces and bulging naked torsos (excuse me while I sit down for a second!) included to this post should tell you why. A job well done for Addidas. This will go round the Internet for a while, I think.
2 comments
Read more