The Tablet Speaks

[An editorial from the December 3d issue of The Tablet [London]:]

Vagary of the Vatican's instruction

IT IS NOT EASY to understand how the Vatican could issue an Instruction on homosexuality and the priesthood, long in preparation and much discussed and revised, that is still open to widely differing interpretations. The key passage declares that “the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to Holy Orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called ‘gay culture’”. Most people would read the key phrase “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” – which also appears in the Catholic Catechism – as another way of saying “homosexual orientation”. This seems to be borne out by such semi-official commentaries as have emerged from Rome. Yet Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster promptly issued a statement that insisted: “The Instruction is not saying that men of homosexual orientation are not welcome in the priesthood.”

There is little room for disagreement with the Vatican document’s assertion that those who engage in homosexual acts are disqualified from the priesthood, though it might have been better to make it clear that for a celibate priesthood this applies to heterosexual acts as well. Equally uncontentious is its opposition to what Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor describes as “an eroticised gay culture” inside seminaries. But what of candidates for the priesthood who are proving successful in their embrace of celibacy, but who know themselves to be gay? Indeed, what of priests perhaps years into a productive and holy ministry, who also know that about themselves? It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Vatican document must have been profoundly wounding to them – nor that the cardinal has done his best to mitigate that deep hurt.

The fundamental judgement of the document is the familiar one that “deep-seated homosexual tendencies ... are objectively disordered”. It is on this a priori basis that the authors conclude that men with such tendencies are incapable of the degree of maturity necessary for ordination, a maturity that “allows him to relate correctly to both men and women”. While the ability to relate in a mature way to men and women is obviously a requirement of priesthood, the conclusion is flawed. It ignores all the evidence to the contrary.

Indeed, it is appropriate to ask, in view of the confusion it has led to, whether the language of “objective disorder” applied to homosexuality has anything useful left to say. As Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor recalls, last year’s document from the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, Cherishing Life, declared that “a homosexual orientation must never be considered sinful nor evil in itself”. The distinction between “objective disorder” and “evil in itself” will be lost on most people, who will think the bishops were distancing themselves from traditional formulations because they are no longer helpful.

Chastity, celibacy and the maturity necessary for the priesthood are difficult to achieve, but not, with the grace of God, more difficult for those of a homosexual orientation. Therefore that orientation should, of itself, be no bar to ordination. Priests with that orientation have no reason to question their vocation. If that is what the Vatican meant to say, then it raises no new problems.