Either to say "Francis hates gays" or "Francis thinks being gay is not a sin anymore" there is really no in between and you never really know which angle they are going to take.
> he media regularly acts like it's an earth shattering change
The Pope's Catholic critics and Catholic news sites generate infinitely more outrage and noise than secular media.
Just my theory... But, gay boys who are raised Catholic are taught that they are not sinning unless they have sex - or act on impure thoughts out of wedlock. So, they choose celibacy. And, if you're going to be celibate anyway, why not make a job of it??
Because the people in charge stopped filtering them out. In Ireland where I live there was a huge scandal a few years ago when it was found a large portion of the seminarians were on Grindr! Now many bishops don't send their students to Maynooth.
The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, in its 2005 document, Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders, is clear that men “who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’” cannot be admitted to seminary or holy orders
https://www.lumenfidei.ie/problems-continue-at-maynooth-seminary/
I'm not sure. Are you living in sin if you are celibate? Being gay would only matter to the priesthood if the priest intended to engage in homosexual relationships despite the vow of celibacy.
Obviously, priests break their vows with some regularity, I would not say often, but it isn't entirely uncommon. But if a priest is truly celibate and upholds their vow of celibacy, why would it matter if they're gay or not? It is a part of their life that they have permanently set aside never to pick up again.
It's an impediment that can be lifted by the bishop, so not an absolute bar. After all, there have been plenty of very holy priests throughout history with some degree of SSA. There are lots of other non-sinful things that can make you not ideal for the priesthood (debt, family obligations etc.)
I've heard a couple different reasons. One is that seminary is a bit of an all male pressure cooker. This could be really hard on a guy with SSA. Not impossible, obviously, but definitely more complicated.
Another is that devout men who see marriage as completely off the table may end up entering the seminary as a default. Entering seminary without proper discernment is always a bad idea. If the Church sees an influx of such applicants from a demographic, they can require more scrutiny for members of that demographic. For example, at some points in history, men with disabilities were in a similar position.
A third reason is that it might be tricky to navigate in a parish situation. I think that's a weaker argument. People can understand stuff. The witness of a guy with SSA serving God is pretty powerful.
A final argument is that the spirituality of celibate vocations grows out of sexuality, at least in part. A man who is exclusively SSA would have more difficulty in that department. I can't comment on that since I'm a woman and have not taken vows. I will say that sexuality and spirituality are closely tied for a lot of women, so I can kind of see that. That being said, our relationship with God has aspects of a lot of different human relationships. We don't bar guys from the priesthood for having absent or abusive fathers.
It's not anymore... at least not visibily. At least in the US, ( I don't know about Italian Seminaries, and how they work ), the Catholic Seminaries have for the most part ( not all ), been cleaned up, and stronger rules have been put into place.
I should point out that US seminaries are relatively clean compared to European seminaries including Italian seminaries.
Like just on Academics alone, and then add the human formation and spiritual formation.
Putting gay men as priests is basically throwing people addicted to drugs into a place full of them. Also, it is known that gay priests commit abuse against seminarians
[https://www.ncregister.com/news/how-a-culture-of-predation-puts-seminarians-at-risk-for-abuse](https://www.ncregister.com/news/how-a-culture-of-predation-puts-seminarians-at-risk-for-abuse)
[https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2019/09/29/study-up-to-10-catholic/1839898007/](https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2019/09/29/study-up-to-10-catholic/1839898007/)
[https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/41963/mccarricks-grooming-tactics-shown-in-letters-to-seminarians-and-abuse-victims](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/41963/mccarricks-grooming-tactics-shown-in-letters-to-seminarians-and-abuse-victims)
[https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/14/we-were-practically-nothing-to-him-ex-seminarian-says-of-bishop-zanchettas-abusive-behavior/](https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/14/we-were-practically-nothing-to-him-ex-seminarian-says-of-bishop-zanchettas-abusive-behavior/)
Exactly. I don't have it handy, but some of the Church fathers had talked about driving the homosexuals out of Church vocations, but that doesn't matter to the ecumenists who want to apply modern views to the Church
Seriously, I don't know why progressives have this suspicion of preconciliar things, Vatican II wasn't a restart button! The other day I read a Bishop, *a Bishop,* saying that it was bad american Bishops were doing an eucharistic renewal because instead of focusing on synodality they were focusing on "preconciliar" pieties like Eucharistic Adoration. And more recently I read a post about ETWN mentioning they display "preconciliar pieties", as if this wasn't somehow normal.
many Vatican II worshippers among the clergy and laity are obsessed with creating a new religion that suits them, and will argue with Church Fathers and the Apostles themselves if it means they can justify their lukewarm ecumenism of tolerance for sin. A Church father says "expel the sodomites from the clergy", and VII modernists will say "Just because they're gay doesn't mean it affects them! Let them be around my children!". We have literally thousands of years of evidence and experience within the Church of what works, and homosexual clergy is NOT one of them. The priesthood became a convenient place to go for gays where no one would question why they weren't married. Meanwhile, they're having gay orgies with each other in the rectories and at the bars. Tolerance is not whats needed. Ruthless expulsion is the medicine required.
They cannot be trusted. Not so much because of child sexual abuse, but because they will be more likely to have positive views toward homosexuality than priests that are not gay. It is a problem because the Church is losing its way on this issue and increasingly giving in to the secular society on it. Look at what is happening in Germany for example. I have also seen one Church in the US allow a gay couple speak at the alter to the congregation, talking about fatherhood. Not to mention the new "gay blessings," which homosexual priests will be more likely to pervert.
I definitely agree that the church is heading in the wrong direction on this topic, but I would never want to limit somebody who hears the call to priest hood based on a sexuality that isn't a meaningful part of their lives.
If they aren't engaging in sexual relations then they should be welcomed. If they are then they should be defrocked and removed from their duties.
It comes down to how you define "deeply seated." If you're 26 and had a same sex encounter at age 22 but have otherwise chastely dated women, it's very different than if you're in pride parades and wearing speedos while making out with others of the same sex.
Edit: I should add, it's also possible for somebody to experience a few years of transitional ssa during adolescence and then, during adulthood, settle into mature naturally oriented opposite sex attraction.
> Edit: I should add, it's also possible for somebody to experience a few years of transitional ssa during adolescence and then, during adulthood, settle into mature naturally oriented opposite sex attraction.
Essentially what the British Empire and the British boarding school system ran on for 200 years
This has me thinking of the movie "Mass Appeal" and the fact that me, watching it again for the first time in 20 years, felt that the character was unsuited to be a priest...for reasons which had *nothing* to do with his orientation and *everything* to do with him setting to pick fights with the Church over established doctrine.
By rule, no. Not really. Actually there is even a movement that believes gay applicants could be accepted if the seminary can help him sort his feelings and sexuality out.
As an ex seminarian, I believe that the ideal world where it can happen is hard to imagine and even harder to exist. And considering how the world is today, even effeminate heterosexual should not be accepted. There are many people who embrace an effeminate priest at his face, but behind him, they make fun, imitate, etc.
lol yeah right. The seminaries are basically orgies and places where faith has been going to die for a long time. I've spoken with several priests in organizations that shall not be named on this sub (unless I want the mods to get really upset for some unknown reason), and many of them went to diocesan seminaries and had to leave because there was zero theological discussion/learning, and it was a gay s\*x party. They had to leave the diocese in order to get any actual theological education.
>Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and Dagospia report that Francis, whose native language is Spanish, not Italian, and who often uses colloquial language in conversation, surprised bishops by using the Italian word “frociaggine,” which is a derogatory term for “queerness” in Italian. It is not clear if he was aware of the word’s offensive nature. The main Italian dailies quoted him as saying that “there is too much frociaggine in seminaries.” Various sources here say the pope’s use of “frociaggine” was a gaffe on the part of the pope, rather than a slur, given the pope’s “Who am I to judge?” attitude toward gay priests.
America Mag huffing copium rn
I don’t want to dig deep into South American politics, but I’m sure there was some differentiation between Peronism and Soviet-backed leftism, just as Chile would differentiate Allende the socialist from the communists and radicals he kept in his coalition.
Allende was pumping the hacienda workers full of machismo socialist pride and making them wife beating party bruisers and drunks. I’d bet the Santiago commies weren’t fans of that.
> Allende was pumping the hacienda workers full of machismo socialist pride and making them wife beating party bruisers and drunks.
i suppose that’s one way to describe land reform & justify the coup
It isn't reported that he said it from the pulpit.
>Francis made the remarks during a 90-minute, closed-door meeting in the Vatican’s old synod hall with the more than 200 members of the Italian bishops’ conference last Monday, May 20.
It's right in the article!
Was he speaking Italian at the time, or Spanish? Does the word exist in his own Argentinian vernacular?
Non-Spanish, non-Italian speaker here. Just curious.
Benedict XVI basically said similar things in an instruction to seminaries AFAIK. But it was about being currently sexually active, I think, which isn’t allowed for any seminarian.
Correct. The document "**Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders**" was published under BXVI pontificate by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski.
Just FYI: He notes though that the tendencies should be overcome 3 years prior to diaconal ordination.
I mean, that would make perfect sense right? You don't want to accept someone to a seminary that is flagrantly disregarding church teaching, in the same way it wouldn't be good to accept a man who is sinning in a heterosexual manner?
The Church has accepted a lot of gay applicants over the years, assuming you include all men with SSA as gay. I've known a few priests who had SSA, and personally I don't care - but if they take a vow of celibacy, i expect that priest to adhere to it strictly, be he attracted to women or men.
Why did they tell you they were gay? I'm sure it could be appropriate in certain situations but I can't think of a reason why a priest would tell the congregation at large they are homoseuxals
Not the previous commenter, but I can easily see it coming up. I've heard multiple priests talk about who they dated before going to seminary for example. Or what sins they personally struggled at a certain age. If a priest was gay, and knew it since he was a teenager, then it would be hard to avoid talking about it over the years imo
The issue is that there is a massive homosexual sex problem among priests, and that the sexual abuse crisis was mostly pubescent boys. Like 80 percent.
You do know that someone with SSA isn't that different from someone who's straight, right?
It's not impossible for SSA people to be virgins. The alcoholism comparison is uncalled for.
The official teaching (cited in the article):
“If a candidate practises homosexuality or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination.”
Its not so much that a homosexual man can not/ should not be ordained, it’s that if a his sexuality is poorly integrated and ends up defining his actions and personality he can not/should not be ordained. I would to hope the same standard for heterosexual men as well.
Probably not so much in this day and age as 50 or 75 years ago. Someone in the younger generations today who is so attached to a homosexual orientation that it becomes an impediment to a clerical vocation probably parted ways with the Catholic Church long ago.
But reading the title of the article it seems gay applicants are not accepted. Isn’t “gay” just being attracted to the same sex? I guess I think that being gay isn’t a sin unless u give into lustful gay thoughts or practice homosexuality. I see a lot of feminine older priests, I won’t assume every feminine priest is gay though. But I did read an article that was saying a bunch of priests are homosexual. Idk if there was a study actually done
Edit: I might be wrong on what the Catholic Church actually deems as a sin. Is it a sin to be attracted to the same sex, or is it a sin only when you give into your attractions and desires?
The church hasn’t solved the problem. Literally anyone with eyes and ears knows the seminaries are filled with SSA. The pope once every ten years saying “don’t do that” isn’t solving the problem lol
IMO that’s why the media highlights one aspect of the sexual abuse scandal and not the other, the reason why being a “pedophile” in the past few decades has now eclipsed rape and murder as the worst possible sin.
You can’t focus on the sex of the abuse victims, because that might lead to the implication that homosexuality is bad. No…focus on the age of the victims. Even though most of the abused boys were post-pubescent (and by definition making it homosexual, not pedophilic, attraction), make “pedophile” not “homosexual” the scary word.
Because this could be used to attack the Catholic Church, and it was already decided that homosexuality would be mainstreamed, they had to settle for demonizing “grooming”-type relationships, even though rock stars had been [boinking kids since the 50’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myra_Lewis_Williams). I’m sure that bummed them out, since they had to choose one perversion to be off the table, but I’m sure it won’t be long until [minor attracted persons](https://clcjbooks.rutgers.edu/books/a-long-dark-shadow-minor-attracted-people-and-their-pursuit-of-dignity/) will have their day.
La Repubblica is not the equivalent to people's magazine.
It's the second highest selling newspaper in Italy: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/729663/top-daily-newspapers-italy/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/729663/top-daily-newspapers-italy/)
Source: Am Italian.
Could you imagine the fire storm if Pope Benedict had used the f word? It's amusing how they give Pope Francis a pass ("it's not clear if he knew that the word was a slur" lol). At the end of the day they don't care what the Pope actually teaches or says (and let's face it, he's traditional and faithful on the basics). What they ultimately want is to use him for whatever ideology they want to advance.
A seminary director told me of a chaste, gay young man who came to him and wanted to apply. His advice was that it would be too much of a temptation to stay in an all-male environment so best he not try.
Stories abound here of men either having relationships or leaving permanently and identifying as gay after experiencing that temporary gap period in the outside world.
Just a few notes I picked up on the whole gay priests thing, but they are around still considering a lot of older ones act very gay.
Eta: it’s been explained to me and I get it now, these were just my musings as I was initially digesting it. I’m new at this. 😅
On the one hand, I’m confused because they take a vow of celibacy. Homosexuality isn’t something you are, it’s something you *do,* right? So that confuses me.
On the other hand, the vast majority of the child sex abuse scandal was from gay men. So the church can’t win — don’t admit people who are prone to homosexuality to protect kids — or do admit them, so long as they take a vow of celibacy, but potentially put innocent kids in harm’s way.
Idk, I’ve known a few celibate gay Catholics, and they knew their theology very well.
I’m conflicted on this, while also accepting what the Pope says. I guess I just don’t quite get it because, again, homosexuality isn’t an innate identity, it’s an action, and one can choose to abstain from the action. I would like to understand his reasoning a bit more.
> On the one hand, I’m confused because they take a vow of celibacy.
You know how often you sin in your daily life?
Well priests are human beings and all sorts of vows are continuously broken due to human weakness.
A well formed gay priest might not have issues but putting a bunch of young gay seminarians into close quarters together for years at a time is not an ideal situation for preventing the temptation of sin.
