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Gay Seminarians Again

UPDATE: An interesting flurry in the Italian press, January 2009:

http://genova.cronacacity.com/?p=410

http://www.notiziegay.com/?p=22627

http://theprogressivecatholicvoice.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-on-spiritual-paternity.html

http://theprogressivecatholicvoice.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-on-spiritual-paternity.html

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The 2005 Vatican document barring homosexually oriented men from becoming priests was widely interpreted as applying only to men whose sexuality would weigh on them to a point that it would create difficulties in relating to the faithful, especially women, in the mode of spiritual fatherhood. The heads of religious orders, notably Timothy Radcliffe OP, and many bishops used this interpretation, aiming to blunt the impact of the document and render it inoperative.

John Heard (Dreadnought), an ardent defender of this interpretation, claims that the new Vatican document about psychological testing of seminarians --

http://tuespetrus.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/orientamenti-per-lutilizzo-delle-competenze-psicologiche-nellammissione-e-nella-formazione-dei-candidati-al-sacerdozio

-- poses no problems to chaste "same-sex attracted" men entering the priesthood: http://johnheard.blogspot.com/2008/11/dreadpriests-pope-benedict-xvi-vatican.html. The Vatican give a report of the press conference on this document: 

http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/22835.php?index=22835&lang=it, in which I do not see the remarks of Cardinal Grocholewski on homosexuality reported elsewhere:

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=990

-- remarks which according to Heard also pose no problem to the entry of same-sex attracted men into seminaries. James Alison sees the new Vatican report as playing down Cardinal Grocholewski's view and the 2005 Instruction, as the Vatican slowly shifts to recognizing that it is untenable to treat homosexuality as pathological. http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng53.html

The new document has only one direct reference to homosexuality: "The course of formation should be interrupted in the case in which the candidate, despite his commitment, the support of the psychologist and the psychotherapy, continues to manifest an incapacity to face realistically, albeit with the gradualness of every human growth, his own grace immaturities (strong affective dependences, notable lack of freedom in relationships, eccessive rigidity of character, uncertain sexual identity, STRONGLY ROOTED HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES, and so on." [Il cammino formativo dovrà essere interrotto nel caso in cui il candidato, nonostante il suo impegno, il sostegno dello psicologo o la psicoterapia, continuasse a manifestare incapacità ad affrontare realisticamente, sia pure con la gradualità di ogni crescita umana, le proprie gravi immaturità (forti dipendenze affettive, notevole mancanza di libertà nelle relazioni, eccessiva rigidità di carattere, mancanza di lealtà, identità sessuale incerta, tendenze omosessuali fortemente radicate, e così via).]

The lenifying interpretation would no doubt say that in listing the "tendencies" among forms of "grave immaturity" the document cannot be referring to homosexual orientation as such. Recall that Cardinal Grocholewski in a "30 Giorni" interview in November 2005 formally rejected Timothy Radcliffe's interpretation: (The new document leaves it open to gay seminarians to follow Radcliffe's interpretation)

30 Giorni: "The Instruction has been criticized even within the world of the Church. The former Master General of the Dominicans, Father Timothy Radcliffe, wrote in The Tablet that he has no doubt that God calls homosexuals to the priesthood and that they «are among the most committed and dedicated priests I have met»… "
      GROCHOLEWSKI: "We know that every priestly vocation is a call from the Lord, but the call comes through the Church, in the Church and for the Church. For that reason the Church has the right, indeed the duty, of determining the requisites necessary for being admitted to the priesthood. One cannot deny that certain people with homosexual tendencies can carry out their priesthood in exemplary manner. The purpose of our document is the fact that it is nevertheless not proper to call these people to the priesthood. I understand that it is a grave decision, but it was not taken lightly."

	Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski

He also said, and says, that deep-seated heterosexual tendencies are OK, which contradicts the idea that deep-seated tendencies mean something other than basic sexual orientation.

