The Vatican has decided that homosexuality is to be extirpated from the priesthood. Andrew Sullivan is upset. Two questions.
Can they do it? At a reasonable estimate, 50% of the American priesthood is gay; and such a network will not only resist being defrocked themselves, but will fight back in the seminaries.
Would they stamp down on heterosexual abuse as hard? I think perhaps the positions are very similar. Some people in Rome would like to, but the central authorities are powerless against the force of local custom and hormones.
So, if this policy is to work, it can only be in conjunction with a married priesthood.
Hi Andrew,
I think what’s more likely (in a worse case scenario) is what I’ve read in some icy letters to the editor from Opus Dei members and hard line conservative types. That is, that Rome is considering writing off the U.S. if necessary rather than make any serious changes.
There’s nothing like bureaucratic inertia; as a law of human nature, I think it probably belongs right up there alongside Newton’s First Law.
Well, I’ll believe that Opus Dei is serious when I see the figures for financial contributions from the USA and Germany, and someone comes up with a plan for the Vatican to do without them.
It really is impossible to see how the next Pope can avoid a married priesthood.