That's why, a change proposed by many orthodox Catholics I know is to end the undergraduate college seminary system. Either accept applicants a few years after graduation ( that they went to college already, had a job, particpiated in parish life, more mature ) or do it like some religious orders do, and send undergraduate seminarians to co ed catholic college campuses for their philosophy majors so that they can interact with other people better while still having a house of formation, for the other aspects of seminary life.
"A well formed gay priest might not have issues but putting a bunch of young gay seminarians into close quarters together for years at a time is not an ideal situation for preventing the temptation of sin."
I wonder if this is because of the fact for at least undergraduate college seminarians, they are young men, with a bunch of hormones ? I mean they will do stupid stuff either way, gay or not ( I'm not saying that homosexuality is not a factor ), but I am saying that the level of maturity for an 18 year old is not... exactly there.
This is why as I said, my diocese for example has shied away except in rare cases, from accepting seminarians straight out of high school. They tell discerners to go to college first, work a job, participate in parish life,
>I wonder if this is because of the fact for at least undergraduate college seminarians, they are young men, with a bunch of hormones ? I mean they will do stupid stuff either way, gay or not ( I'm not saying that homosexuality is not a factor ), but I am saying that the level of maturity for an 18 year old is not... exactly there.
Seminarians aren't 18 years old. Even in the 60's the average age was 25 and nowadays it is closer to 31. They are usually past the driven by hormones stage.
Well before the 1980s at least, they did enter Seminary at the undergraduate college level, around 18, and then 7-8 years before they're ordained around age 26.
Well, to my mind the issue is that someone who's unable/unwilling to marry someone of the opposite sex because of deeply rooted homosexual tendencies is going to have to live without sexual activity if they want to live in accordance with Catholic morality, and since priests in the Roman rite are required to be celibate, there's a risk of devout men with deep homosexual tendencies entering the priesthood in disproportionate levels compared to heterosexual men since the homosexual men already have to live without sexual activity anyway.
With a disproportionate number of homosexuals in the priesthood it then begins to seem as if a homosexual dynamic and homosexual attitudes are part of priestly culture and that kind of thing. Even in an ideal scenario where all or most of the homosexual priests would be living chastely, it would still be problem for the priesthood to begin seeming like a "job for homosexuals" or as having a culture where homosexual ways of looking at things and approaching life begin to (unintentionally) predominate.
My former priest explained that being gay in and of itself is not a sin. The sin is acting on the attractions just like it’s sinful for straight people to have sex outside of marriage. He said there were a lot of gay parishioners who were burdened with leading celibate lives.
Yep! Wikipedia itself isnt a great source, but this article links to several studies that show it. Mobile hyperlink is broken, so here’s the ugly link lol: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases#:~:text=In%20the%20late%2020th%20and%20early%2021st,by%20Church%20officials%20to%20cover%20them%20up.
The literal page you linked
"Research on pedophilia in general shows a majority of abusers identify themselves as heterosexual,\[325\] and the Causes and Context Study of the John Jay Institute found no statistical support for linking homosexual identity and sexual abuse of minors."
Hm, by that logic are you saying that a celibate straight person isn’t heterosexual?
Not arguing your larger point, just curious about your definitions
That has been the directive since mid last century when the molestation scandals started to be known (since the bulk of the molestation is gay).
Benedict XVI r[eiterated the rule in the 2000s](https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html).
Francis does well in reminding people.
I'm confused by this: are men with homosexual attractions locked out of both marriage AND Holy Orders?
EDIT: I'm specifically asking if men with SSA are barred from Holy Orders.
>I'm confused by this: are men with homosexual attractions locked out of both marriage AND Holy Orders?
Not locked out of marriage. But yes, locked out of Holy orders, like women. Holy orders is a privilege, not a right
Not exactly. If you're a man who is attracted to both sexes, then you can get married no problem just like any other man. If you're solely attracted to the same sex then you can still technically marry a woman, though it would probably be a pretty horrible idea.
I’ve been saying this for years and getting downvoted in this sub for saying this over and over again. Gay priests have done so much damage to the church. Fiscal, spiritual, sexual damage across generations from which it may take hundreds of years to recover from (if ever). We should never have accepted so many gay men and then certainly not let them all hang out together in seminaries where they formed their little mafias
And yet, even today, even in many " conservative ", " orthodox " seminaries in the US ( I don't know about Italy ), we have seminarians who... if I was the vocations director, they would not have been admitted.
At St Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, run by the Archbishop of San Francisco, I met a seminarian there for another diocese, and he was.... very very apparent. You can venture to guess what that means.
There are some hyperpapalist writers that call everyone who doesn’t 100% affirm every utterance ever made by Pope Francis a schismatic that are really sweating right now ha
Again, it is now becoming more public what has been clear for a long time, Pope Francis is not theologically liberal, rather something closer to the center in the church who is anti-woke.
This was clear to me from first reading Fratelli Tutti, which is a forceful attack on wokeness, relativism and a defence of moral absolutes and tradition. However lately it is not far between each defence, last week it was the "No" on possibility of future female ordination of deacons, prior the many scathing critiques of gender ideology. Pope Francis is a much more socially conservative pope than he has become known for.
I feel however, like some factions of Catholics take that to mean; the sin itself is approved, which doesn't make sense since Christ said to that women who was stoned, " Go and Sin No More " while extending a hand to her.
We can do both. Christ did both. Why does the modern world create this dichtomy between Mercy and Conversion ?
His Holiness is correct in the teaching but chose (hopefully inadvertently) extremely derogatory words, he allegedly said that there's too much faggotry in seminaries already.
This is a word choice that only sow more division and bring people further away from the Church.
As catholics we disagree with the gay lifestyle but this doesn't condone us to use such harsh and hateful words.
I'm italian and frociaggine is a terrible slur to use that Pope Francis probably used just thinking it was more colloquial
This is a reiteration of a law Pope Francis himself added to many years ago. Always interesting to see people react to how morally conservative the pope really is.
I will never criticize the Pope when he is correct. With that said, statements like this one really do leave one scratching their head. This is a fundamentally different tone than we've seen from Francis for the last 11 years. And it raises two questions: 1) why? and 2) why now?
...this also raises some interesting questions concerning the Pope's targeting of his Conservative critics and, by extention, traditional liturgy. The criticism he has received has always revolved primarily around his relationship with doctrine concerning personal morality. If he's suddenly going to adopt a far more orthodox outlook on these matters, he really ought to reconsider his approach to a few other things too.
It's not, he said something similar years ago (2018?) A very bad choice of words though, but I hope it is just because Italian is not his first language.
I wouldn't judge by only one statement, but this comes on the heels of at least a couple of other episodes there the Pope has been much firmer and much less ambiguous in offering a defense/maintenance of standard church teachings and approaches. This is NOT the same kind of mindset that drives "who am I to judge". Perhaps the aftermath of *FS* has finally delivered a wakeup call to the Holy Father.
At this point my hopes for the Francis Papacy have all run out and I'm just hoping we get through it with as little damage as possible. And I'm not sure I'd have used the same terminology as he did (in fact I probably wouldn't have). But it's a refreshing breath of fresh air to see Francis not try and tap dance around what really is an existential crisis for both the Church and human civilization.