Cardinal Grocholewski distinguishes the deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which he sees as a variety of psychological immaturity, from transitory ones, which are not a bar to priesthood if one has outgrown them. In the 2005 interview he said: "As an example of transitory tendency our document lists the case of incomplete adolescence. But there can also be other cases. For example the case of those who have performed homosexual acts in a state of drunkenness, or of those who did so as a result of determined circumstances, such as having spent many years in prison. Or of those who have done so out of obedience to a superior or to earn money. In these cases, however, for the sake of prudence, to check that it is a matter of a truly transitory tendency, it is well that a fitting period of time be allowed to pass, which the document establishes as three years, before proceeding to ordination as deacon."

This excludes the idea that a gay person who has not been sexually active for three years would be welcome in a seminary -- a very wilful misconstrual of the document, which nonetheless has circulated widely!

The situation is something like that of the Motu Proprio restoring the Tridentine Mass and Cardinal Grocholewski is placed in the position that Cardinal Castrillon Hojos or the hapless Archbishop Ranjith hold on the liturgical front. It seems to me that Cardinal Grocholewski is desperately trying to suppress the interpretation that disables his 2005 document. The acrobatics to which the novel Catholic hermeneutics of reception, first practiced in the episcopal responses to Humanae Vitae (1968), has had recourse are now so well-developed that thay can take in their stride the most acute contradictions. This is a measure of the distance between Vatican edicts and what is credible and practicable at ground level. But it is a curious way of dealing with truth. (See  http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/vatican_instruc.html.)

It seems to me that the Cardinal's attitude is abusive and that, if implemented, it would be very damaging to the young men subjected to the psychological testing he advocates. In addition there is the wider abuse of a teaching that confirms ancient homophobic attitudes of the Catholic Church. Unless we have the clarity to name an abuse for what it is, we become ourselves perpetrators and perpetuators of abuse.

Another abusive aspect of the situation is the top-down style of communication adopted by the Vatican. In the USA this style of communication has met its Waterloo, as millions of Catholics simply ignored the shrill, authoritarian utterances of their bishops. President-elect Obama, in contrast, created grass roots understanding and consensus, something the Vatican and its bishops no longer even attempt.

There seems to be a new tightening of the rather sinister logic about sexuality and priesthood in these utterances. It was discerned in the 1990s that women could not be priests, for ontological reasons. Now it seems that gay men similarly are ontologically incapable of priesthood -- a point stressed to the degree that some are wondering if homosexually oriented priests are validly ordained at all! Well, bad logic often leads to weird results.

Commentary from gay and non-gay Catholics has been for the most part in the vein of angry reaction, which is quite justified. Yet it is vital that we shift Catholic gay discourse from the register of reacting to Vatican provocations to that of building a solid corpus of wisdom. See

http://salusanimarum.blogspot.com/2008/11/vatican-backs-psychological-screening.html.

Note that the behaviors listed by the Cardinal as reflective of "transitory" tendencies are indeed immature behavior, whereas he makes a serious category mistake when he equates sexual orientation with immaturity.

It is also a mistake to refer to orientation, both heterosexual and homosexual, as a deep-seated tendency. The word 'tendency' is a weird denial of the reality of sexual orientation. John Heard similarly reduces homosexual orientation to sporadic same-sex attraction, in another tactic of denial.

The phrase "same-sex attracted" is supposed to be a neutral term, but the motive for its invention is to avoid giving any positive identity or valorization to homosexual orientation, as the word "gay" does. It is an ideologically motivated term, directed against gay identity politics. On the phenomenological plane "same-sex attracted" is as gauche and clunky and wooden a phrase as "other-sex attracted" would be to describe heterosexuals. The vilification of the phrase "sexual orientation" feeds into the lies of "Christianists" who want to characterize sexual orientation either as a sinful "choice" or as an "affliction" from which grace and the sect's love-bombing can magically redeem the afflicted one or again as an "objective disorder" (since "orientation" is a word that does not suggest a disorder but rather a natural variant of sexuality). These little linguistic battles are an effort to see the phenomena plain after two millennia of mystification.

