UNITED STATES
Gay City News
By ANDY HUMM
Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, whose past responsibilities focused on ministering to young men in the military, will now run an inquisition aimed at gay men in Catholic seminaries; John McNeill, a gay priest, is a harsh critic of the policy, but believes it may be the straw that breaks the back of resistance to reform in the church.
The long anticipated witch-hunt of homosexual men in U.S. Catholic seminaries is underway under Pope Benedict XVI, with the only reaction from gay Catholics being statements of protest.
The church says the purge is a response to the sex abuse scandals and an act of compassion toward the men. Catholic dissidents call it everything from an outrage to a work of the Holy Spirit that will in time lead to reform.
Just this week, Catholic World News reported that the pope “has given his approval to a new Vatican policy document indicating that men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained as Catholic priests.” That policy has not been published, but the guidelines for sweeping the seminaries have.
Edwin O’Brien, Archbishop for Military Services, has been appointed by Rome to lead the “visitation” of seminaries, looking into 56 areas of adherence to orthodoxy in the training of men to be priests. One of six mandatory questions asks if there is “evidence of homosexuality in the seminary.”