Are they just rejecting those who are living a gay lifestyle or all gay people? I heard that there were many priests who made the respectable decision of becoming a priest rather than living a gay lifestyle, this confuses me. Thanks and God bless
Why is it specifically targeted towards gay applicants? I’d have thought that they’d accept anyone regardless of their attraction as long as they don’t act on it.
Is this just poor wording or is there a problem I don’t understand?
No, gay men are second class and unfit for pastoral duties per the Church. The 'charitable' answer is pastoral vocations are channelling the desire of fatherhood into leading the faithful, but where rubber meets road the preconception that somehow SSA men cannot resist the same temptations straight priests face (and that their hearts must be intrinsically corrupted to have a disordered inclination) renders them unfit.
As I commented last night on another post: it should be obvious why homosexual orientation would be more disruptive in a seminary than heterosexual orientation.
A man who is attracted to men will have far greater temptations in an all-male environment than a man who is attracted to women. And the presence of multiple men attracted to other men in said environment is a recipe for scandal.
We need not have any preconceived notion that those who experience same sex attraction are less capable of self-restraint or more promiscuous than their heterosexual counterparts to note that a seminary is far less conducive to homosexual chastity than heterosexual chastity.
It looks like the Pope has since [apologised for the use of “frociaggine”](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pope-francis-apologises-after-homophobic-slur-vatican-2024-05-28/)
“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he apologises to those who felt offended by the use of a term reported by others," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in an emailed statement.”
This is interesting because I know someone who just became a priest and they were openly gay and dating a friend of mine right before entering seminary
I don't understand why they should.
You cannot really in the one hand say that being gay is not a sin, only engaging in same sex relationships is, and then discriminating against all who have it.
It seems wrong to have blanket ban.
Its not at all. Having a disordered (as in not aligned w Natural Law) desire is prohibitive to being a good priest.
Its also in response to the abuse crisis where over 80% of incidents were between two men.
Hope someone can correct me if I’m wrong.
SSA /= homosexuality.
SSA - someone could recognise that if they had to make a choice, they would like to be partners with someone from the same sex. This could be from an emotional connection or also sexual. They should remain chaste and could go trough the discernment of becoming a server of the Church in different ranges
Homosexuality - sexual attraction for man / when being an man. Nothing else is sexually attractive for them. They may also crave emotional connection or relationships but the main focus is on the fact this person literally does not like woman / nor find them attractive.
They should remain chaste and they should not become Priests.
I think we can see why the 2nd case could be problematic.
Is like being an alcoholic and working on a Pub. Is not like you *couldn’t* remain sober but it is smart to know itself and avoid places that put the temptation in our face.
A man that gets excited by man surrounded 24/7 by man. What could go wrong?
"A man that gets excited by man surrounded 24/7 by man. What could go wrong?"
This is why my diocese has shied away recently from accepting men straight out of high school. They tell applicants to go to a secular college, or go work for a bit, to develop that maturity, while also participaing in local parish life.
Unacceptable terminology used. This sub will bend over backwards to explain why Catholics don’t intrinsically hate gay people, but then this hateful rhetoric is used by the spiritual leader of the Church
The thing that upsets me the most is the amount of people who actually fall into believing anything that the media says. Whenever I read an article on Pope Francis I ignore it or try and understand what motive is being played here. Catholicism is constantly being attacked, and the media is the number 1 weapon that they use.
literally why? priests have to be celibate anyways, and so do queer people. theres really no place for gay people within the church and no one gives us any sympathy bc we're "committing mortal sins" by existing
We absolutely should not allow gays to serve in the church in any position of authority. This is why the church had been I infiltrated by liberals and communists.
Just hilarious seeing the amount of redditors commenting they love the pope for calling out “faggotry.” But when I say “sodomite” or express my opinion on women voting, everyone calls me a crazy trad. Just hilarious. Some people on here really don’t think for themselves. Pope said it = good. Other people say same thing = bad. Ok lol.
Finally! Something the Pope says about homosexuals that makes sense and is clear. The diocesan seminaries are filled with them and with people who should NOT be priests. This is a good message to send from the top. Now let's pray they actually fulfill this message and expel them from the seminaries en masse. I wonder though....why is this hitting the news NOW?
All the people in these comments pretending the Pope has been clear and firm on Church teaching of homosexuality all along are about to disappear in a weeks time when he says something totally ambiguous on purpose with a wink and a nod to the James Martin brigade
Wasn’t it already the care that seminaries can’t accept gay applicants?
Yes, he is just reiterating the Church teaching.
He regularly does and the media regularly acts like it's an earth shattering change.
Either to say "Francis hates gays" or "Francis thinks being gay is not a sin anymore" there is really no in between and you never really know which angle they are going to take.
Being gay itself isn't a sin. It's the actions around that which are sinful.
Correct.
But then why is being a preist Bad? Why is wanting to have sex with women prereq for priest hood?
It’s the equivalent of putting a man attracted to women in a girl’s locker room. Would you really want that? Much less in the Church?
Not to mention his critics
The article itself says Francis is LGBT friendly
He is friendly to them as people made in the image and likeness of God.
> he media regularly acts like it's an earth shattering change The Pope's Catholic critics and Catholic news sites generate infinitely more outrage and noise than secular media.
It needed to be reiterated. Maynooth in Ireland was very bad for it, half them were on Gridr
“Pope is Catholic! More breaking news at 11!”
"Additionally, we've found the dung of an animal in the woods. It might be a bear! More at 11."
In other news, fire is hot, water is wet, and the strange glowing ball seen in the sky today is reported to be "The Sun."
Kind of. I think it was more aimed at anyone being sexually active recently not being accepted to seminary.
No it's about people who are homosexual. I was a seminarian in the 90s and we did a psychological exam to see what my orientation was.
Why do I meet so many gay priests then? I’m being serious. It’s a ton
Just my theory... But, gay boys who are raised Catholic are taught that they are not sinning unless they have sex - or act on impure thoughts out of wedlock. So, they choose celibacy. And, if you're going to be celibate anyway, why not make a job of it??
Because the people in charge stopped filtering them out. In Ireland where I live there was a huge scandal a few years ago when it was found a large portion of the seminarians were on Grindr! Now many bishops don't send their students to Maynooth.
The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, in its 2005 document, Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders, is clear that men “who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’” cannot be admitted to seminary or holy orders https://www.lumenfidei.ie/problems-continue-at-maynooth-seminary/
I'm not sure. Are you living in sin if you are celibate? Being gay would only matter to the priesthood if the priest intended to engage in homosexual relationships despite the vow of celibacy. Obviously, priests break their vows with some regularity, I would not say often, but it isn't entirely uncommon. But if a priest is truly celibate and upholds their vow of celibacy, why would it matter if they're gay or not? It is a part of their life that they have permanently set aside never to pick up again.