Such psychological mistakes are in fact ideologically motivated. One might even find a resemblance to the Stalinist use of psychology as a tool of ideological conformity. The Catholic Church can do without such methods.

The ideological use of bad and outdated psychology is of course thriving in cult-like groups such as Exodus International; see

http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2008/10/chambers-vote-against-marriage-equality-to-make-it-easier-for-ex-gays.

Again, I think the Catholic Church can do better.

UPDATE Diogenes -- http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otr.cfm?id=4875 -- reveals how Vatican statements are recycled in the increasingly shrill rhetoric of Palinesque culture warriors:

"So here's the next move in the culture wars, an editorial cloud no bigger than a man's suspiciously well-groomed hand."

COMMENT: Homophobic innuendo is rife in neocath blogdom -- but the Vatican documents themselves provide the material that sustains these attitudes.

"The Los Angeles Times has an editorial deploring the Holy See's newly-issued Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood.  Why? Because, according to the Times, the document emphasizes 

that even chaste gay men are to be barred from the priesthood. Never mind that large numbers of gay priests -- estimates range from 25% to 50% -- already serve the faithful, with most adhering to their vow of celibacy. 

"The Guidelines never mention the word "gay"; the Holy See is concerned -- as the Times is not -- to keep libido distinct from behavior, and both distinct from conviction."

COMMENT: The Vatican document mentions deep-seated homosexual tendencies; the passage quoted respects the difference between orientation and sexual acts just as much as the Vatican does.

"Nor is it surprising that, for the nonce, most homosexual priests have remained celibate, that is, unmarried. Celibacy is not chastity, however, and anyone who thinks most self-declared gay priests are chaste is deceiving himself."

COMMENT: The newspaper's claim referred to all gay priests, not just to the self-declared ones.

"That said, it's true that the Holy See's unwillingness to admit homosexual priests is broader than avoidance of sodomy.  The Church teaches homosexual appetite is in itself disordered, and the psychic disturbance that attends the disorder should be healed before a man is admitted to the priesthood, even if he's physically continent."

COMMENT: Here we see something like hate speech piggy-backing on the Vatican's cool statements. Also, since homosexuality is views as a disorder accompanied by a psychic disturbance, the call for healing of the latter implies a call for the healing of the former, which suggests that Diogenes subscribes to the ex-gay cult mythology. Or has Diogenes thought out the implication of what he is saying? Is he merely spewing hatred? There are legions of such Catholics and they see themselves as doing the Vatican's work.

"It's this unwavering insistence on the homosexual libido as disordered that makes the Times editors so indignant: 

The Vatican's hard line against chaste gay priests seems to be inspired by the condemnation the church justly received for its passive response to the sexual abuse of minors -- most of them male -- by some priests. But, as Pope Benedict XVI conceded during his visit to the United States this year, homosexuality isn't the same as pedophilia. That statement was a rebuke to conservative Catholics, and others, who have attempted to equate the two. (Despite the pope's enlightened comments, he approved last month's statement.) 

"As this conservative Catholic has insisted, the problem isn't gays, but priests who sodomize persons of the same gender; blue collar slang provides several technically accurate alternatives to the gay-label."

COMMENT: This conservative Catholic feels that his religion obliges him to use unprintable hate speech.

"But the motive for the Guidelines suggested by the Times is false.  As Msgr. Bruguès made clear at last month's press conference, the document was initiated back in 1995, seven years prior to the general crisis and condemnation to which the Times refers.  The ignorance imputed to the Holy See is, in reality, the Times' own blunder presented to us as a deduction."

COMMENT: Nonetheless, the timing of the crackdown on gay seminarians, as well as some comments made at the time of its publication in 2005, leave no doubt that the sexual abuse of minors was a major determining factor. The idea that the Church only now, unprompted, discovered that gays are incapable of spiritual paternity, is not plausible.

