In 2016, Pope Francis announced a ban on people with "deeply ingrained homosexual tendencies" and "pro-gay culture" from being priests.
Many people cannot believe that Pope Francis made such a decision. In 2013, Pope Francis ended his week-long visit to Brazil when he was asked about the "gay lobby." His answer caused an uproar at the time: "When I meet homosexuals, I have to separate their homosexual identity from their lobbyist status." If they accept God and have a good heart, then what right do I have to judge them? ”
This is by far the most friendly language of the Catholic Church to the LGBTI community. The American gay magazine The Advocate also named Pope Francis the 2013 Person of the Year. But the pope's actions are a different story.
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The fact that gay priests have been around in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years has led to suspicions that all Catholic priests are crooked, and that some who don't want to come out are under pressure to be exposed. According to the author of the changing face of the priesthood, half of Catholic priests and seminarians are gay; those familiar with the Catholic Church will also consider priests to be a homosexual profession.
Yet the Catholic Church needs them. If the Vatican Church chooses to fire all gay priests, the functioning of the Church will be greatly affected.
Psychiatric physician Aw Richard Sipe was a former priest who has been studying priests' sexual orientation for decades. "The number of gay priests is so great that if they were to be expelled, it would have as much impact on the church as the atomic bomb," he said. That means resigning about a third of the world's bishops. This is also inconsistent with ecclesiastical tradition, with many saints and popes having homosexual tendencies. ”
If the Catholic Church resigns from all gay priests, it is tantamount to cutting off its own legs. Years of homophobic rhetoric have rattled the church, regardless of whether believers are gay or not.
Eugene Kennedy is an expert in this area. He said the Catholic Church has always had gay priests, and they are even role models for other priests. Proponents also see gay priests as an integral part of the Vatican, and they have managed to unite so that the church cannot use them as scapegoats for the church's own problems.
Church Francis knows this, which is why he is opposed to gay lobbies within the Holy See. He told Ansa News Agency, "The problem is not the sexual orientation itself, but their lobbying behavior." ”
In a 2013 interview, Francis argued that the church should not oppose the new changes of the 21st century, as Pope Benedict XVI did. Although he was friendlier than his predecessor, he did not make any changes in policy. Perhaps it is time for the Holy See to recognize history and facts, after all, the contribution of gay priests to the Church is still quite large.
This article is translated from gaystarnews and published by translator Egg Custard under creative commons license (by-nc).
Originally written by Tris Reid-Smith