From Guardian Unlimited:

The Vatican today published its long-awaited statement on homosexuals and the priesthood, affirming that those with “deep-seated” gay tendencies should not be ordained.

Note that I got this spectacularly wrong, saying in August that

I would personally be surprised to see this published any time soon, especially by this Pope.

Oopsie. Though, to be fair, they did go much further than the earlier draft. Compare and contrast today’s document…

The document confirms the Catholic church’s view that deep-seated homosexual tendencies are “objectively disordered” and “grave sins”. It also says heads of seminaries have a serious duty to see to it that candidates for the priesthood do not “present disturbances of a sexual nature which are incompatible with the priesthood”.

…with the August leak…

the presence of homosexuals in seminaries is ‘unfair’ to both gay and heterosexual priests by subjecting the former to temptation

But either way, I was clearly wrong.

Whilst I think it’s entirely fair for the Church to take its own standpoint on its own issues, I do still think they might have some difficulty here. After all, with a less than brilliant history of preventing paedophiles from joining the clergy, how do they expect to prevent gay people from joining? And what precisely is the difference between ‘deep-seated homosexuality’ and any other kind? Are they saying bisexual priests are allowed in? Or is it a case of ‘no hard-core gays, but it’s okay if you’re just a bit poofy’?

But then perhaps, like much the Church says these days, maybe this move’s more about symbolism than practicality. As much as I disagree with the standpoint taken by the Church on this and many other issues, it’s their prerogative to take it, just as it’s my prerogative to condemn and ridicule their ancient delusional fantasies, outdated stereotypical views, and general separation from reality.

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sjhoward.co.uk » More Christian advice needed

[...] More Christian advice needed Filed at 21:37 on 30th November 2005. Filed by sjhoward at 21:37 on Wednesday, 30th November 2005 under Miscellaneous. So now we know the Bible says it’s bad to be gay, I have a couple of other questions regarding Christianity which regularly find their way to my email inbox… a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them? [...]

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