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.

Fr. Robert Barron: Chesterton on Church

"...Recently I was perusing one of Chesterton's most popular books, Orthodoxy, and my attention was drawn to chapter 6, 'The Paradoxes of Christianity'. In this section of the book Chesterton recalls his puzzlement when he read the critiques of Christianity that came from so many different quarters. On the one hand, Christianity - especially Catholicism - was criticized for being too worldly, too caught up in wealth, property, pomp, and ceremony.Where, for instance was the spirit of the carpenter of Nazareth in the expensive theatrical display of the Vatican? On the other hand, Christianity was reviled for its excessive spiritualism, its indifference to the concrete concerns of the world, its tendency to pine after 'the things of heaven'. Similarly, some critics complained that Christianity, with its stress on sin, penance, and punishment, was excessively pessimistic, while others held that, given its emphasis on the love of God, the intervention of the saints, and the promise of eternal life, it was ridiculously optimistic. Finally, certain enemies of the faith maintained, probably with Joan of Arc, and the Crusades in mind, that Christianity was bloodthirsty and warlike, while others held, probably with Frances in mind, that Christianity was too pacific and nonviolent. What puzzled Chesterton, of course, was not that the Church had its critics, but that its critics were so varied, so at odds with one another, so mutually exclusive.Whatever, this Christianity was, he concluded, it must be something strangely shaped indeed, to inspire such a wildly divergent army of enemies. 

     Then it occurred to him that perhaps it was not Christianity that was misshapen, but rather its critics. Perhaps it was they who, from their various eccentric points of view, saw the rightly shaped Christianity as distorted: 'suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall, and some too short; some objected to his fatness, and some lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark and some too fair. One explanation...would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape.' It could be the case, in short, that 'it is Christianity that is sane, and all its critics are mad - in various ways' It is the sheer depth and breadth of the Church, the complexity and multifacetedness of it, which narrow-minded enemies cannot grasp. Christianity, Chesterton surmised, was perhaps, too capacious to be easily comprehended.

     However - and here is Chesterton's main point - it does not seem that Christianity is merely 'sensible,' standing . as it were, in the middle, taking in both extremes. It does not seem to be the case that the Church is somewhat worldly and some what otherworldly, to some degree life affirming and to some degree life denying, a little optimistic and a little pessimistic. on the contrary, there seems to be, everywhere in the life of the Church, a quality of excess, frenzy, enthusiasm: Francis of Assisi was 'more a shouting optimist than Walt Whitman' and St Jerome, 'in denouncing all evil, could paint the world blacker than Schopenhauer.' One Christian saint could be more starkly ascetical than the severest Stoic, another Christian saint could celebrate life more ecstatically than a priest of Dionysus. In defending the celibacy of the clergy, the Church could be 'ferociously against having children',  and in upholding marriage and family, it could be at the same time, ferociously for having children.' The Church consistently and poetically placed opposites side by side, and allowed them to coexist in all the purity, power, and intensity; Christianity encouraged lamb and lion to lie down together, without ever forcing the lion to become lamblike or the lamb lionlike. Chesterton offers us a wonderful image: The Church 'has always had a healthy hatred of pink. It hates that combination of two colors which is the feeble expedient of the philosophers. It hates that evolution of black into white which is tantamount to a dirty grey.' "

Bridging the Great Divide, Robert Barron, Bowman & Littlefield, pp. 5, 6

What a beautiful exposition of Chesterton's vision of the Church! I can't help thinking that much of the cultural Catholicism of today is precisely the bland "pink", or the dirty "grey" that are foreign to the Church's nature. Also, no individual saint, no matter how great, could ever perfectly harmonize or contain the richness of the Church in his own personality, first of all because all of us are limited creatures very much affected by original sin, and secondly because the virtues of a saint would have most likely been developed as a result of his conversion, and served as a corrective to the abuses of his day and age. So every age challenges us to sanctity with its unique blend of circumstances.

Celibacy Equals Homosexuality?

We have to "head off a situation", Pope Benedict said, where "the celibacy of priests would practically end up being identified with the tendency to homosexuality". That's how my (two paragraph) quotation of his statement ends. That conclusion, however, is not a  a resting place for me or for us, but a point of departure. He sets out for us the problem he is struggling with, and with which our minds and hearts are to grapple.  But what precisely is the problem he is pointing to? Why would celibacy end up being equated with homosexuality?  How could that happen? Who would be doing the equating, and why are they  arriving at that conclusion? 

A possible answer to the question: They are the public, or at least that part of the public who come into contact with priests, and form impressions of what they see. That means they are mainly (but not exclusively) Catholics, and mainly churchgoing Catholics at that. What would make regular, churchgoing Catholics (the few of them left) start to identify the "celibacy of priests" with "the tendency to homosexuality"? The logical answer is: seeing priests whom they think are homosexual, whether they are or not.  

That clause, whether they are or not, is somewhat important. I can be heterosexual, yet appear to others as homosexual.  Or, I can be homosexual and still appear to others as heterosexual. It is not just a matter of what I am, but of what people perceive me to be. Generally, perceptions are accurate.

But perception is not infallibly in touch with the truth of things in every instance. At times my perceptions tell me more about myself than they do about what is really out there.  We assume our perceptions are correct unless we have good reason to question or doubt them. I suppose people would only start equating celibacy with the tendency to homosexuality when they start seeing a number of priests who strike them as homosexual. Not just seeing one or two, now and then, but seeing a lot of them, a multiplicity. If that happens, they would begin to think it is a normal state of affairs among the Catholic clergy. 

It's not helpful to waste a lot of time trying to discovering who is and who isn't homosexual, nor to puzzle over my mis-perceptions, and discover their causes. Why not? Much depends on each human being's personal history, of which sexual preferences are a part: my family, culture, education, experiences, past and present choices, plus the imponderable element of God's grace and my response to it. If I am  am mystery to me (and I am), how can I presume to have an accurate perception of you, since you are definitely a mystery too? Anyway, even if perceptions are generally accurate, and mis-perceptions were correctly addressed by each one of us, the result would be...what?  The one Pope Benedict arrived at: To think that these men were priests because they were not attracted to the female of the species but to the male. 

Since this is a concern of the pope, it is fair to assume he thinks that such a general perception is not just a dangerous possibility, but a probability. Any guesses on the likely  countries he thinks that such a conclusion about the clergy is taking place?   What would you say are the top three countries? Would the United States win, place or show?

Pope Benedict on Homosexuality

"Homosexuality is incompatible with the priestly vocation. Otherwise celibacy itself would lose its meaning as a renunciation.It would be extremely dangerous if celibacy became a sort of pretext for bringing people into priesthood who don't want to get married anyway. For, in the end, their attitude toward man and woman is somehow distorted, off center, and in any case, is not within the direction of creation of which we have spoken.

The Congregation for 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."

Light of the World, Benedict XVI, 2010  pp. 152, 153  Ignatius Press