"Having grudgingly conceded that the Church enjoys the right to enforce even unenlightened norms among her own members, the editors' next move is to insinuate that the psychologists who assist the Church in screening seminarians are guilty of an ethics violation: 

Yet even if the U.S. church is following a more compassionate policy than Vatican pronouncements would seem to authorize, the role of psychologists in screening applicants raises troubling ethical questions, as even psychologists who approve of such cooperation admit. Aiding the church in weeding out homosexuals is hard to reconcile with these guidelines of the American Psychological Assn.

"Troubling ethical questions. Right. Note the kicker in the last paragraph: 

If the church -- or a diocese within the church -- takes the Vatican decree literally, it's hard to see how a psychologist could lend his or her expertise to the thwarting of a young man's aspiration to serve God simply because he happens to be gay. In our view, that's not just cruel; it's unprofessional. 

"Does the Times really care about psychologists' smirching their honor?  Of course not. The point is to increase the odium directed at the teaching Church, and, more importantly, to nudge the issue of the Church's stance on homosexuality out of the "free exercise" sphere toward the publicly regulated sphere, as a potential violation of civil rights."

COMMENT: The point is not to increase the odium but to point out one further odious effect of an account of homosexual orientatation that contradicts psychological expertise and common sense.  A psychologist who lends himself or herself to this charade might be compared to one who would offer his or her services to determine whether a woman was a witch. 

"Pay attention to how the language sets up the move.  We're presented with a young man whose wish to serve God (and we all know the esteem the Times has for THAT desire) has been thwarted "simply because he happens to be gay." So we've got a wholesome wish (priesthood) that a man who "happens" to be disqualified is prevented from realizing "simply because" he has that disqualification."

COMMENT: There are certainly such young men. Is Diogenes such a cynic that he cannot believe that?

" Where have we heard that language before? First the plea is for tolerance, then acceptance, then ennoblement, and finally compulsion of those who refuse to acknowledge the new regime.   

"What's behind the fury fueling the protests against Proposition 8?  Outrage that voters still have a right to be wrong -- and the Church (in the protestors' view) is the villainess at the back of the bigotry.  What the Times calls cruel and unprofessional today will inevitably be termed intolerable tomorrow."

COMMENT: The fury over Proposition 8 came firstly from gays themselves, who believe they should have the right to marry. The Church denies them this right, but offers no credible explanation or no substantial support for any alternative. The wish for gay marriage is just as wholesome as the wish to be a seminarian; in both cases we are dealing with a generous, loving commitment.

Vatican Instruction, Church Reception

I had intended to write on the theme of this year's Japan Mission Journal, "Living Together as Church," in the light shed by the forthcoming Encyclical on love of God and love of neighbor, but unfortunately it will not appear in time. It may address what has been the most distressing feature of Christian history: our inability to live peacefully with others, notably the Jewish people, or with our fellow-Christians. To heal this great sickness of our tradition we must practice not just tolerance, but mutual love, that is, active hospitality to the other, stepping out of our way to make them feel at home among us. For Japanese Christians, in particular, the presence of so many immigrants in their midst is a grace-filled opportunity to practice such hospitality, and where that it done it brings a blessing on their life as a community.
  Etymologically, "living together" could recall "conviviality" and "symbiosis," words that suggest a joyful and enriching intimacy, as we grow into the life of another person and allow that person to grow into ours. In the past, people of different sorts lived together in small close-knit communities. Each member of the village or rural community would know a great deal about all the others. Today, however, there is a tendency for people to split into ghettoized groups, meeting only people like themselves. Interaction between the young and the old, between the well-off and the needy, and between people from different walks of life has diminished. No longer thrust together, people choose their society with the aid of the internet and the mobile phone, and become adept at strategies of avoidance. To recover a culture of symbiosis and conviviality is not easy. The Eucharistic community is a rare oasis of such a culture in the modern city.

