Cardinal's keynoter disputed Vatican document on homosexuals
It is now going around the Net that the Cardinal's Religious Education Congress keynoter this year, Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, presents problems. After the Vatican document on the priesthood and homosexuals was leaked last year, he wrote an essay about it in The Tablet (London) last November, entitled, "Can Gays Be Priests?" Perhaps you can guess what his answer was:
"Having worked with bishops and priests, diocesan and religious, all over the world, I have no doubt that God does call homosexuals to the priesthood, and they are among the most dedicated and impressive priests I have met. So no priest who is convinced of his vocation should feel that this document classifies him as a defective priest. And we may presume that God will continue to call both homosexuals and heterosexuals to the priesthood because the Church needs the gifts of both."
Father Radcliffe did agree with priestly celibacy. But he also wrote these bizarre lines: "We should be more attentive to whom our seminarians may be inclined to hate than whom they love. Racialism, misogyny and homophobia [sic] would all be signs that someone could not be a good model of Christ."
(Sorry, Father, but holding that homosexuals should not be priests is not "hate," nor is it a phobia, nor is it an evil such as racism and misogyny.)
So, for his first "Congress" in the papacy of Benedict XVI, how -- and why -- did Cardinal Mahony pick for his keynote speaker someone who has publicly disputed a major Vatican document? What is going on here?
"Having worked with bishops and priests, diocesan and religious, all over the world, I have no doubt that God does call homosexuals to the priesthood, and they are among the most dedicated and impressive priests I have met. So no priest who is convinced of his vocation should feel that this document classifies him as a defective priest. And we may presume that God will continue to call both homosexuals and heterosexuals to the priesthood because the Church needs the gifts of both."
Father Radcliffe did agree with priestly celibacy. But he also wrote these bizarre lines: "We should be more attentive to whom our seminarians may be inclined to hate than whom they love. Racialism, misogyny and homophobia [sic] would all be signs that someone could not be a good model of Christ."
(Sorry, Father, but holding that homosexuals should not be priests is not "hate," nor is it a phobia, nor is it an evil such as racism and misogyny.)
So, for his first "Congress" in the papacy of Benedict XVI, how -- and why -- did Cardinal Mahony pick for his keynote speaker someone who has publicly disputed a major Vatican document? What is going on here?
posted by Quintero at 9:07 PM
6 Comments:
Maybe he spent some time praying in a labyrinth as a means of discernment about the keynote speaker.
I see that the "sacred space" for the Congress includes both a tabernacle and a labyrinth....
What is going on is that his eminence is walking a tightrope over a great schism. A priest at St. Monicas recently caused a stir when he told an RCIA class that he "had a hard time believing" in transubstatiation. There is a major crisis in the Archdioces. Much greater than most realize.
"God does call homosexuals to the priesthood, and they are among the most dedicated and impressive priests I have met."
So Heterosexual priest are the least impressive and least dedicated. Does not that statement disqualify anyone from knowing what he is talking about?
I think some new political "phobias" might just come in handy in English. If others can abuse the language, ...
Speaking of abusing the language, I am still stuck on the word "racialism." I will have to put (2006) next to that one in my brain's dictionary.
Here's another phobia for the books: Romephobia.
Well, okay, but I would prefer Romaphobia, or romaephobia, but that is a little harder to say. Cismontanism? Parochialism?
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