Northern Star Online
Adam Kotlarczyk
• akotlarczyk@northernstar.info
To be fair, the Catholic Church has a fine line to tread. To see just how fine, you need only to read over the recent statement from the Vatican, where the Congregation for Catholic Education issued an official "Instruction" banning homosexuals from entering the priesthood.
It reads, in part, men "who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’" cannot be allowed to enter seminaries.
Let’s start by dispelling the obvious. This isn’t a response - let’s hope - to the clergy sex abuse scandals that ripped through the United States in recent years. Although many would like to see the church do more to address those abuses, this does not.
Child molestation is a deviant sexual behavior. Even among those who, like some elements in the church, consider homosexuality to be an abnormal "problem" akin to pedophilia, it must be acknowledged there is a substantial difference between participating in a monogamous, adult homosexual relationship and molesting children.