A New Challenge
One aspect of living together as church that has come to prominence this year is the question of the Church's attitude to its gay and lesbian members. Living together as a sexually diverse community is not a major problem for enlightened modern urban society. In many Christian churches the Eucharistic assembly, too, is a place where homosexual and heterosexual people meet in friendship. The acceptance of gays in such churches has brought a rich experience of conviviality and symbiosis that has made it impossible to go back to the culture of concealment, non-recognition and fear.
  The clergy has always contained a percentage of gay people, and homoerotic feeling must have played some discreet role in cementing the homosocial culture of the male religious orders and the secular presbyterate. With the recent massive exodus of heterosexual men the ratio of homosexual priests has risen. Moreover, in the USA at least, gay priests are more likely than before to be sexually active. A culture of "don't ask, don't tell" and of turning a blind eye has created a wall of mutually protective silence between priests and their bishops. But this method of living together has been punctured as the recklessness of some has brought on a spate of prosecutions for molestation of minors and a high incidence of AIDS. In addition, it is said that gay priests form collective subcultures within the Church, which are increasingly vocal and visible.
  Both superiors and the faithful can often be heard saying, "we don't care if the priest is heterosexual or homosexual, as long as he lives his celibacy faithfully." But there may be something hollow about this appeal to celibacy. Sacrosanct in official church discourse, and strongly reaffirmed at the recent Synod, the ideal of celibacy nonetheless seems to have lost its aura for many priests, no longer imposing with the same unquestionable imperative force as in the past. Hollow words, not matched by substantial reality, create a very unhealthy climate. Indeed, in a recent public inquiry into sexual abuse of minors in an Irish diocese, the culture of celibacy was identified as a major factor in the problem.
 
The Instruction
On November 29, the Congregation for Catholic Education issued an "Instruction concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment regarding Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to Seminaries and Holy Orders," signed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski. This publication occurred after months of announcements, rumors, speculation, and confusion, which had ensured for the document an extraordinary degree of publicity, so much so that it may have usurped the place of the encyclical as the document setting the tone of the new pontificate.
The mediatization of the Church is seen in the "leaks" to the media, the instant reactions on the internet, and the "spin" in the interpretation of the rumored text at every stage. The leaks seem to reflect an ideological struggle within the Curia itself, with each side trying to put its own spin on the document in advance. As I write, it seems that a relatively "benign" interpretation is winning the day and that the Vatican has no plans to contest it or to offer further clarification. The rather uncanny speed and relative uniformity of the Episcopal response to the document is perhaps the product of coaching from the liberals in the Vatican itself, who must surely have been consulted by several bishops in recent months.
Distinguishing "between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies," the Instruction says that the former are "intrinsically immoral" and the latter, the "deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which are present in a certain number of men and women," are "objectively disordered and are often a trial for such people." The text goes on to say that such people "must be accepted with respect and sensitivity." But it adds that "the Church, even while deeply respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to Seminary or Holy Orders those who are actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture." The text then gives the reason for this exclusion: "Such people, in fact, find themselves in a situation that seriously obstructs them from properly relating to men and women." Even "homosexual tendencies that might only be a manifestation of a transitory problem… must be clearly overcome at least three years before diaconal Ordination." (These transitory tendencies, Card. Grocholewski explained on Vatican Radio, could be due to "an uncompleted adolescence, some kind of curiosity; or perhaps accidental circumstances, a drunken state, maybe particular circumstances like a person who was imprisoned for many years…Or, these acts are done because one wants to obtain some sort of advantage...") The candidate is warned not "to hide his own homosexuality, regardless of everything, to arrive at ordination." A covering letter adds that priests with homosexual tendencies should not teach in seminaries.
  If this document were enacted as it stands it would put a complete end to all the problems of clerical homosexuality mentioned above. Instead of symbiosis with gay priests, the Church would simply eliminate them. But, as Fr Timothy Radcliffe has urged, such a "solution" would be seen as profoundly offensive by many Catholics. Moreover, it is impractible, not only because it would entail a large cut in the number of priests, with little prospect of heterosexual replacements, but because it implies a delving into intimate matters that would be even more difficult to operate than the tracing of colored ancestry of apparently white people under the Apartheid regime in South Africa. That such unsavory analogies leap to mind in itself speaks volumes against the Instruction if interpreted in this way.