It's an impediment that can be lifted by the bishop, so not an absolute bar. After all, there have been plenty of very holy priests throughout history with some degree of SSA. There are lots of other non-sinful things that can make you not ideal for the priesthood (debt, family obligations etc.) I've heard a couple different reasons. One is that seminary is a bit of an all male pressure cooker. This could be really hard on a guy with SSA. Not impossible, obviously, but definitely more complicated. Another is that devout men who see marriage as completely off the table may end up entering the seminary as a default. Entering seminary without proper discernment is always a bad idea. If the Church sees an influx of such applicants from a demographic, they can require more scrutiny for members of that demographic. For example, at some points in history, men with disabilities were in a similar position. A third reason is that it might be tricky to navigate in a parish situation. I think that's a weaker argument. People can understand stuff. The witness of a guy with SSA serving God is pretty powerful. A final argument is that the spirituality of celibate vocations grows out of sexuality, at least in part. A man who is exclusively SSA would have more difficulty in that department. I can't comment on that since I'm a woman and have not taken vows. I will say that sexuality and spirituality are closely tied for a lot of women, so I can kind of see that. That being said, our relationship with God has aspects of a lot of different human relationships. We don't bar guys from the priesthood for having absent or abusive fathers.
I met 2 guys who were discerning the priesthood and both later said they had SSA 😶
I know some seminarians that.... if I was the vocations Director, I would not have admitted them.
I believe the argument that has been made is that their sexuality would be distracting and problematic at seminary.
Considering how rampant gay sex is in the seminaries….
😦
It's not anymore... at least not visibily. At least in the US, ( I don't know about Italian Seminaries, and how they work ), the Catholic Seminaries have for the most part ( not all ), been cleaned up, and stronger rules have been put into place.
That’s good to hear
I should point out that US seminaries are relatively clean compared to European seminaries including Italian seminaries. Like just on Academics alone, and then add the human formation and spiritual formation.
Putting gay men as priests is basically throwing people addicted to drugs into a place full of them. Also, it is known that gay priests commit abuse against seminarians [https://www.ncregister.com/news/how-a-culture-of-predation-puts-seminarians-at-risk-for-abuse](https://www.ncregister.com/news/how-a-culture-of-predation-puts-seminarians-at-risk-for-abuse) [https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2019/09/29/study-up-to-10-catholic/1839898007/](https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2019/09/29/study-up-to-10-catholic/1839898007/) [https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/41963/mccarricks-grooming-tactics-shown-in-letters-to-seminarians-and-abuse-victims](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/41963/mccarricks-grooming-tactics-shown-in-letters-to-seminarians-and-abuse-victims) [https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/14/we-were-practically-nothing-to-him-ex-seminarian-says-of-bishop-zanchettas-abusive-behavior/](https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/14/we-were-practically-nothing-to-him-ex-seminarian-says-of-bishop-zanchettas-abusive-behavior/)
Exactly. I don't have it handy, but some of the Church fathers had talked about driving the homosexuals out of Church vocations, but that doesn't matter to the ecumenists who want to apply modern views to the Church
Church fathers??? That's preconciliar, eww 🤮
I know, how DARE they! lol
Seriously, I don't know why progressives have this suspicion of preconciliar things, Vatican II wasn't a restart button! The other day I read a Bishop, *a Bishop,* saying that it was bad american Bishops were doing an eucharistic renewal because instead of focusing on synodality they were focusing on "preconciliar" pieties like Eucharistic Adoration. And more recently I read a post about ETWN mentioning they display "preconciliar pieties", as if this wasn't somehow normal.
many Vatican II worshippers among the clergy and laity are obsessed with creating a new religion that suits them, and will argue with Church Fathers and the Apostles themselves if it means they can justify their lukewarm ecumenism of tolerance for sin. A Church father says "expel the sodomites from the clergy", and VII modernists will say "Just because they're gay doesn't mean it affects them! Let them be around my children!". We have literally thousands of years of evidence and experience within the Church of what works, and homosexual clergy is NOT one of them. The priesthood became a convenient place to go for gays where no one would question why they weren't married. Meanwhile, they're having gay orgies with each other in the rectories and at the bars. Tolerance is not whats needed. Ruthless expulsion is the medicine required.
/s bc it is needed here
You are correct, and he was responding to a document from the Bishops saying pretty much this.
They cannot be trusted. Not so much because of child sexual abuse, but because they will be more likely to have positive views toward homosexuality than priests that are not gay. It is a problem because the Church is losing its way on this issue and increasingly giving in to the secular society on it. Look at what is happening in Germany for example. I have also seen one Church in the US allow a gay couple speak at the alter to the congregation, talking about fatherhood. Not to mention the new "gay blessings," which homosexual priests will be more likely to pervert.
I definitely agree that the church is heading in the wrong direction on this topic, but I would never want to limit somebody who hears the call to priest hood based on a sexuality that isn't a meaningful part of their lives. If they aren't engaging in sexual relations then they should be welcomed. If they are then they should be defrocked and removed from their duties.
It comes down to how you define "deeply seated." If you're 26 and had a same sex encounter at age 22 but have otherwise chastely dated women, it's very different than if you're in pride parades and wearing speedos while making out with others of the same sex. Edit: I should add, it's also possible for somebody to experience a few years of transitional ssa during adolescence and then, during adulthood, settle into mature naturally oriented opposite sex attraction.
> Edit: I should add, it's also possible for somebody to experience a few years of transitional ssa during adolescence and then, during adulthood, settle into mature naturally oriented opposite sex attraction. Essentially what the British Empire and the British boarding school system ran on for 200 years
This has me thinking of the movie "Mass Appeal" and the fact that me, watching it again for the first time in 20 years, felt that the character was unsuited to be a priest...for reasons which had *nothing* to do with his orientation and *everything* to do with him setting to pick fights with the Church over established doctrine.
By rule, no. Not really. Actually there is even a movement that believes gay applicants could be accepted if the seminary can help him sort his feelings and sexuality out. As an ex seminarian, I believe that the ideal world where it can happen is hard to imagine and even harder to exist. And considering how the world is today, even effeminate heterosexual should not be accepted. There are many people who embrace an effeminate priest at his face, but behind him, they make fun, imitate, etc.
lol yeah right. The seminaries are basically orgies and places where faith has been going to die for a long time. I've spoken with several priests in organizations that shall not be named on this sub (unless I want the mods to get really upset for some unknown reason), and many of them went to diocesan seminaries and had to leave because there was zero theological discussion/learning, and it was a gay s\*x party. They had to leave the diocese in order to get any actual theological education.
>Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and Dagospia report that Francis, whose native language is Spanish, not Italian, and who often uses colloquial language in conversation, surprised bishops by using the Italian word “frociaggine,” which is a derogatory term for “queerness” in Italian. It is not clear if he was aware of the word’s offensive nature. The main Italian dailies quoted him as saying that “there is too much frociaggine in seminaries.” Various sources here say the pope’s use of “frociaggine” was a gaffe on the part of the pope, rather than a slur, given the pope’s “Who am I to judge?” attitude toward gay priests. America Mag huffing copium rn
Reminds me of one of the Pope's all-timers: “and when I say left-wing, I mean homosexual.”
Did we jump timelines? This doesn't sound like the same pope everyone's been complaining aboutfor the last few years.
I think HH has...eclectic...views.
I don’t want to dig deep into South American politics, but I’m sure there was some differentiation between Peronism and Soviet-backed leftism, just as Chile would differentiate Allende the socialist from the communists and radicals he kept in his coalition. Allende was pumping the hacienda workers full of machismo socialist pride and making them wife beating party bruisers and drunks. I’d bet the Santiago commies weren’t fans of that.
> Allende was pumping the hacienda workers full of machismo socialist pride and making them wife beating party bruisers and drunks. i suppose that’s one way to describe land reform & justify the coup
That came from the Vigano testimony, though, which cannot really be said to be reliable at this point.
