FutureChurch Statement on the Ban of Gay Seminarians
FutureChurch grieves that the recent Vatican statement banning gay men from the seminary will be wounding and alienating to many good priests who are gay. Like their straight brothers, most are dedicated, effective priests who are faithful to their celibacy promises.
The Church needs priests. If the new policy is enforced, the Church will lose a number of good seminarians. This will worsen the already severe priest shortage, limiting even further our ability to meet the immediate and long range pastoral and eucharistic needs of our people.
There are no data to support the idea that gay priests who have received the celibate charism are any less capable of living healthy lives than straight priests who have received the celibate charism.
By stating that the norms banning gay seminary candidates are “made more urgent by the current situation” the document implies that priests with a homosexual orientation were to blame for the clergy sex abuse crisis rather than the bishops who covered it up.
There is no credible evidence that gay men are more likely to molest children than heterosexual men. More than 70 per cent of men who molest boys rate themselves as heterosexual in their adult sexual preferences. Nine per cent report that they are equally heterosexual and homosexual. Only 8 per cent report that they are exclusively homosexual. The majority of men who molest boys are married, divorced, widowed or living with an adult partner. (According to “The Abel and Harlow Child Molestation Prevention Study” from The Stop Child Molestation Book, by Gene G. Abel, M.D., and Nora Harlow Xlibris 2001 Gene Abel is one of the foremost researchers in the area of child sexual abuse)
This policy will not necessarily keep gay men from entering the priesthood. It appears that many people do not understand their orientation until later in adult life. This policy will only drive the issue of orientation underground. This will only exacerbate the likelihood of unhealthy sexual development and behavior. The real issue is not one’s sexual orientation but whether or not one is able to live the celibate charism.
Our Church should welcome all the priestly vocations God sends, including those given to women and married men. The Catholic priesthood should reflect the same wondrous diversity that enriches and enlivens the People of God.