The "Benign" Interpretation
Some receptions of the Instruction suggest a tendency to see it as addressing a peculiarly American problem. The Archbishop of Yaounde, while deploring the rise of disruptive homosexual practices in Cameroon, claimed it would be difficult to find in religious institutions "such aberrations that are at the antipodes of our traditional society which approached sexual questions with great modesty and religious respect." This strategy of avoidance cannot be followed in countries where sexuality is openly discussed. What has emerged instead is an ingenious method of squaring the document with the ideas of decency widespread in these societies.
On first reading this text it seemed to me very clear that it excludes from the seminary anyone who has an exclusive or predominant homosexual orientation, that is, who is sexually attracted to members of the same sex rather than of the other sex (anyone between 2 and 6 on the Kinsey Scale), and that it also excludes persons with incidental homosexual feelings (1 on the Kinsey Scale) unless they have long outgrown them. When I read the interpretation of Timothy Radcliffe I thought that he was indulging in wishful thinking and playing fast and loose with the plain sense of the text. I even suspected that he was writing tongue in cheek in such passages as the following: "The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has often given tendentious interpretations of the writings of theologians. Theologians, in turn, give the most negative possible interpretation to Vatican documents… As a Church we must find another way of listening to each other, which really attends to what is said." However, as the Master of the Dominicans from 1992 to 2001, Radcliffe knows Rome like the back of his hand, so his interpretation carries great weight.
It all hangs on a point that I did not notice when I read the text-namely, that the word "orientation" is never used, only the words "tendencies" and "homosexuality." A further point that had never occurred to me is signaled by Radcliffe's confrere, Bruce Williams of the Angelicum, in a text circulated on the internet on Nov. 30. He claims that in documents of the Magisterium "consistently and without exception, the word 'homosexual' always bears on genital activity," so that when homosexuality is described as "objectively disordered" what is referred to is not the homosexual orientation as such but only homosexual concupiscence. If this interpretation is tenable, the Catechism's description of homosexuality as "objectively disordered" loses much of its objectionable character. As to the Instruction, it does not exclude one who "experiences warm affection toward men," but for whom "homogenital temptations are extremely infrequent and always dismissed quickly and easily. He has never been sexually attracted to women, though he relates normally and even warmly to them also."
The "interpretive dance," as Michael Winters calls it in The New Republic, was a dizzying whirl in the hours and days following the release of the Instruction. It was like watching people rushing to defuse an explosive. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor forthrightly stated that "the Instruction is not saying that men of homosexual orientation are not welcome in the priesthood" - and indeed it had not said so in so many words. Andrew Greeley hailed the Instruction as "a stinging defeat" for those who would ban gays from seminaries, and professed to find in it unprecedented positive language about gays.
The US Conference of Major Superiors of Men lauded the Instruction's emphasis on affective maturity for two pages, then addressed the homosexual topic in a single sentence: "Since the Instruction speaks directly about persons with homosexual tendencies, it is important to thank those religious who have been examples of celibate chastity and to remind us that we are brothers to one another." Seamus Murphy, SJ, of Milltown Institute, Dublin, wrote: "The term 'deep-rooted homosexual tendencies' could refer to men conflicted about their sexuality and tempted to escape facing it through an emotionally immature option for the seminary" (The Irish Times, Dec. 2). Many dioceses said that they were already practicing what the Instruction preached, by seeking to ensure affective maturity.
The naysayers were outnumbered and outmaneuvred. One such was Bishop John M. D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend: "I would say yes, absolutely, it does bar anyone whose sexual orientation is towards one's own sex and it's permanent. I don't think there's any doubt about it. . . . I don't think we can fuss around with this." Richard Neuhaus, said to be close to the Pope, dismissed the argument, put forward by Fr Radcliffe, that the past existence of good gay priests meant that the document could not intend to exclude gay people as such: "It is really no argument at all that, since those with disqualifying disabilities were ordained in the past, they should be ordained in the future. Those who try to make that argument should have the honesty to admit that they are not interpreting but rejecting the directives of Rome." Yet reception as rejection was indeed what was taking place; reception of the document's insistence on affective maturity, rejection of its specific ruling on homosexuality.
The official commentary in L'Osservatore Romano on Nov. 29 was discounted, even ridiculed, as an example of how the document must not be interpreted. The author, Tony Anatrella SJ, states that the text is aimed at people with "an exclusive attraction to persons of the same sex." Such persons, no matter how chaste, will "have serious difficulties situating themselves institutionally in cooperation with others," and be prone to "manipulation of ideas and people" and to "closing oneself off in a clan of persons of the same type." They will tend to "a mode of vocational discernment that seeks candidates in his own image," "relations with authority based on seduction and rejection," and "an often limited vision of truth and a selective way of presenting the Gospel message." A priest should be a man "suitable for marriage" and "able to exercise fatherhood over his children," if he is to incarnate a "spousal bond" with the Church and "spiritual paternity."
Some liberals, too, insisted, with no greater success, on the apparent literal sense of the Instruction. James Martin SJ said: "It will be very tempting for Catholics, especially liberal ones, to focus on questions of 'interpretation' and 'application,' in the hope that the document won't really mean what it says. They are talking about what the contemporary world commonly understands to be gay men, that is, men with a homosexual orientation. … There's little that is unclear." Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry said: "Bishop Skylstad's statement [as president of the US bishops' conference] is great if that's what the document said. But that's not what the document said. What the document says is that gay men are suspect because of their orientation, and ... because of this orientation, that they are not going to be faithful bearers of the gospel." Andrew Sullivan predicated a series of attacks on the Instruction on the literal reading of the text.
Breda O'Brien, in The Irish Times, complained about the document's ambiguity: "Why not write something like 'someone whose homosexual tendencies verge on the obsessive, making it extremely unlikely that he could live out a life of celibacy'? Why, in such a sensitive area, should it not be crystal-clear?" Some have replied that Vatican documents are of their nature not intended to be crystal-clear, but this is hardly true. Humanae Vitae, for example, spelt out its message in a rich discussion and stated its ruling with perfect clarity. The laconic and formulaic nature of Roman statements on homosexuality is due to an unwillingness to open the kind of discussion and consultation that lay behind Humanae Vitae.