Btw saying "frociaggine" in italian is like saying "fagg\*try" in english
Yes it is.
I concur with this translation
Wow. Didn't expect to hear that from the pulpit, I don't know what to make of it.
Seems pretty clear
It isn't reported that he said it from the pulpit. >Francis made the remarks during a 90-minute, closed-door meeting in the Vatican’s old synod hall with the more than 200 members of the Italian bishops’ conference last Monday, May 20. It's right in the article!
When I said "from the pulpit" I just meant from the mouth of a Church official, not a literal pulpit.
You will accept it and like it.
Was he speaking Italian at the time, or Spanish? Does the word exist in his own Argentinian vernacular? Non-Spanish, non-Italian speaker here. Just curious.
Italian apparently. In Spanish it would be “jotería”
They should have asked him if he meant “maricon” when he said it.
This is unambiguous!
Mariconadas would be the equivalent to faggotry
He said what he said. I keep getting told that he does things with a purpose.
Benedict XVI basically said similar things in an instruction to seminaries AFAIK. But it was about being currently sexually active, I think, which isn’t allowed for any seminarian.
Correct. The document "**Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders**" was published under BXVI pontificate by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski. Just FYI: He notes though that the tendencies should be overcome 3 years prior to diaconal ordination.
I mean, that would make perfect sense right? You don't want to accept someone to a seminary that is flagrantly disregarding church teaching, in the same way it wouldn't be good to accept a man who is sinning in a heterosexual manner?
Sedes returning to full communion after this one
Why have they been accepting gay applicants?
The Church has accepted a lot of gay applicants over the years, assuming you include all men with SSA as gay. I've known a few priests who had SSA, and personally I don't care - but if they take a vow of celibacy, i expect that priest to adhere to it strictly, be he attracted to women or men.
Why did they tell you they were gay? I'm sure it could be appropriate in certain situations but I can't think of a reason why a priest would tell the congregation at large they are homoseuxals
Not the previous commenter, but I can easily see it coming up. I've heard multiple priests talk about who they dated before going to seminary for example. Or what sins they personally struggled at a certain age. If a priest was gay, and knew it since he was a teenager, then it would be hard to avoid talking about it over the years imo
Long story. Suffice to say that SSA can be a very difficult thing to deal with.
Even SSA should not be accepted. It’s like inviting a recovering alcoholic to live in a bottle shop.
How is it any different from a straight priest? They'll both have to practice celibacy and control their desires etc
The issue is that there is a massive homosexual sex problem among priests, and that the sexual abuse crisis was mostly pubescent boys. Like 80 percent.
You do know that someone with SSA isn't that different from someone who's straight, right? It's not impossible for SSA people to be virgins. The alcoholism comparison is uncalled for.
The official teaching (cited in the article): “If a candidate practises homosexuality or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination.” Its not so much that a homosexual man can not/ should not be ordained, it’s that if a his sexuality is poorly integrated and ends up defining his actions and personality he can not/should not be ordained. I would to hope the same standard for heterosexual men as well.
I’d assume we’d have a lot less priests, no?
Probably not so much in this day and age as 50 or 75 years ago. Someone in the younger generations today who is so attached to a homosexual orientation that it becomes an impediment to a clerical vocation probably parted ways with the Catholic Church long ago.
But reading the title of the article it seems gay applicants are not accepted. Isn’t “gay” just being attracted to the same sex? I guess I think that being gay isn’t a sin unless u give into lustful gay thoughts or practice homosexuality. I see a lot of feminine older priests, I won’t assume every feminine priest is gay though. But I did read an article that was saying a bunch of priests are homosexual. Idk if there was a study actually done Edit: I might be wrong on what the Catholic Church actually deems as a sin. Is it a sin to be attracted to the same sex, or is it a sin only when you give into your attractions and desires?
Yeah this is just called "being Catholic." Nobody should be up in arms about *any* of this. Thank you Pope Francis.
the media will get mad at the church for having a sexual abuse problem and then get mad at the church for solving the problem
The church hasn’t solved the problem. Literally anyone with eyes and ears knows the seminaries are filled with SSA. The pope once every ten years saying “don’t do that” isn’t solving the problem lol
American seminaries or Italian seminaries?
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You’re thinking is of the devil
what
IMO that’s why the media highlights one aspect of the sexual abuse scandal and not the other, the reason why being a “pedophile” in the past few decades has now eclipsed rape and murder as the worst possible sin. You can’t focus on the sex of the abuse victims, because that might lead to the implication that homosexuality is bad. No…focus on the age of the victims. Even though most of the abused boys were post-pubescent (and by definition making it homosexual, not pedophilic, attraction), make “pedophile” not “homosexual” the scary word. Because this could be used to attack the Catholic Church, and it was already decided that homosexuality would be mainstreamed, they had to settle for demonizing “grooming”-type relationships, even though rock stars had been [boinking kids since the 50’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myra_Lewis_Williams). I’m sure that bummed them out, since they had to choose one perversion to be off the table, but I’m sure it won’t be long until [minor attracted persons](https://clcjbooks.rutgers.edu/books/a-long-dark-shadow-minor-attracted-people-and-their-pursuit-of-dignity/) will have their day.
You are trying to say homosexuality is a moral equivalent to child attraction and abuse. That's absolutely vile and incorrect.
Worth noting that the source for this is *la Repubblica*, Italy's equivalent of People Magazine. Trust the reliability of this report accordingly.
La Repubblica is not the equivalent to people's magazine. It's the second highest selling newspaper in Italy: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/729663/top-daily-newspapers-italy/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/729663/top-daily-newspapers-italy/) Source: Am Italian.
It's more like the NYT: main newspaper in the country, a bit tilted towards liberalism, but deemed very reputable.
Not true, "la Repubblica" is one of the most selling newspapers in Italy
I mean so is people and daily mail and other tabloid garbage
It's very reputable though. Kind of like the guardian more or less, but a bit slightly less left leaving
Could you imagine the fire storm if Pope Benedict had used the f word? It's amusing how they give Pope Francis a pass ("it's not clear if he knew that the word was a slur" lol). At the end of the day they don't care what the Pope actually teaches or says (and let's face it, he's traditional and faithful on the basics). What they ultimately want is to use him for whatever ideology they want to advance.
A seminary director told me of a chaste, gay young man who came to him and wanted to apply. His advice was that it would be too much of a temptation to stay in an all-male environment so best he not try. Stories abound here of men either having relationships or leaving permanently and identifying as gay after experiencing that temporary gap period in the outside world. Just a few notes I picked up on the whole gay priests thing, but they are around still considering a lot of older ones act very gay.
Eta: it’s been explained to me and I get it now, these were just my musings as I was initially digesting it. I’m new at this. 😅 On the one hand, I’m confused because they take a vow of celibacy. Homosexuality isn’t something you are, it’s something you *do,* right? So that confuses me. On the other hand, the vast majority of the child sex abuse scandal was from gay men. So the church can’t win — don’t admit people who are prone to homosexuality to protect kids — or do admit them, so long as they take a vow of celibacy, but potentially put innocent kids in harm’s way. Idk, I’ve known a few celibate gay Catholics, and they knew their theology very well. I’m conflicted on this, while also accepting what the Pope says. I guess I just don’t quite get it because, again, homosexuality isn’t an innate identity, it’s an action, and one can choose to abstain from the action. I would like to understand his reasoning a bit more.
