The vatican admits that homosexuality is a born trait, not a choice

[Kber]

Why else would they ban gays from becoming priests? After all, ALL sex is prohibited for the clergy. ALL priests take a a vow of celibacy. Therefore, a celibate gay priest shouldn't be breaking any rules of behavior.

However, the decision to ban gay clergy sends a clear message on the vatican's attitude toward homosexuality:

1. It's not what you do, it's how you are born that is sinful in the eyes of the church.

2. If you are born gay, you are too impure to become a priest, even though you, like all priests, would be expected to remain chaste.

[SaveElmer]

1. So like the Nazis...

Who believed that homosexuals were weak and effeminate, and would not fight for Germany...the vatican has decided that gays cannot make good priests because they have a defect in their personality...


The Catholic Church is keeping really great company these days!!!

[tulsakatz]

2. when did they admit this?

I heard the banned gays from becoming Priests but I didn't hear that they admitted it was something people are born with!

Personally, I believe it is something they are born with.....

[DanCa]

3. Where homosexuality "comes from" doesn't bother me .

While I believe that there's "good and bad" in everyone - self included- gay people are people. Infact I don't even consider a persons orientation to be a requirement for a good person.
What is a requirement is, how people respect another human being, their size of thier heart and the strength of thier character.

Two things about the vatican:
1) My friend Scott is gay, and he is much more decent, kind, carering, god farring person I know than some of the "church folk" that I have had the misfortune to meet. Scott has never said anything bad or hurtful in his life, and I know that if theres a heaven hes going to be there.

2) The vatican should remember this about sin. Those who smelt it dealt it. And that's all i gotta say, except my god loves everyone.
It doesn't matter what orientation, politcal persuasion, or stance on reproductive issues make it only comes down to the way you treat other human beings. End of sermon.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Dan, your number 1

Was one of the reasons that made me stop attending church in my undergraduate years. I had attended a fundamentalist, baptist church as a child (even though my parents did not; I was always an worrywart, and anxieties about eternal damnation and the Rapture kept me in church, wondering if I was "really" saved). In college, I attended a campus fellowship group, but was floored by the attitudes of the people involved: the vitriol toward Bill Clinton (this was in 1991 and 1992), the comments about abortion (which touched me especially because my best friend in high school had gotten pregnant in her first year of college, and I realized that I never would have been able to continue such a pregnancy), and a church where people in the choir had to sign a pledge that they would not attend movies or watch secular television programs.

But the hatred toward gays really got me. In my junior year, my best friend told me that she was bisexual. I had suspected something was up for some time, and wasn't too surprised. But I remember the look of anticipation on her face when she told me (in a gay bar in Pittsburgh), gauging my reaction. My response was something along the lines of "OK. Good to know for sure. Let's go get another drink." And that was a heartfelt response: In the seconds after she asked me, I realized I didn't care. But I could not put up with the hatred at church any more: How could these people think that my Sarah was an exemplar of evil? She was the person who held my hair out of my face and cleaned the bucket when I sick, who lent me her car or rearranged her work schedule to pick me up when my car was broken again, who made me pudding and mashed potatoes when I had my wisdom teeth removed. That was the first realization I had that this institution could be dead wrong.

[DanCa]

6. Anytime you want to swap bad church stories just pm me.

I must have been raised in a different part of the RC church when good man like Cardinal Bernadine were around. Or my grand mother must have told me to live by the spirit of the bible and not it's strict interpetation.Lectivicus was a ranting looney who am sure only got a spot in the bible for comic relief or as an example of who not to follow. Lol no wonder I was ran out on a rail.
All kidding aside I wonder how many "Christians" actually know gays or just the awful tv sterotype? As far as treatting people equally you can thank my mom for that, well here and all the Chris Reeves Superman films I watched as a kid. They musta stuck.
But it never ceases to amaze me with the anti choice crowd. The care nothing for living breathing human beings, but one tiny embryo is in danger all you know what breaks loose. Okay am done preachin' :D Have a gentle and safe day everyone. And give each other a hug the world is a whole lot colder than I care for it to be.
And as long as someone is good and kind i'll be proud to call them brother or sister. And I don't care what thier race, party, class, or orintation is. End of sermon :D

[Nikia]

5. I think they have believed this for a while

They believe that some people are homosexual, but they should be celibate, like all unmarried people. Some devout Catholic homosexuals have been drawn to the Catholic religious vocations for this reason. Probably a higher percentage of Catholic gays have become priests and nuns than heterosexual Catholics because of this idea.
This policy of banning non practing homosexual men from the priesthood is bad for a few different reasons. There is a priest shortage and it will get even worse since there are more homosexuals represented in seminary than in the general population. Many gay men really do want to become priests and would do a good job as priests, not abusing anyone sexually. This policy states to homosexuals that there is no place for them in the church, that being born homosexual is incompatible with being a good Catholic.
The Catholic Church should also consider that some of the celibate early Church leaders may have been homosexual. I have read several essays suggesting that Paul's thorn in the flesh was none other than him having a homosexual orientation.