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The Vatican Has Banned Gay Priests

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The Vatican has officially released a document on Tuesday that strongly reinforced its ban on ordaining homosexuals as priests.

The article on CNN.com which covered this story states that the Vatican has said "it would allow those who have "clearly overcome" homosexual tendencies to start the process of becoming a priest." A cardinal, according to the New York Times's coverage of the issue, rejected the contention that the decree was discriminatory.

I agree with that cardinal. To not allow homosexuals to become priest is not discriminatory, as callous and horrible as that may sound. I'm not extremely well versed in Catholicism or Christianity, but to my understanding, homosexuality is against church teachings. Is it not hypocritical for the church to allow homosexuals into the priesthood but preach to their followers that homosexuality is wrong?

I recall that Girl Meets World wrote a blog on a similar issue, involving the firing of a Catholic school teacher, as she was an unwed mother. I had commented there saying that it wasn't discriminatory because it's a Catholic school. A religious organisation. They do have the right to fire their teachers for engaging in premarital sex because it's against their religion. It's not discrimination because they laid out the rules in the handbook. They obviously cannot allow their teachers to practice contrary to what they preach.

Similarly, the Vatican has had a long standing policy against policy against homosexual priests. They released a document in 1961 stating that homosexuals should be barred from priesthood. The reason that this issue has arisen now is that the Vatican has seen the need to issue updated guidelines, in part because of the sex abuse scandal in the United States in 2002.

Pope Benedict XVI approved the document, called "Instruction" on 31 August 2005. An unofficial translation of the document, originally in Italian, can be found here.

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Homosexuality and the Church

Very interesting post and agree that although I think it is sad and morally reprehensible, it is valid. If homosexuality or premarital sex is against your religion, you are obviously not going to have those types of people in your church. That is what confused me about the situation in the Episcopalian Church. Recently, the church approved a gay man as the bishop of New Hampshire.

I know that this was a big controversy in the church. What I don’t get is okay with the church. I am not well versed in the Episcopalian teachings but I do know is that Episcopalian religion is an offshoot of the Christian faith where I know that being a homosexual is a sin.

The ban works

As I understand it, the ban is in agreement with Catholic teachings, which say that homosexuality is wrong, so I would agree with the cardinal too. One's personal views has nothing to do with this. What I don't understand sometimes is the contradiction in Christianity- how do Christians intepret "love thy neighbor" in the face of teachings that preach against abortion, adultery and homosexuality? I have no idea how to even begin answering this question, as I'm not that well-versed in religion, but I just think it's an interesting one.

Here's a thought. So, I

Here's a thought. So, I understand the whole deal with the Catholic Church not wanting homosexuals to be priests because it is against their teachings. That's fine, but does the Catholic Church condone child molestation somewhere in their religion? I didn't think so. Yet, the Catholics have failed to address the issues of priests molesting young boys. I just don't see the logic with this whole thing. We don't want you working for us if you're an unwed mother or a homosexual, but come one come all if you like playing with little boys. Something just doesn't add up here. If any members of the Vatican would explain these issues to us, I think we would all appreciate it.

Do people sworen to lifetime celibacy even have a sexuality?

I was under the impression that it was unholy for priests to give into ANY bodily temptations or to have any sexual thoughts what-so-ever. If this is the case, wouldn't they be absent of any sexuality. The idea about becoming a a priest is to be "married" to the church and celibacy is part of that. Their celibacy goes so far as to exclude any sexual thoughts or actions. So I don't see the point in questioning the sexuality of a priest when they aren't allowed to have even have sexual thoughts.

It would almost make more sense from the catholic views to allow homosexuals to become priests. It would prevent them from taking part in the sinful homosexual activity (again from the religion).

One question: is the sexuality of the nunns questioned? If not, I think it becomes more politically questionable. OH and about the molestation, those priests are pedophiles; they aren't gay or straight. Maybe we should not allow pedophiles to become priests. I think that would be ideal.

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