Calls for Dialogue
  The Instruction seems to have been very unfavorably received in Ireland, where recent public inquiries into clerical sexual abuse have left a lot of pain and disillusion. Senator David Norris wrote: "It was very interesting to observe the mainstream response to the latest diatribe from Rome as reflected in the national media over the past few days. The Vatican seems to have misjudged the mood of the people (at least in Ireland), and I am heartily glad for that. It is about time, too. Very few of us can have remained unmoved hearing the comments of the sister of a young Donegal man who took his own life in recent weeks partly because of the bullying and rejection he had suffered because he was gay" (Irish Times, Dec. 3). Rather than fearing that the document will be a weapon in the hands to homophobes, there is a fear that it will add to the fires of anti-clericalism and anti-Catholicism now burning so fiercely in Catholic Ireland. (I noticed in a Japanese online discussion that the document was taken by many as showing the violence and intolerance of the Catholic Church.)
  Reacting to Anatrella, Norris asked how anyone claiming psychoanalytical credentials could state baldly that homosexuality is "an incomplete and immature part of human sexuality." Norris contested "the blunt, callous and untrue statement that homosexuality is 'against conjugal life, the life of the family and priestly life,'" pointing out that "the gay community is moving all the time towards a greater endorsement of committed relationships. Moreover, we are all part of families, and many of us are in fact priests, so the statement is a nonsense as well as being cruel." He praised "prelates, who are trying to wrestle with the subject of homosexuality and to find in this horrid text some way of wrenching comfort from its weasel words for the gay members of their flock." His conclusion is thought-provoking: "No Christian church has ever been honest with its flock or told the truth about human sexuality. Those of us who remain with difficulty within the fold of the Christian church are waiting for a prophetic voice that will declare the truth, however complex, difficult and awkward, and allow us to explore the freedom that comes with honesty." In the same vein, Dave Donnellan, a former Holy Ghost missionary in Asia, told The Irish Times that "ultimately, gay people have to sit down with the bishops and leading church authorities and say 'this is who we are.' We have never experienced such engagement. It is a remote possibility in the short term and would be very difficult for both sides."
Clearly, the impact of the Instruction goes far beyond the world of the clergy or even of the Catholic Church. The problems its reception have lit up cannot be addressed except in a spirit of open discussion, not only with insiders like John McNeill, Mark Jordan, Richard Sipe, Jeannine Gramick (personae non gratae who need to be brought in from the cold) but with ordinary gay and lesbian Catholics and with the wider community. An investment in dialogue would be far more profitable than the years wasted on preparing the current Instruction, which seems destined, if the current line of interpretation holds, to remain a damp squib and a dead letter.
Affective Maturity
  If there are ambiguities in the Instruction, there are still greater ones in the responses. One wonders, for example, what the bishops and religious superiors understand by the term "affective maturity." In a certain clerical mindset, just as sexual maturity means celibate continence, affective maturity means control and repression of emotion. Bachelors, who live protected and emotionally sheltered lives, could then be seen as affectively mature, whereas married people, who have weathered the ups and downs of an intimate relationship, cared for their children in sickness, and suffered heartbreak in time of tragedy, would still be mere learners on the path to maturity.
  It may be that when the religious superiors talk of affective maturity their angle of vision is radically at odds with that of the Curia. They may realize for example that the deepest emotions of some priests are connected with sexual affairs, which have often brought them into touch with the bitter side of life. Even when they speak of celibacy and chastity, they may understand these notions in a sense that remains to be interpreted. Having seen what clever exegetes can do with a carefully formulated curial document, one can be forgiven for suspecting depths of intention behind even the most innocuous-sounding expressions.

