Is this the same pope who, early in his pontificate, when asked about a gay clergyman who keeps his vows, asked rhetorically, "Who am I to judge?"

Yes, it is.

Part of the confusion about the decision to permit blessings of gay people who are in a relationship stems from the Vatican's own press coverage of the document Fiducia Supplicans when it was promulgated last December.

Vatican News produced the headline: "Doctrinal declaration opens the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations." Couples, not individuals.

When reading the English translation of the document, it clearly states, at Paragraph 11:

… it is necessary that what is blessed corresponds with God's designs written in creation and fully revealed by Christ the Lord.

For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice.

But the very next paragraph sets the stage for the pastoral application of the doctrinal principle, stating, "One must also avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings to this point of view alone. …

"Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the unconditional power of God's love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing."

This was the heart of the document: God's unconditional love "forms the basis for the gesture of blessing."

The pope was indicating that a pastor, charged with helping all persons develop and deepen their relationship with God, can impart a blessing on persons whose situation is, in the eyes of the church, irregular.

"The shift Francis intends is, at once, less exact and more profound than a doctrinal shift," I wrote at the time. "What Francis has been trying to achieve for many years is to relocate the place of doctrine within the magisterium of the church, specifically to insist that doctrine serve the good of souls, not the other way round."

The issue of gay seminarians is entirely different from that of blessing gay unions: No doctrinal issues are involved.

So long as a seminarian is celibate, and has maturely integrated his celibacy into his life, it should not matter if he is straight or gay.

We do not have a transcript of what the pope said to the Italian bishops and, especially, what question prompted him to say what he did.

There have been instances of seminaries with a gay subculture that was destructive of the formation the seminary existed to impart.

The fact that the pope may have used a vulgar Italian word, frociaggine — translated as "queerness" in most media accounts but I suspect "campiness" is closer to what was meant — when discussing the subject suggests he might have had in mind precisely such a situation.

The pope has now apologised for using the term.

The idea that the pope has suddenly revealed his hidden bigotry towards gay persons, which seems to be the consensus on social media, is ridiculous.

Nothing about this man or his papacy suggests he is bigoted towards anyone.

Whence, then, this ambivalence in the pope's statements?

How did he go from "Who am I to judge?" to this?

It has to do with the inherent conflict of his position as pope.

He is the universal pastor of the church and he is the defender of Christian doctrine.

He wants to help people grow closer to God, and knows that accompanying them, not judging them, is the best way to achieve that. He also believes what the church teaches.

It is this last point that the activists on both sides forget. Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters is the author of Left At the Altar: How Democrats Lost The Catholics And How Catholics Can Save The Democrats (Basic Books, 2008).

He "never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he apologises to those who felt offended" says Holy See press office chief Matteo Bruni.

The remarks are at odds with the pope's track record to date.

He has made outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy and has long insisted there was "room for everyone" in the Catholic Church.

Not quite closed

Bruni said the pope's comments were delivered behind closed doors at a meeting with Italian bishops on May 20.

Italian media on Monday claimed unnamed Italian bishops said Pope Francis jokingly used the Italian term "faggotness" during the meeting.

They said he used the term when reaffirming the Vatican's ban on allowing gay men to enter seminaries or be ordained priests.

But Brunei says Francis "never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others".

LGBTQ+ advocates offended

Advocates for greater inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics are upset.

The offensive slur is bad enough.

But "what is damaging is the institutional church's insistence on ‘banning' gay men from the priesthood as if we all do not know (and minister alongside) many gifted, celibate, gay priests".

So said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, chair of the religious studies department at Manhattan College.

She added "The LGBTQ community seems to be a constant target of offhand, off the cuff ‘mistakes' from people in the Vatican, including the pope, who should know better".

Comments taken out of context

Francis remarks were taken out of context says the vice president of the Italian Bishops' Conference.

He is accusing the leaker of using the comments to divide.

"The pope is not homophobic and never was" said Bishop Francesco Savino of the southern Italian Diocese of Cassano all'Jonio.

He denied that, in his conversation with the Italian bishops on May 20, Pope Francis gave a categorical "no" to the entry of homosexuals to the seminary.

"There is not an a priori 'no' to them" he said.

