Gay Men Must Not Be Ordained Priests

So Declares Pope Benedict 16

by Raymond Fontaine, Ph.D. - February 2006

E-mail no. 24: A Despondent Gay Aspirant Seeks My Advice

    I am Roger Johnson a college graduate who recently applied at a major seminary to study for the priesthood. The head of the seminary, a monsignor, told me that in December 2005 the Pope signed a Vatican document that orders me " to stop preparing gay young men for ordination to the priesthood."

   I asked the monsignor why and he answered that the Pope has declared gay men unsuited to be priests. According to the Pope, gay men are too psychologically and thereby morally "disordered" for the priesthood. A gay person has "a problem in the psychic organization of his sexuality", barring him from priestly responsibility.

   Despite my homosexuality, I have remained chaste. I know, from having read your biography, that you too remained chaste for years despite your attraction to women. If you could be celibate, so can I.

   Please help me to understand what the Pope has done and what I can do to survive this crisis without going bonkers. I'm writing to you because, on your website, you empathize with homosexuals. In a fanciful dream you have God reminding the Pope that nature routinely produces variations that are equally physical and biological. Such is homosexuality - a variation of nature. If God and you can understand that, why can't the Pope? Hoping to hear from you soon. Roger.

E-mail no. 25: My Response to a Troubled Aspirant to the Priesthood

    Thank you for putting your trust in me. In a situation remotely related to yours, the Church let me down. But after leaving the Church, I bounced back better off than before. So can you.

    I need not rehash here what I have said in my book and on my website. So, for a fresh example of what I have to tell you, let me use the current situation in the Church that prompted the Pope to ban all gay men from Catholic seminaries. It's the scandal of pedophile priests sexually abusing boys. 

    During this imbroglio, the Church has been blamed for not removing the guilty priests but simply moving them to other areas where they continued their dirty work. To show the world that the Pope meant business about stopping those clerical crimes, the Pope took action against the prime suspects - the gay priests. He issued orders to oust all gay men from seminaries and to refuse admission to others of the same ilk.

    Why didn't the Pope kick out all the gay men already ordained priests? That's because the Church teaches that priests are ordained for life. At ordination, the soul of the priest receives an indelible mark. Moreover the powers he receives at ordination stay with him for life. Not even the Pope can remove the mark and the powers of a priest. That's a dogma of the Church which claims infallibility in such matters. If a priest is thrown out of the Church, he could cause havoc with his priestly powers. The Pope is stuck with him no matter how undesirable gay priests may be. The only choice available to the Church is not to ordain gay men in the first place. 

    I have lingered on this example for you to start questioning the teaching authority of the Church. The more you let yourself reconsider the fallibility of the Church and its history of great crimes (such as the Crusades against heretics, the inquisition, and the sale of indulgences) the quicker you will realize that the Church errs, as it did lately in your case. Sooner or later you will realize that the Church is not infallible.

    In time, you will see that the Pope has done you a favor in slamming the seminary door in your face. It's better for you to realize the Church's fallibility now than later after years of preaching its doctrines to people who put their trust in you.

    Millions have left the Church after realizing its false claims to infallibility, such as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. Today many are leaving the Church because it has permitted pedophile priests to wander about abusing children. You too are learning the harsh truth that the Pope can be wrong. Whether you stay in such a Church or leave it is entirely up to you.    

    If you can, focus a little more on God as revealed in nature: namely, the Intelligence behind the structures and laws in nature. If nature allows the variation of homosexuality, so has the Creator. He has designed the fundamental forces in nature that make it possible for the existence of homosexuality. I believe this and so can you. If you need further help, you know where to reach me. Respectfully yours, Ray. 

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