MichNews
By Barbara Kralis
MichNews.com
Dec 1, 2005
On November 29, as President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB], Bishop Skylstad, Bishop of Spokane, WA, released a USCCB Press Statement regarding the Vatican’s promulgation, on the same date, of a document entitled: "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the discernment of vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.” After reading the Vatican document, Bishop Skylstad and others have still concluded that it is O.K. to ordain celibate homosexuals to the diaconate and the Priesthood (interview with the Washington Post on November 29, Bishop Skylstad). But is it?
This question must be answered clearly and absolutely by Catholic Bishops for the good of the Church in the United States. There are homosexual ears and heterosexual ears listening. No homosexual is going to enter a seminary if he knows for certain that he will be turned down in the end for ordination. Similarly, heterosexual healthy men will not enter a seminary if they know that people will judge them as being homosexual. It is difficult enough to convince people that a celibate priest is not homosexual when people think that homosexuals cannot be ordained. However, it is far more difficult to convince them if they think that bishops are ordaining celibate homosexuals. The people then think that possibly this priest or seminarian is a homosexual. Moreover, given the sex saturated culture in the United States, this possibly becomes a probably in the mind of these people. The bishops must make it absolutely clear that they do not permit homosexuals to enter the seminary or be ordained to the diaconate or priesthood as a matter of justice to heterosexual priests, seminarians, and deacons!