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Vatican's search for gays in seminaries raises alarm By Jason Szep
Fri Sep 16, 5:48 PM ET
BOSTON (Reuters) - A Vatican investigation of U.S. seminaries for evidence of homosexuality, sparked by a scandal over pedophile priests, infuriated gay rights advocates on Friday.
Teams of American Church officials will visit 229 seminaries, which train about 4,500 future priests, beginning this month and ending in spring, U.S. church officials said.
The Catholic Church demands celibacy of its priest and gay activists said the latest review amounted to a witchhunt.
The Vatican approved the seminary review, known as an apostolic visitation and the first in America since 1983, in response to the sexual abuse crisis that erupted in 2002 and triggered lawsuits by thousands of people abused by priests.
"There should not be any doubts about the lifestyle the priests ought to live," said Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "It is an evaluation of seminaries to see if they are doing their job."
Underpinning concerns among U.S. Church leaders and conservative Catholics is a 2004 survey by John Jay College of Criminal Justice that found that, of 10,667 individuals abused by priests between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent were male.
Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, a conservative Catholic journal, expects the review to lead to a ban by the Vatican on gays in America's seminaries. "Is there a particular concern about homosexuality? Sure," he said.
Edwin O'Brien, archbishop for the United States military who is supervising the seminary review, told The National Catholic Register that even gays who have been celibate for 10 or more years should not be admitted to seminaries.
Brian Saint-Paul, editor of the Catholic journal "Crisis," said he hoped the probe would not spark a witchhunt in the priesthood but that it was long overdue. "It's like having a heterosexual young man live in an all-female dorm," he said. It's not a reasonable position to put someone in."
Faculty members, seminarians and graduates from the last three years will be interviewed confidentially in the review, which was agreed when U.S. Cardinals visited the Vatican in April 2002 to discuss the abuse scandal, Maniscalco said.
"SCAPEGOAT"
Gay rights advocates such as Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, said the Church was making gay men scapegoats for pedophiles.
"You have this massive problem within the Catholic Church and the Church's response to it, in one sweeping gesture, seems to be 'we're going to travel around the country and ask people if they are gay'," Solmonese said.
"What the Church is doing, to the outside observer who reads this, is immediately equating gay men with the abuse that is going on here that is perpetuating something that is absolutely not true."
The real problem is the Church's fixation on celibacy, said Daniel C. Maguire, a professor of moral theology at Marquette, a Jesuit university in Wisconsin.
"I see it (the investigation) as a diversionary tactic away from the real problem of Catholic clergy which is enforced celibacy," he said. "It's highly unrealistic. I would call it a failed experiment in human control." he said.
He said some studies he had read estimated about 50 percent of students studying at U.S. seminaries were now gay, and he believed the review could ultimately drain the Church of future priests.
"It's an impossible plan because if they eliminate the gays they are going to eliminate half their clergy in some of their places," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050916/us_nm/religion_catholic_gays_dc_1
Fri Sep 16, 5:48 PM ET
BOSTON (Reuters) - A Vatican investigation of U.S. seminaries for evidence of homosexuality, sparked by a scandal over pedophile priests, infuriated gay rights advocates on Friday.
Teams of American Church officials will visit 229 seminaries, which train about 4,500 future priests, beginning this month and ending in spring, U.S. church officials said.
The Catholic Church demands celibacy of its priest and gay activists said the latest review amounted to a witchhunt.
The Vatican approved the seminary review, known as an apostolic visitation and the first in America since 1983, in response to the sexual abuse crisis that erupted in 2002 and triggered lawsuits by thousands of people abused by priests.
"There should not be any doubts about the lifestyle the priests ought to live," said Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "It is an evaluation of seminaries to see if they are doing their job."
Underpinning concerns among U.S. Church leaders and conservative Catholics is a 2004 survey by John Jay College of Criminal Justice that found that, of 10,667 individuals abused by priests between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent were male.
Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, a conservative Catholic journal, expects the review to lead to a ban by the Vatican on gays in America's seminaries. "Is there a particular concern about homosexuality? Sure," he said.
Edwin O'Brien, archbishop for the United States military who is supervising the seminary review, told The National Catholic Register that even gays who have been celibate for 10 or more years should not be admitted to seminaries.
Brian Saint-Paul, editor of the Catholic journal "Crisis," said he hoped the probe would not spark a witchhunt in the priesthood but that it was long overdue. "It's like having a heterosexual young man live in an all-female dorm," he said. It's not a reasonable position to put someone in."
Faculty members, seminarians and graduates from the last three years will be interviewed confidentially in the review, which was agreed when U.S. Cardinals visited the Vatican in April 2002 to discuss the abuse scandal, Maniscalco said.
"SCAPEGOAT"
Gay rights advocates such as Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, said the Church was making gay men scapegoats for pedophiles.
"You have this massive problem within the Catholic Church and the Church's response to it, in one sweeping gesture, seems to be 'we're going to travel around the country and ask people if they are gay'," Solmonese said.
"What the Church is doing, to the outside observer who reads this, is immediately equating gay men with the abuse that is going on here that is perpetuating something that is absolutely not true."
The real problem is the Church's fixation on celibacy, said Daniel C. Maguire, a professor of moral theology at Marquette, a Jesuit university in Wisconsin.
"I see it (the investigation) as a diversionary tactic away from the real problem of Catholic clergy which is enforced celibacy," he said. "It's highly unrealistic. I would call it a failed experiment in human control." he said.
He said some studies he had read estimated about 50 percent of students studying at U.S. seminaries were now gay, and he believed the review could ultimately drain the Church of future priests.
"It's an impossible plan because if they eliminate the gays they are going to eliminate half their clergy in some of their places," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050916/us_nm/religion_catholic_gays_dc_1
