Jesuit Priest Rips on Vatican for Ban on Gay Priests

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050930/ap_on_re_us/gay_priests

That is pretty cool.

I wonder when the new Pope is going to kick the bucket.

That is pretty cool, and I hope that gay Catholic priests make good on their idea of a sunday strike. Personally, as an atheist, I find watching religions self destruct to be highly entertaining

I think that Benedict XVI was hand picked by Karl Rove. If Benedict ever gets tired of running the church into the ground, I'm sure there's a cabinet-level post waiting for him in the Bush administration.

Beyond crazy.

Taking a vow of chastity and devoting your life to the church is one of the traditional methods of dealing with a conflict between your own nature and the sins according to the Bible.

After the auto-da-fe will there be anything left of the priesthood?

The straight child molesters will still be okay.

Ok Ok... I'll admit I thought this thread was going to be totally different than what I found because I quickly read your topic as "JUDAS Priest Rips on Vatican for Ban on Gay Priests". And I was thinking since when did Judas Priest care what the Vatican did.

Thanks Second Lefties for putting your two cents worth on how we should run our religion. Sorry, but no matter how strongly you wish it were not so, homosexuality is a sin in Christianity. So we have a right to say we don't want to ordain homosexual priests. Priests are supposed to set the example, but if they are just going to ignore certain tenets of the faith for their own benefit they aren't leading very well.

However, when I read this article, it got me to thinking. Being celibate, they aren't *practicing* any sin. Attraction to another man isn't a sin in and of itself. So the question comes down to: does that priest accept the teachings that the practice of homosexuality is a sin? If so, then I'd say that he was no less eligible than any other candidate. Anyone who thinks that the clergy suddenly stop committing all sin as soon as they are ordained isn't living in reality.

Now, I'm speaking as a Christian in general, not a Catholic specifically; I'm a Protestant myself.

-K

This is what I was trying to get at too. Shouldn't the Church be more concerned with what its priests are actually doing sexually, than trying to pry into their heads and persecute them for thoughts and feelings?

I understand that they're well within their right to go about banning gay priests, like the Boy Scouts banned gay scouts and leaders.

If they've taken their vow of celibacy, from either man or woman, then they're fine, right? Anyway, I thought priests were kind of supposed to be asexual or something.

Either way, it's their life, they can deny who they are all they want.

How do you tell if some priest is gay? What if he really, really loved the church and took great pains to conceal that he was gay (because he's brainwashed) and then someone with gaydar goes and says, "HEY! You're gay!!"

Or what if he's *not* gay? How does one prove gayness? Being gay doesn't mean you run around in a pink t-shirt and exclaim "Girlfriend!" every ten seconds.

Also, I wonder if it's going to be against the rules for lesbians to become nuns?