More on Homosexuality and the Priesthood

Teresa Collett offers the following thoughts in response to Michael Perry's and Pat Brennan's earlier posts:

I appreciate the nature of Michael P. and Pat Brennan's engagement with me on the question how the Church should view homosexuality in considering a candidate for ordination and apologize for my delay in responding. Let me answer Michael's comments first. Because I believe sexual identity is intrinsic to human nature and part of the divine plan, I believe as a woman, I image God in a manner different from men and therefore cannot represent Christ in the celebration of the Eucharist. See sec. 26 in Mulieris Dignitatem. This is not, however, because the female is by nature "disordered" or a "misbegotten male," but rather because we image the receptive and generative nature of God - the bride, rather than the bridegroom.

As for there being other characteristics that should disqualify heterosexual candidates for ordination -- without question! Yet that does not establish that the Church should disregard its own teaching that "[The] psychological genesis [of homosexual attraction] remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." It seems a sensible policy that someone with a persistent attraction toward something that is a grave depravity should be disqualified from ordination. However, if you begin from the position that Michael does (that homosexual sexual desire is not disordered in any theologically relevant sense), the policy would be inappropriate.

As for Pat's comments, I agree that we are awaiting magisterial determination and hope nothing I have written suggests the contrary. However the question Michael posed earlier was whether the policy that has been reported to be in effect in some American dioceses and under consideration by the Vatican would be a sin against the men it excluded from ordination (a "sin against the Gospel" in Michael's words). It was in that context that I quoted the provision of section 1849, so I am somewhat confused by Pat's discussion of personal sin and disordered desires. If I understand Pat's point (and I am not certain I do) personal culpability for wrongdoing is not the only reason the Church declines to ordain candidates. Lack of age, lack of maturity, mental illness, and lack of faith are all reasons that do not involve the will of the person, yet disqualify candidates for ordination. Similarly homosexuality need not involve the will of the person, but may be determined by the Vatican to disquality men from ordination.

In the end, I honestly don't know exactly whether I believe the Vatican should adopt this policy, but I am reasonably certain that it is not sinful to do so. I think there are both theological and ontological meanings to be drawn from the fact that we are created as man and woman, and procreation requires our union. What the Holy Father calls the nuptial meaning of the body is denied by homosexuality, and that denial has theological significance.