"His true concern is the serenity of all. The pope wanted to say that the candidates [for the priesthood and entry to the seminary], whether homosexual or heterosexual, should be capable of living well their promises with respect to obedience, poverty and chastity; to love with a full heart and empty hands."

Source

• Vatican News
• AP News
• America

"Inside the Closet" will be released in eight languages across 20 countries next Wednesday - the same day as the Vatican conference on sexual abuse opens.

French journalist and author Frédéric Martel spent four years researching the book, which its British publisher Bloomsbury says is a "startling account of corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatican".

Bloomsbury's promotional material also says the book "reveals secrets" about celibacy, misogyny and plots against Pope Francis, and uncovers "a clerical culture of secrecy which starts in junior seminaries and continues right up to the Vatican itself".

Martel, who is a former adviser to the French government, conducted 1,500 interviews while researching the book.

Those he interviewed included 41 cardinals, 52 bishops and monsignors, 45 papal ambassadors or diplomatic officials, 11 Swiss guards and more than 200 priests and seminarians.

Martel's defenders say his book will reveal the problems of a dysfunctional clerical culture that is in denial about sex.

Others argue the timing of the book's publication will once again unfairly conflate homosexuality with sexual abuse of children and intensify a witch hunt against gay priests.

Martel's research is said to reveal that some gay priests accept their sexual orientation and a number maintain discreet long-term relationships. Apparently, some live more extreme double lives through casual encounters and the use of male prostitutes. Others are in denial about their sexuality.

He is also said to argue that the intra-church battles of recent decades should be read through a closeted gay paradigm.

Those with knowledge of "In the Closet" say Martel reserves his harshest criticism for senior figures in the Church who have attacked homosexuality yet are secretly gay.

• The Tablet
• The Guardian
• Image: The Times

It began, most recently, with

• accusations of abuse and harassment against the former cardinal-archbishop of Washington, D.C., Theodore McCarrick
• deepened with the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing 70 years of abuse in the Commonwealth and,
• intensified with the former Vatican nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's 11-page "testimony" accusing many high-ranking clerics, including Pope Francis, with covering up the crimes.

Catholics have a right to be angry at abusive clergy, at bishops who covered up their crimes and at the sclerotic clerical system that allowed the crimes and cover-ups to go unpunished for decades.

But the intensity of hate and level of anger directed at gay priests are unprecedented in my memory.

What I mean by "gay priests" is ordained priests with a homosexual orientation who are living their promises of celibacy (and in religious orders, their vows of chastity).

That it is necessary even to define the term "gay priest" points out the widespread misinformation about what has become perhaps the most incendiary topic in the current discussion.

A few commentators have even declared that the term "gay" implies that a priest must be sexually active.

As I use the term, a "gay priest" simply means an ordained priest who has a homosexual orientation.

The long-simmering rage against gay priests and the supposed "homosexual subculture" or "Lavender Mafia" has been fanned into a fire that threatens to engulf not only faithful gay priests but also, more broadly, L.G.B.T. people.

While the contempt directed at gay clergy is coming from just a handful of cardinals, bishops and priests, as well as a subset of Catholic commentators, it is as intense as it is dangerous.

"It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord," wrote Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wis.

A Swiss bishop, Marian Eleganti, declared that the "networks" of gay priests in the church must be investigated before the "great purification" can begin.

A bishop in Kazakhstan, Athanasius Schneider, listing remedies for clergy abuse, began with this: "cleanse uncompromisingly the Roman Curia and the episcopate from homosexual cliques and networks."

Cardinal Raymond Burke, the influential former archbishop of St. Louis, said, "There is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root."

Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute, takes this to its inevitable conclusion, telling the Associated Press that what is needed is "a complete and thoroughgoing removal of all homosexual clergymen in the church." Continue reading

• Fr James Martin, SJ, is editor at large of America

And again, people say they are shocked and outraged, which shows how Catholics still refuse to see that there is an underlying issue to these cases.

It is the fact that almost all of them concern males — whether they are adolescents, post-pubescent teens or young men.

And while no adult who is of sound psychosexual health habitually preys on those who are vulnerable, there is no denying that homosexuality is a key component to the clergy sex abuse (and now sexual harassment) crisis.

With such a high percentage of priests with a homosexual orientation, this should not be surprising.

But let me be very clear: psychologically healthy gay men do not rape boys or force themselves on other men over whom they wield some measure of power or authority.

