American Seminaries Are Under Vatican Review For Gay Sexual Activity

A new witchhunt of sorts will be sweeping the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the U.S. in the coming months.

Investigators appointed by the Vatican are out to seek "evidence of Homosexuality" and also to weed out those faculty members who dissent from church teaching. Oh brother!

The bottom line here is, "anyone who has engagbed in homosexual activity or has strong homosexual inclinations" should not be admitted to seminary. Well, if this is held to close scrutiny, that might tag about half of new seminarians as unfit, and a further drain on the already stretched army of priests serving parishs in the U.S.

This purge is the result of a conclusion that about 80 percent of the young people victimized by priests in the U.S. were boys. A kind of purification of the priesthood sounds to me, like not willing to accept the fact that gay men are priests and if that was recognized, then perhaps allowing them to serve God and love themselves might be achieved.

The catechism of the Catholic Church says people with "deep-seated"homosexual tendencies must live in chastity because "homosexual acts are intriniscally disordered". And straight priests who abuse everything imaginable, are somehow, good examples of what a Catholic priest should be? Give me a break.

Reverand Reese, thinks otherwise. He says, "You could have somebody who's been in the seminary for five or six years and is planning to be ordained and the rector knows they're homosexual." "What are you going to do, throw them out?"

One of the "questions" that the reviewer must answer, "Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary?"

A gay priest who was not allow to identify himself for the New York Times article, says, as such, that these questions will make gay priests question whether they should ever have been ordained.

So what will come of this inquiry is anyone's guess. But to make all gay priests scapegoats is unfair. The Catholic Church needs to look inside itself and question its doctrine before punishing gay priests. The quick fix never works.