UNITED STATES
Canton Repository
By CHARITA M. GOSHAY Repository staff writer
Catholics are abuzz with the news that the Vatican is set to launch an inspection of America’s 229 seminaries, with the possible intent of purging homosexual students from the rolls.
If so, it would be the first significant step taken by Pope Benedict XVI regarding homosexuality, which is described in the church’s catechism, as “objectively disordered.”
“We think it’s a very hurtful, misguided attempt at shifting the blame,” said David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “No seminarian, gay or straight, transferred child molesters, shunned the victims, deceived parishioners, and stonewalled law enforcement. Bishops caused this crisis, not seminary staff or students.”
Clohessy calls the Vatican’s plan “potentially unworkable.”