However, we are not talking about men who are psychosexually mature. And yet the bishops and officials at the Vatican refuse to acknowledge this.

Rather, they are perpetuating the problem, and even making it worse, with policies that actually punish seminarians and priests who seek to deal openly, honestly and healthily with their sexual orientation.

McCarrick's case made me think of that of the late Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who in 2013 was removed from ministry after the surfacing of reports that he'd harassed and been involved with seminarians.

That year, cardinals picked a pope, and O'Brien stepped back - or was pulled back by higher-ups.

Something I wrote then comes to mind amid the McCarrick scandal: O'Brien should not have recused himself from voting in the pope-picking "conclave," as "only a naif could believe that he is the only man among the electors who has broken his solemn promise to remain celibate," I wrote in the March 9, 2013, edition of the Tablet. "There are likely others. And even those who've done worse," I warned.

Our problem in the Church is of the abuse of power, an abuse that happens as a result of homophobia that keeps gay men in the closet, bars them from growing up and results in distorted sexuality for many gay priests.

We need to address this elephant in the rectory parlor.

Had O'Brien attended the 2013 conclave, I believe he could have looked several of his red-robed confreres who have also "fallen below the standards" directly in the eyes.

This is not to justify his conduct, but rather to say that the hypocrisy must end. Continue reading

• Robert Mickens is editor of La Croix International. He writes from Rome, Vatican City.

The escort Francesco Mangiacapra gave the documents to Cardinal Cresenzio Sepe of Naples, who passed it on to the Vatican.

The document is said to contain social media conversations and photos showing priests and seminarians are actively interested in gay sex.

Sene says he passed the information on to the Vatican because "those who have erred must pay the price, and be helped to repent for the harm done."

The Associated Press (AP) says Mangiacapra describes himself as a "gay escort".

The AP says Mangiacapra claims he came forward with his list because he wanted to expose the 34 priests' and six seminarians' alleged hypocrisy.

A statement from the Diocese of Naples says the documents do not involve any accounts of sex with minors.

"We're talking about sins, not crimes," Mangiacapra said, according to the diocesan statement.

Sene says none of the priests named in the documents is in his archdiocese. He was given the documents because Mangiacapra lives in Naples.

Church teaching says "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered".

Furthermore, ordained priests take vows of celibacy.

Source

• Advocate
• Huffington Post
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Road Tv Italia

In an interview on Irish-channel Clare FM's Morning Focus, Fr Lynch said the message of God is to love and to love one another.

He said the Catholic Church "does terrible damage and it is part of the destruction of gay people's lives and how that can be Godly?

"How can that be Christ's message? Who would choose to be gay? It is God given and our choice is to embrace it." Read more

The Vatican has updated and reaffirmed its 2005 policy that "persons with homosexual tendencies" cannot be admitted to Catholic seminaries.

Spiritual directors "must 'dissuade' gay candidates from pursuing ordination".

Pope Francis approved the current policy. It is included in a newly updated document The Gift of the Priestly Vocation

Among its instructions, the new document says: "the church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.'"

Groups supporting LGBT Catholics are disappointed the policy will continue.

They cannot reconcile the ban with Pope Francis who said "who am I to judge?" in relation to homosexuals.

The document also says gay men "find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women."

One LGBT support group said: "These guidelines are a tremendous insult to the thousands of gay men who have served and continue to serve the Church with honor and dedication.

"They undermine decades of commitment by these men, and they fail to acknowledge that God calls a great variety of people to the priesthood."

As individual bishops, seminary rectors and the superiors of religious orders are allowed to screen candidates, the approaches for implem,enting the Vatican's rules vary.

One group forbids all gay men from entering seminaries. Another allows gay men, unless they have primarily identified as homosexual or openly supported the "gay culture".

A third group allows gay men to enter so long as they live chastely - that is, so long as they "do not act on their desires, and maintain their vows of chastity or promises of celibacy".

Source

• Vatican Radio
• America
• National Catholic Reporter
• Congregation for the Clergy
• Image: YouTube

That so many priests are gay, "isn't so much the elephant in the room but a herd of elephants.

"I don't like my church's attitude to gay people. I don't like 'love the sinner, hate the sin'. If you are the so-called sinner, who likes to be called that?

