Church has 'hard teaching' on homosexuality

Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP, former master of the Dominican Order, tells a sad little story in a recent Tablet. At a Canadian retreat for bishops and priests, a priest who feels unable to ask a question aloud instead sends a note to Fr Radcliffe. "Will this document on admission of gays to the priesthood mean that I am not welcome any more? Does it mean that people like me are second-class priests?"

No doubt there are many Irish priests who feel the same way, not to mention some men who might have considered the priesthood but who now will not.

The church's teaching on homosexuality is a "hard teaching" in the sense of difficult and burdensome. The church is always careful to distinguish between homosexual acts and homosexual orientation, a distinction that is repeated in this document.

However, it must be extraordinarily painful for someone who is gay to accept that, while abstinence from sexual relations is expected of all unmarried people, abstinence in his or her case is expected to be lifelong. It must also demand a heroic degree of detachment not to feel that an act which is labelled as "intrinsically disordered" does not somehow make the person who is gay intrinsically disordered, too.

The church's teaching on homosexuality is a heavy burden, and it might be no harm to remember Christ's charge against the Pharisees: "You tie up heavy burdens for people to bear, and do not lift a finger to help them."

It would be very wrong if some of the excellent priests who are gay and have refrained from sexual activity felt that this document invalidated the service they have given.

Whether the document does or not hinges on two aspects. The first is the use of the phrase "deep-seated homosexual tendencies", which is repeated three times in a document of 1,250 words. The second is the question of "affective maturity", which is required before someone can join the priesthood.

John L Allen jnr, the respected Rome-based reporter, takes the charitable view. He believes that the word "tendency" implies an inclination to act. Read in this way, the phrase makes sense. If someone has a deep-seated tendency to act on his homosexual inclinations, he has not come to terms with the demands of celibacy.

Fr Radcliffe interprets the phrase as meaning "someone whose sexual orientation is so central to his self-perception as to be obsessive, dominating his imagination." As he points out, it would apply equally to a heterosexual man who is similarly obsessive. However, some gay commentators have read "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" as a synonym for sexual orientation, and as a result have condemned the document as homophobic and hate-filled.

I do not believe the document to be either, but feel a deep sense of frustration that the phrase is so ambiguous. 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?

As a result of the ambiguity, the document could be read as meaning that anyone who is gay is incapable of attaining "affective maturity". Again, affective or emotional maturity is a high goal. A better criterion for admission to the priesthood might be "a capacity to attain emotional maturity" rather than having already achieved it. For example, I am certain that I would not have passed an "emotional maturity" test on my wedding day.

What limited emotional maturity I have attained has come about in no little part through being married. Likewise, the experience of priesthood presumably helps people to mature.

However, whatever support married people are offered, or can offer each other, there is a lack of support available for priests, especially diocesan priests. There is much unnecessary loneliness in priests' lives.

The church's teaching on celibacy is another "hard teaching", and again those in authority have a responsibility to ensure that everything that can be done to make it possible for people to live it out should be in place. Instead, many priests seem to be left to act like ecclesiastical "Lone Rangers" without support or accountability. It is not surprising then, in the absence of spiritual and emotional assistance, that so many become burnt-out or cynical.

I believe that a person with a homosexual orientation can make a good priest. However, there are specific difficulties facing someone who is gay on entering a seminary. One may as well decide that a heterosexual candidate for the priesthood should receive all his formation in a convent with sympathetic, compatible women, and expect a troublefree outcome.

However, as Thomas Reese SJ, former editor of America points out, while this may be difficult for a homosexual person, a heterosexual person can expect to spend the rest of his ministry in the company of women. That is not easy either.

One section in the document has been read as referring to the paedophilia crisis; that is, "norms regarding a particular issue, made more urgent by the current situation". Some people believe it is an attempt to scapegoat people who are homosexual as responsible for child abuse. While the media tend to focus on paedophilia as a crisis for the church, "the current situation" is more likely to refer to some seminaries.

The difficulty is particularly acute in the US, where in some seminaries 60 per cent of seminarians are allegedly gay.

Christ himself was no slouch when it came to preaching "hard teachings" about self-renunciation and unselfishness, and many people walked away.

However, the hard teachings were always accompanied by profound compassion, and a promise that the person would never be alone in the struggle.

Given the danger of stirring up homophobia, those who present his teachings today have a responsibility to reflect that compassion unambiguously in words and deeds. Meanwhile those who are like the priest in Canada and fear they are somehow second-class, should rest assured that their parishioners do not feel that way.