The Question:

The recent series in the Kansas City Star about homosexual priests and the story in the February 10, 2000, issue of The Wanderer about a web site for homosexual priests and bishops lead me to ask: Is the inclination itself an impediment to orders? If not, should it be?

The Answer:

In short, our answers to these questions are "no" and "yes" respectively. However, in canon law, things are not that simple.

We can begin by looking at what is required of candidates for ordination rather than those things that would disqualify them. Canon 1029 goes to the heart of the matter.

Only those are to be promoted to orders who, in the prudent judgement of their own bishop or of the competent major superior, all things considered, have integral faith, are moved by the right intention, have the requisite knowledge, possess a good reputation, and are endowed with integral morals and proven virtues and the other physical and psychic qualities in keeping with the order to be received.

One who does not regard homosexual acts as seriously sinful, whether he be inclined to commit them or not, could certainly be considered as lacking the requisites of "integral morals and proven virtues." If he regarded them as sinful and was inclined to commit them, it is arguable that he could be judged as having these requisites. Then, would the inclination itself bar him from receiving orders? Here is what the law says.

Can. 1040—Those affected by any impediment, whether perpetual, which is called an irregularity, or simple, are prevented from receiving orders. The only impediments incurred, however, are those contained in the following canons.

Can 1041—The following are irregular for receiving orders:

1° a person who labors under some form of amentia or other psychic illness due to which, after experts have been consulted, he is judged unqualified to fulfill the ministry properly…

Homosexuality is not mentioned expressly as a psychic illness and the unanimous opinion of our staff and two consulting canonists is that it would be very difficult to argue that a chaste homosexual who accepted the teaching of the Church and led a virtuous life would incur the irregularity as defined by c. 1041, 1°. Only the Pope could change the law so that it would say that such a person would be irregular for receiving orders.

The Kansas City Star series concentrated on the plight of priests who are infected with AIDS or who have died from it, as does much of the propaganda that tries to portray homosexual practices in a positive light and to arouse sympathy for the victims. The question as to whether men with homosexual tendencies should or should not receive the sacrament of orders has nothing to do with AIDS. The question existed before the plague and will continue to exist afterward.

There are many kinds of serious disorders of sexual desire that one might argue should be an irregularity to orders. Experience has shown, however, that homosexuality is one of the most insidious. It not only may lead to individual sexual misbehavior but also to a cultic sinfulness in a way that other disorders generally do not. Furthermore, those afflicted with the other disorders do not make demands that secular society and the Church treat their perversion—or "gift," as they see it—as "just another lifestyle" and grant them special rights and privileges.

The articles that prompted the instant question are only the latest in a body of evidence that links the homosexualist ideology with organized efforts to undermine the constant moral teaching of the Church from within. The gross details of their acts and open hostility to Catholic morality as illustrated on the referenced web site are not what the homosexualist community wants the public to see, but the basic problem has been identified and commented upon for years. A major work was the comprehensive study, The Homosexual Network: Private Lives and Public Policy, by Fr. Enrique T. Rueda, published by Devin Adair in 1982. The section on the relationships between the homosexual movement and the Catholic Church mentions some individuals who are still doing harm.

If homosexual proclivity were added to the irregularities listed in canon 1041, there is hardly any among us who would be so naive as to think the difficulty would be resolved. After all, vigilant and courageous bishops have been able to keep homosexuals from their priestly formation programs without such legislation. It might, however, inject the less vigilant and courageous with more resolve. Over time, the result would be to reduce the percentage of homosexuals among priests and bishops.

Members of the clergy, like all of us, are tempted to commit sins against the sixth commandment and some, like all of us, occasionally fall. We all know of historical instances of clerics, including a few popes, whose personal lives left—shall we say—a lot to be desired; yet the Church survived. Had their sinfulness been organized and cultic, the story might have been different.

In 1979, before the AIDS plague, a committee of New England bishops considered the question of the admissibility of homosexuals to the priesthood and, in a statement entitled "Priestly Formation: Discerning Vocations," came to the following conclusion.

A man who seems unable to come to heterosexual maturity should not be admitted. We recognize that there are versions and degrees of homosexuality and that generalizations cannot easily be made. We include in this statement anyone who while not engaging in homosexual activity is psychically homosexual and therefore unable to tolerate the demands of celibate priestly ministry or of rectory living…Young men who are excessively effeminate should not be admitted…because God calls real men and if there are not real men, there can be no call. (Origins, NC News Documentary Service, January 3, 1980, p. 472.)