"We also know that within the priesthood a very large number of priests are gay," she said.

Calling out former Pope Benedict, Mrs McAleese said, "Things written by [Pope] Benedict, for example, were completely contradictory to modern science and to modern understanding, and to the understanding of most Catholics nowadays in relation to homosexuality.

"Nowadays, it is not something that is perceived as something that is intrinsically disordered. Homosexual conduct is not seen as evil," said Mrs McAleese.

Mrs McAleese compared the church's attitude to gays to the "Christ killer" charge levelled against Jews for 2,000 years.

"I would have thought Cardinal Keith O'Brien, in telling the story of his life - if he was willing to do that - could have been of great assistance to gay people, not just in the church but elsewhere, who felt over many, many years constrained to pretend to be heterosexual while ... acting a different life."

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Broadsheet

The tribunal had been considering whether Geno Sisneros, of Auckland, was discriminated against when his application to train as a priest was turned down. Continue reading

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" the pope was quoted by reporters.

The pope's remarks came up during an 80-minute, impromptu news conference on his flight back to Rome from Brazil, and have been widely reported.

Observers, however, said that the pontiff's remark did nothing to change Catholic doctrine, which prohibits homosexual sex but not the state of homosexuality.

Some media reports said conservative Catholics sought to downplay the statements.

"He addressed the issue [of gays in the church] in a more frank way, but this is not a departure" from Catholic teachings, said Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Catholic Association.

"Pope Francis was pointing out that Catholics with a homosexual orientation, honestly living out their faith and seeking God (as all Catholics should), are integral members of the church," said Ramon Luzarraga, a theology professor at the Benedictine University of Mesa, Arizona.

The pope's statement came up when he was asked about a supposed "gay lobby" of Vatican officials, purported to have been discussed in a confidential report he was given upon his election to the papacy.

Francis said he did not approve of any kind of lobby, but that it was important to distinguish that from priests or other Catholics who might be gay.

Jesuit commentator James Martin said the remarks constituted a dramatic change in the church's attitude toward homosexuality.

On the role of women in the Church, Pope Francis said: "We cannot limit the role of women in the Church to altar girls or the president of a charity, there must be more.

"But with regards to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says no... That door is closed."

Answering questions about the troubled Vatican bank, he said the institution must become "honest and transparent" and that he would listen to advice on whether it could be reformed or should be shut down altogether.

"I don't know what will become of the bank. Some say it is better that is a bank, others that it should be a charitable fund and others say close it," he said.

Pope Francis' remarks generated many headlines, with media outlets around the world highlighting the statement "who am I to judge?"

Sources

Patheos

Christian Post

Time

The Telegraph

Los Angeles Times

BBC

Image: AP/Los Angeles Times

In 1994 the American Episcopal church ordained an openly gay bishop. In the face of the ensuing uproar, The Archbishop of Canterbury set up a commission to look at ways that the Anglican Communion could stay together in the face of conflicts. The commission proposed an Anglican Communion Covenant as a way of proceeding.

At a meeting of Te Runanganui o te Pihopatanga of Aotearoa (the Maori Anglican Church) gathered at Te Papa-i-o-uru Marae, Ohinemutu, last week the Rev Don Tamihere, when seconding a motion to reject the proposal said the covenant was not about homosexuality.

"It is about compliance and control. We are being asked to sign over our sovereignty, our rangatiratanga to an overseas group, to a standing committee over whom we have no choice or control."

Non-Maori dioceses are split on the matter. Wellington, Nelson and Waikato-Taranaki have expressed qualified support while Auckland, Waiapu and Dunedin have rejected it and Christchurch and the Polynesian diocese have yet to decide.

The proposed covenant will be considered by the church's General Synod in July.

Source

• The Daily Post
• Image Lesley's Blog

St Matthew's in the City's latest billboard depicts a "gay-dar" showing a spectrum from gay to straight with a cross acting as a meter.

An explanatory caption on the board states: "As used by the Anglican Church to assess potential priests."

The Wardens, Vestry and Parishioners of St Matthew-in-the-City have also presented a petition to the Anglican Bishops asking them to reconsider their present policy regarding the ordination of gays and lesbians.

Currently New Zealand Anglican bishops refuse to consider any candidate for ordination who is gay or lesbian and in a committed relationship.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz