November 24, 2005

Gay and Lesbian Catholics: Everything & Nothing -- More Questions Than Answers!

CHICAGO (IL)
All American Patriots

CHICAGO, Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Organizations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Catholics worldwide have reacted angrily to the leaked text of the Vatican's "Instruction Concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment Regarding Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to Seminaries and Holy Orders."

New Ways Ministry USA, the US Rainbow Sash Movement, and the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement, based in London, UK have issued a joint reaction claiming that the document says everything and nothing, raising more questions than answers.

What is now assumed to be the definitive text appeared two days ago on the website of Adista, a progressive Catholic news agency in Rome, with a headline, "Ethical Cleansing."

The "Instruction" was signed by the Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education (CCE), Polish Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, and its Secretary, Canadian Archbishop Michael Miller, on November 4. The document received approval from Pope Benedict XVI on August 31, then ordering its publication. The text has been prepared jointly by the CCE and the Congregation for Divine Worship & the Discipline of the Sacraments. Significantly, the Vatican's department dealing with religious communities, as well as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, do not appear to have had prime roles in its formulation.

Posted by kshaw at November 24, 2005 07:30 AM