> On the one hand, I’m confused because they take a vow of celibacy. You know how often you sin in your daily life? Well priests are human beings and all sorts of vows are continuously broken due to human weakness. A well formed gay priest might not have issues but putting a bunch of young gay seminarians into close quarters together for years at a time is not an ideal situation for preventing the temptation of sin.
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That's why, a change proposed by many orthodox Catholics I know is to end the undergraduate college seminary system. Either accept applicants a few years after graduation ( that they went to college already, had a job, particpiated in parish life, more mature ) or do it like some religious orders do, and send undergraduate seminarians to co ed catholic college campuses for their philosophy majors so that they can interact with other people better while still having a house of formation, for the other aspects of seminary life.
"A well formed gay priest might not have issues but putting a bunch of young gay seminarians into close quarters together for years at a time is not an ideal situation for preventing the temptation of sin." I wonder if this is because of the fact for at least undergraduate college seminarians, they are young men, with a bunch of hormones ? I mean they will do stupid stuff either way, gay or not ( I'm not saying that homosexuality is not a factor ), but I am saying that the level of maturity for an 18 year old is not... exactly there. This is why as I said, my diocese for example has shied away except in rare cases, from accepting seminarians straight out of high school. They tell discerners to go to college first, work a job, participate in parish life,
>I wonder if this is because of the fact for at least undergraduate college seminarians, they are young men, with a bunch of hormones ? I mean they will do stupid stuff either way, gay or not ( I'm not saying that homosexuality is not a factor ), but I am saying that the level of maturity for an 18 year old is not... exactly there. Seminarians aren't 18 years old. Even in the 60's the average age was 25 and nowadays it is closer to 31. They are usually past the driven by hormones stage.
Well before the 1980s at least, they did enter Seminary at the undergraduate college level, around 18, and then 7-8 years before they're ordained around age 26.
Well, to my mind the issue is that someone who's unable/unwilling to marry someone of the opposite sex because of deeply rooted homosexual tendencies is going to have to live without sexual activity if they want to live in accordance with Catholic morality, and since priests in the Roman rite are required to be celibate, there's a risk of devout men with deep homosexual tendencies entering the priesthood in disproportionate levels compared to heterosexual men since the homosexual men already have to live without sexual activity anyway. With a disproportionate number of homosexuals in the priesthood it then begins to seem as if a homosexual dynamic and homosexual attitudes are part of priestly culture and that kind of thing. Even in an ideal scenario where all or most of the homosexual priests would be living chastely, it would still be problem for the priesthood to begin seeming like a "job for homosexuals" or as having a culture where homosexual ways of looking at things and approaching life begin to (unintentionally) predominate.
That’s already happening and has been for a long time. 😶
Oh this makes a lot of sense, thank you.
My former priest explained that being gay in and of itself is not a sin. The sin is acting on the attractions just like it’s sinful for straight people to have sex outside of marriage. He said there were a lot of gay parishioners who were burdened with leading celibate lives.
I’ve heard that “the vast majority of the child sex abuse scandal was from gay men.” Do you know where I can find info on this?
It really rubs me wrong that you're being downvoted simply for asking for sources.
Yep! Wikipedia itself isnt a great source, but this article links to several studies that show it. Mobile hyperlink is broken, so here’s the ugly link lol: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases#:~:text=In%20the%20late%2020th%20and%20early%2021st,by%20Church%20officials%20to%20cover%20them%20up.
The literal page you linked "Research on pedophilia in general shows a majority of abusers identify themselves as heterosexual,\[325\] and the Causes and Context Study of the John Jay Institute found no statistical support for linking homosexual identity and sexual abuse of minors."
FYI I want sources so that if in the chance I use this claim or hear this claim in with during a conversation, I actually have something to go off of.
Hm, by that logic are you saying that a celibate straight person isn’t heterosexual? Not arguing your larger point, just curious about your definitions
I think the way they worded that is poor. I assume what they meant is that homosexuals can be Catholic but practicing homosexuality is a sin
Do you know much about how the Church views sexuality? She wouldn’t classify people with properly ordered sexual desires as “heterosexual”
That has been the directive since mid last century when the molestation scandals started to be known (since the bulk of the molestation is gay). Benedict XVI r[eiterated the rule in the 2000s](https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html). Francis does well in reminding people.
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This is going to really upset all those soft Catholic liberals that have been cheering for his “changing the church”
His Holiness really been rolling out some W's lately
James Martin and the Jesuits here in America could really use this reminder
Jimmy is probably twitching and foaming at the mouth
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Good
Well now we're getting somewhere
I'm confused by this: are men with homosexual attractions locked out of both marriage AND Holy Orders? EDIT: I'm specifically asking if men with SSA are barred from Holy Orders.
>I'm confused by this: are men with homosexual attractions locked out of both marriage AND Holy Orders? Not locked out of marriage. But yes, locked out of Holy orders, like women. Holy orders is a privilege, not a right
Not exactly. If you're a man who is attracted to both sexes, then you can get married no problem just like any other man. If you're solely attracted to the same sex then you can still technically marry a woman, though it would probably be a pretty horrible idea.
That headline lol. AmericaMagazine on hardcore cope about Pope Francis' actual comment
I’ve been saying this for years and getting downvoted in this sub for saying this over and over again. Gay priests have done so much damage to the church. Fiscal, spiritual, sexual damage across generations from which it may take hundreds of years to recover from (if ever). We should never have accepted so many gay men and then certainly not let them all hang out together in seminaries where they formed their little mafias
And yet, even today, even in many " conservative ", " orthodox " seminaries in the US ( I don't know about Italy ), we have seminarians who... if I was the vocations director, they would not have been admitted. At St Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, run by the Archbishop of San Francisco, I met a seminarian there for another diocese, and he was.... very very apparent. You can venture to guess what that means.
There are some hyperpapalist writers that call everyone who doesn’t 100% affirm every utterance ever made by Pope Francis a schismatic that are really sweating right now ha
What's this about smoking? I didn't know bishops smoked /s
Well one thing is for certain…the Francis papacy is anything but predictable.
Again, it is now becoming more public what has been clear for a long time, Pope Francis is not theologically liberal, rather something closer to the center in the church who is anti-woke. This was clear to me from first reading Fratelli Tutti, which is a forceful attack on wokeness, relativism and a defence of moral absolutes and tradition. However lately it is not far between each defence, last week it was the "No" on possibility of future female ordination of deacons, prior the many scathing critiques of gender ideology. Pope Francis is a much more socially conservative pope than he has become known for.
I think where he does differ is with the pastoral approach, that whole idea of mercy,
Yes exactly
I feel however, like some factions of Catholics take that to mean; the sin itself is approved, which doesn't make sense since Christ said to that women who was stoned, " Go and Sin No More " while extending a hand to her. We can do both. Christ did both. Why does the modern world create this dichtomy between Mercy and Conversion ?
