Pat Brennan on the Perry/Collett Colloquy

Following are some thoughts from my colleague Pat Brennan on the question of homosexuality in the priesthood that Mike Perry and Teresa Collett have been discussing.

  Recent postings concerning whether "homosexual" men should be ordained to the ministerial priesthood of the Catholic Church prompt the following few thoughts. While these thoughts give expression to my judgment that a man's "homosexuality" as such does not present a reason for those charged with discerning priestly vocations to declare a man not "called" to ministerial priesthood, we await magisterial determination of this question. Before Humanae vitae there was room for speculation that the encyclical's's issuance eliminated. Among my concerns about some statements in the recent postings is that they might lack even the roots in tradition that Humanae vitae claims for itself.

First, while the second half of section 1849 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Teresa doesn't go on to quote, does say (quoting Aquinas, in turn quoting Augustine) that a "desire contrary to the eternal law" is sin, the larger context teaches that there is no personal sin without the moral actor's voluntary involvement. Disordered desires that we neither author nor endorse do not cast us into personal sin, no? And, it should go without saying that the basic effects of Original Sin are insufficient to render a person uncalled (to ministry).

Second, that our desires will be disordered, is a given. Does the large tradition governing Catholic understanding and development of the ministerial priesthood establish or even suggest that disordered sexual desire is per se evidence that a man is not called to the ministerial priesthood?

Third, the tradition brims with evidence that only those thought capable (thanks to God's grace) of priestly ministry are to be discerned called to the same and, on that ground, ordained and sent. But there is no expectation of perfect fidelity, only hope of the same. "Order[ing] our lives to avoid occasions of sin" is, indeed, morally exigent. What, then, can we say of those monastic communities, not essentially priestly in their consecration, that invite and join together all sinners, thought to have a monastic vocation, to enter upon a radical, concentrated form of renunciation (that includes chaste celibacy)? Monastic communities are struggling with the same questions raised in the postings about the ministerial priesthood, but in the purely monastic case the "in persona Christi" question does not arise as it might in the case of priesthood as such, and precious few monastic communities have maintained that the "homosexual" man as such cannot be called to chaste celibacy in the cloister. As one wise monastic text teaches, "Each person has to come to terms with his or her particular sexual make-up, learn to be responsible for it, and discover how to make his or her particular contribution to human and monastic life."

Finally, nothing in what I say militates against the Church's exercising, through the Magisterium or through particular churches or communities, the prudence that has almost always guided questions concerning discernment of the call to the ministerial priesthood. "Self-control" is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and the Church rightly seeks it in potential ordinands. But a per se ban on the "homosexual" candidate hardly seems consistent with the traditional understanding of what is required for a man to be called to be a Priest of Jesus Christ.