At the Vatican, Exceptions Make the Rule

[kweerwolf]

THE forthcoming Vatican document on gays in seminaries will unleash a wrenching debate about Catholicism and homosexuality, but one thing it is certain not to mean is that in the future there will be no gays in the priesthood. The continued presence of gays in the priesthood will be the product not just of difficulties in enforcement, or the dishonesty of potential candidates, but also of design.

Although this is a difficult point for many Anglo-Saxons to grasp, when the Vatican makes statements like "no gays in the priesthood," it doesn't actually mean "no gays in the priesthood." It means, "As a general rule, this is not a good idea, but we all know there will be exceptions."

Understanding this distinction requires an appreciation of Italian concepts of law, which hold sway throughout the thought world of the Vatican. The law, according to such thinking, expresses an ideal. It describes a perfect state of affairs from which many people will inevitably fall short. This view is far removed from the typical Anglo-Saxon approach, which expects the law to dictate what people actually do.

While Italians grumble about lawlessness, fundamentally they believe in subjectivity. Anyone who's tried to negotiate the traffic in Italian cities will appreciate the point. No law, most Italians believe, can capture the infinite complexity of human situations, and it's more important for the law to describe a vision of the ideal community than for it to be rigidly obeyed. Italians have tough laws, but their enforcement is enormously forgiving. Not for nothing was their equivalent of the attorney general's office once known as the Ministry of Justice and Grace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/opinion/27allen.html

[Bob3]

1. yes but the pope's german

And the german tradition is that the law must be obeyed to the letter and beyond - subjectivity is not a option. Which of course means this is just gibberish.

[Not Me]

2. One of the steps in my coming out

was to leave the Catholic Church.

[sui generis]

3. it's silly - sometimes people in the clergy don't even

know themselves, or may know and not plan on "living" that kind of life, and so not consider themselves culturally homosexual.

Some gays in the clergy are in denial or sincerely believe that they are doing what is necessary to pursue a life of purity.

Until the catholic church straps a girth-o-meter on and starts showing pornography to get a rise (so to speak) out of potential candidates, it would be impossible to even guess who might or might not be.

And that practice would do more to keep everyone out of the priesthood than just persecuting gays alone.

The solution is SO simple, and they just can't see it. Choose priests who want to be priests; allow them to have lives and to be married; welcome people rather than turn them away, and be a beacon and meaningful to people in the 21st century living 21st century lives.

Until the roman catholic church does that, they are doomed to preach medieval philosophy to third world congregations in developing countries, and doomed to be driven by those irrelevant values into irrelevancy themselves.