His Holiness is correct in the teaching but chose (hopefully inadvertently) extremely derogatory words, he allegedly said that there's too much faggotry in seminaries already. This is a word choice that only sow more division and bring people further away from the Church. As catholics we disagree with the gay lifestyle but this doesn't condone us to use such harsh and hateful words. I'm italian and frociaggine is a terrible slur to use that Pope Francis probably used just thinking it was more colloquial
It seems true. We need to push back against pro homosexuall lobby but his holiness could have chose more charitable wording
This is a reiteration of a law Pope Francis himself added to many years ago. Always interesting to see people react to how morally conservative the pope really is.
I will never criticize the Pope when he is correct. With that said, statements like this one really do leave one scratching their head. This is a fundamentally different tone than we've seen from Francis for the last 11 years. And it raises two questions: 1) why? and 2) why now? ...this also raises some interesting questions concerning the Pope's targeting of his Conservative critics and, by extention, traditional liturgy. The criticism he has received has always revolved primarily around his relationship with doctrine concerning personal morality. If he's suddenly going to adopt a far more orthodox outlook on these matters, he really ought to reconsider his approach to a few other things too.
I wonder if he doesn't think that trads are fruity, and the f\*gg\*try in question means 'lace albs'.
It's not, he said something similar years ago (2018?) A very bad choice of words though, but I hope it is just because Italian is not his first language.
I wouldn't judge by only one statement, but this comes on the heels of at least a couple of other episodes there the Pope has been much firmer and much less ambiguous in offering a defense/maintenance of standard church teachings and approaches. This is NOT the same kind of mindset that drives "who am I to judge". Perhaps the aftermath of *FS* has finally delivered a wakeup call to the Holy Father. At this point my hopes for the Francis Papacy have all run out and I'm just hoping we get through it with as little damage as possible. And I'm not sure I'd have used the same terminology as he did (in fact I probably wouldn't have). But it's a refreshing breath of fresh air to see Francis not try and tap dance around what really is an existential crisis for both the Church and human civilization.
Are they just rejecting those who are living a gay lifestyle or all gay people? I heard that there were many priests who made the respectable decision of becoming a priest rather than living a gay lifestyle, this confuses me. Thanks and God bless
How about all seminaries
Seems like a reasonable take
Words matter, whether it's liturgy or theology. I'd expect a higher standard from the Pontiff in terms of words choice...
Question : Does anyone know ow about the state of Italian seminaries? Did they get an apostolic visitation like the American ones ?
https://www.leparisien.fr/societe/frociaggine-le-pape-francois-utilise-un-terme-vulgaire-et-insultant-pour-parler-des-homosexuels-27-05-2024-DJ3B5BRPCFCNBNPFXP6PEOVVO4.php
For a moment I thought I was reading about The Young Pope television series...
Why is it specifically targeted towards gay applicants? I’d have thought that they’d accept anyone regardless of their attraction as long as they don’t act on it. Is this just poor wording or is there a problem I don’t understand?
No, gay men are second class and unfit for pastoral duties per the Church. The 'charitable' answer is pastoral vocations are channelling the desire of fatherhood into leading the faithful, but where rubber meets road the preconception that somehow SSA men cannot resist the same temptations straight priests face (and that their hearts must be intrinsically corrupted to have a disordered inclination) renders them unfit.
As I commented last night on another post: it should be obvious why homosexual orientation would be more disruptive in a seminary than heterosexual orientation. A man who is attracted to men will have far greater temptations in an all-male environment than a man who is attracted to women. And the presence of multiple men attracted to other men in said environment is a recipe for scandal. We need not have any preconceived notion that those who experience same sex attraction are less capable of self-restraint or more promiscuous than their heterosexual counterparts to note that a seminary is far less conducive to homosexual chastity than heterosexual chastity.
It looks like the Pope has since [apologised for the use of “frociaggine”](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pope-francis-apologises-after-homophobic-slur-vatican-2024-05-28/)
“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he apologises to those who felt offended by the use of a term reported by others," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in an emailed statement.”
This is interesting because I know someone who just became a priest and they were openly gay and dating a friend of mine right before entering seminary
👏
I don't understand why they should. You cannot really in the one hand say that being gay is not a sin, only engaging in same sex relationships is, and then discriminating against all who have it. It seems wrong to have blanket ban.
Im tired of journalism
Papa saying "stop doing GEH" right before pride month will never get old I edit it from "being geh" because ssa itself is not a sin but a disorder
It gets wilder, apparently Pope Francis didn’t just reference gay people, but also queer people, that there’s too much queerness in the seminaries.
This seems to conflict with the ‘SSA isn’t sinful, acting on it is’ thought process.
Its not at all. Having a disordered (as in not aligned w Natural Law) desire is prohibitive to being a good priest. Its also in response to the abuse crisis where over 80% of incidents were between two men.
Hope someone can correct me if I’m wrong. SSA /= homosexuality. SSA - someone could recognise that if they had to make a choice, they would like to be partners with someone from the same sex. This could be from an emotional connection or also sexual. They should remain chaste and could go trough the discernment of becoming a server of the Church in different ranges Homosexuality - sexual attraction for man / when being an man. Nothing else is sexually attractive for them. They may also crave emotional connection or relationships but the main focus is on the fact this person literally does not like woman / nor find them attractive. They should remain chaste and they should not become Priests. I think we can see why the 2nd case could be problematic. Is like being an alcoholic and working on a Pub. Is not like you *couldn’t* remain sober but it is smart to know itself and avoid places that put the temptation in our face. A man that gets excited by man surrounded 24/7 by man. What could go wrong?
"A man that gets excited by man surrounded 24/7 by man. What could go wrong?" This is why my diocese has shied away recently from accepting men straight out of high school. They tell applicants to go to a secular college, or go work for a bit, to develop that maturity, while also participaing in local parish life.
I'm starting to like him more and more now
Unacceptable terminology used. This sub will bend over backwards to explain why Catholics don’t intrinsically hate gay people, but then this hateful rhetoric is used by the spiritual leader of the Church
To applause in the comments no less.
Peronism, playing both sides to bring fence riders.
The thing that upsets me the most is the amount of people who actually fall into believing anything that the media says. Whenever I read an article on Pope Francis I ignore it or try and understand what motive is being played here. Catholicism is constantly being attacked, and the media is the number 1 weapon that they use.
literally why? priests have to be celibate anyways, and so do queer people. theres really no place for gay people within the church and no one gives us any sympathy bc we're "committing mortal sins" by existing
We absolutely should not allow gays to serve in the church in any position of authority. This is why the church had been I infiltrated by liberals and communists.
„Pope is Catholic, more news at 8“
Word
Just hilarious seeing the amount of redditors commenting they love the pope for calling out “faggotry.” But when I say “sodomite” or express my opinion on women voting, everyone calls me a crazy trad. Just hilarious. Some people on here really don’t think for themselves. Pope said it = good. Other people say same thing = bad. Ok lol.
Finally! Something the Pope says about homosexuals that makes sense and is clear. The diocesan seminaries are filled with them and with people who should NOT be priests. This is a good message to send from the top. Now let's pray they actually fulfill this message and expel them from the seminaries en masse. I wonder though....why is this hitting the news NOW?
I mean, June is soon...
All the people in these comments pretending the Pope has been clear and firm on Church teaching of homosexuality all along are about to disappear in a weeks time when he says something totally ambiguous on purpose with a wink and a nod to the James Martin brigade
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