The Church Moves On
In short an interpretive tsunami seems to be sweeping the Vatican whither it would not go. This process of reception could be seen as damage control, or could be taken as a magnificent example of the Church at larger exercising the authority proper to it. The Curia proposes, the church disposes. Those of us who recall the liberal interpretations offered of Humanae Vitae by the Canadian and Japanese bishops in 1968 will be aware that such modalities of "reception" have an honored place in church history. One recalls Msgr Dupanloup's irenic interpretation of the "Syllabus of Errors" in 1865, for which he was thanked by six hundred bishops and the Pope himself. Perhaps Fr Radcliffe and Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor will be deemed worthy of similar gratitude when the dust settles.
Once a Vatican document is published it becomes a text of the church rather than just the people who wrote it. The reach of the curial arm is limited. The way the Church grips it and points it in the desired direction can make all the difference. "Reception" rather than confrontation is the time-honored Catholic strategy, a far more vibrant and creative one than might be imagined.
John McNeill declares that the Instruction will inspire priests and laity to look to God for guidance and ignore the oppressive hierarchy. He calls this "just another sign of God's shrewdness." As to gays, "they've come to see Church teaching on homosexuality as destroying their self-image, so they've had direct access to God, based on prayer, spirituality and freedom on conscience." Such appeals to a sensus fidelium seen as bypassing a dysfunctional church bureaucracy are no new phenomenon in the history of the Church. The best way to counter them is to give ample representation to lay concerns, as at a General Council. Should there emerge a split between the papacy and the worldwide episcopate on issues concerning homosexuality, this would be another pointer to the need of a conciliar resolution.
  A happy ending, then? Alas, no. The interpretation that the Church is putting on the document involves a strained if not desperate reading. The document circulates independently of this interpretation and will be quoted again and again by those seeking ammunition against gays. It will also cause anger and alienation in many Catholics who will apply its words to themselves or their gay children. The final reception of the document lies in the future, when the Church will be able to look back on it - as it looks back on the "Syllabus of Errors" - from a more mature perspective.