Pope Benedict on Homosexuality (continued) Part Two

This posting continues the reflections begun in the posting of 7/26/13.

Sewald  responds to Pope Benedict’s comments on homosexuality with the observation :"It is no secret that there are homosexuals even among priests and monks. Just recently there was a major scandal on account of the homosexual passions of priests in Rome.” Pope Pope, being honest and humble, admits the truth of Sewald’s statement, but surprises me, because he does not say what I expected. I was anticipating something along the lines of the need for active homosexual priests to repent, just as priests who were heterosexual would have to repent of being unfaithful if they had sexual relations with women. Instead, the pope spoke out forcefully against homosexuals in the priesthood. This is what he said: “Homosexuality is incompatible with the priestly vocation. Otherwise celibacy itself would lose its meaning as a renunciation”.

 I had been thinking, Well, just as a heterosexual has to renounce marriage with a woman, a homosexual would have to renounce sexual activity with men.  He would have to be celibate in his own way.  But the pope is not considering two kinds of celibacy, one for homosexuals, and another for heterosexuals. He views celibacy in relation to marriage,  and marriage of course between a man and a woman. He continues: “It would be extremely dangerous if celibacy became a sort of pretext for bringing people into the priesthood who don’t want to get married anyway.”  That makes sense to me. Being a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom does mean giving up marriage to a woman, and more than that. It means more than being a bachelor who wears a clerical collar. It means being fruitful and multiplying the sons and daughters of God in the new family his Son has established, the Church.  I interpret the pope as meaning that the refusal of, or indifference to, spiritual fatherhood is the big problem. If a man is not interested in sacrificing being a father through marriage to a woman  for the sake spiritual fatherhood, he should not be a priest.  There are certainly bachelor heterosexual priests who are not interested in spiritual fatherhood, only in the priesthood as a career or a profession. But, ultimately, spiritual fatherhood is the natural responsibility of every male no matter what he labels himself, nor what his state in life. Without spiritual fatherhood, even if he is called to be single,  he is a “barren fig tree” or a “dead branch.”

How does a man usually mature as a man, or grow and develop into his potential as a male?   Usually by getting married to a woman, having a wife and children, by working hard to earn a living, by living for the family he has, giving himself for them, raising the children, and leaving sons and daughters behind him.  If all a man had to do was impregnate a woman and then disappear, fatherhood would be easily accomplished. But a male becomes more of a man by being a husband and father, or to say it more simply,  by fathering. Celibacy is a huge sacrifice since everything in a man is directed to finding fulfillment in and through a woman, the children, and the family he will establish with her. Fathering is his natural reason for being. The responsibility he accepts in marriage is what gets him out of bed in the morning and keeps him going. If a man has no desire for a woman and no desire to marry, and therefore becomes a priest, his renunciation of marriage is no renunciation at all. By becoming a priest he embraces fathering in a different form.

Pope Benedict continues:  “The Congregation of Education issued a decision a few years ago to the effect that homosexual candidates cannot become priests because their sexual orientation estranges them from the proper sense of paternity, from the intrinsic nature of priestly being. The selection of candidates to the priesthood must therefore be very careful. The greatest attention is needed here in order to prevent the intrusion of this kind of ambiguity and to head off a situation where the celibacy of priests would practically end up being identified with the tendency to homosexuality.”

Of course the “greatest attention is needed”, but I am afraid that no amount of care and attention that can completely eliminate the problem.  When it comes to psycho-sexual identity, there are as many possible scenarios as there are individuals, because every person’s psycho-sexual development has its own pace. Same sex attraction may be discovered during adolescence, before or after entry into the seminary, as well as before or after ordination to the priesthood. There are no absolutely perfect protocols, nor any foolproof procedures. The basic issue, I believe, is to face that same sex attraction is a disorder and to deal with it in a healthy way, instead of presuming, as our culture does, that homosexuality is normal and natural, and that the gay life style is as valid an option as marriage or the single life.

Here in the Northeast and East Coast, it may be already too late to head off the situation the pope speaks of,  “where celibacy would….end up being identified with homosexuality”. Maybe it is different in some parts of the South, and in the West, and Midwest, where I am told the Church is much stronger. I doubt the situation is different on the West Coast, however. It may even be worse out there, for all I know. Perhaps demographers and sociologists can explain how our culture and values vary according to geographical location here in the United states. Maybe the situation is to fluid for any national snapshot to be taken.

Some concluding thoughts on "same sex attraction" occur to me in light of Pope Benedict’s resignation and the election of Pope Francis, which I hope to use as the basis of the next posting on this topic. I do not see the term “same sex attraction” in the writing, nor in their conversations of either pope. As far as I can tell they both use the word “homosexual” and “gay" interchangeably.  Here in the United States a distinction between the two is made. A man who struggles with same sex attraction is said to be “homosexual” whereas only those who “come out” and embrace the gay life style with its culture, are classified as “gay”.  I think this is an important distinction to make. Doing so would contradict the popular assumption that “gays are born that way” and also help explain how  a good number of men who suffer from same sex attraction successfully deal with the disorder, and  go on to successfully  become fathers in the sacrament of marriage, or spiritual fathers the priesthood. Some, I daresay have even been canonized saints.