You see right now, His Holiness, Pope Interim I, as I like to call him, is said to be on the verge of releasing an edict that would ban all gays from Roman Catholic seminaries...regardless of their commitment to celibacy. Apparently this is in response to the priest child sex abuse scandals and the idea that being around a bunch of guys in a seminary context is just too tempting. (I know, I know, but apparently he hasn't read any one of a dozen books on the profile of most child molestors, including priests--straight men, with stunted emotional growth, and a need to dominate and contol. I'm sure he's been very busy and just didn't get around to it yet.)(He apparently also ignores how much the study of Augustine can be a major wood kill, but I digress crudely.)

As both Andrew Sullivan and the New York Times have been reporting with some regularity in these past days (a phrase I NEVER thought I would write) many in the USA, but especiallly in New York City, have begun to grumble about how this new ruling essentially dismisses the thousands of gay priests who have served honorably and without scandal or a violation of thier vows...particularly Father Mychal Judge.

You may recall the images of Father Mike from 9/11...He was the senior chaplain of the New York City Fire Department who rushed to the scene of the 9/11 disaster and was performing last rights on a fallen firefighter and removed his safety hat as a part of the rite, only to be fatally wounded by falling debris. Many of us will carry the image of his body being carried into a nearby Roman Catholic church by his NYFD colleagues to our graves.

It was no secret that Mychal Judge was gay, and, as far as anyone knows, celibate. He was active in the Manhattan chapter of Dignity for many, many years, and even provided a home for them in his parish when the Cardinal expelled them from a diocesan church. (Fr. Mychal was a Franciscan)

I can't imagine a more insulting tribute to Father Judge than the planned Vatican edict. Apparently, it may be altered to remove the ban, but many say that the Pope is steadfast in insisting it be maintained.

I realize that as a non-Catholic I'm sticking my nose in some other church's business...but as a gay man who was successfully able to stifle my raging hormones and avoid jumping the bones of the many attractive men with whom I went to seminary--and I won't name names so they can all think I'm talking about them--despite actually sharing a room (and even a bathroom) with some of them on school trips, I stuggle mightily with the desire to go all 'Opus' on his ass and launch a big, wet "pppphhhhbbbbttttt" in the direction of the leader of the largest Christian church in the world....

There...I've gotten that off my chest..now I can write my sermon about ecumenism for World Communion Sunday.


UPDATE: "Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?" That is the question that Vatican investigators began asking this week at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. The seminary is the first in the country to face the scrutiny of inquisitors in their investigation of gays in American seminaries.

The president of Aquinas, Father Charles Bouchard, said he is opposed to the line of questioning but has no choice but to allow the investigators to probe students.
Bouchard said that there are currently 300 students at Aquinas Institute, on the campus of St. Louis University, but only 25 are studying to become priests.

The Vatican ordered the investigation of America's 229 seminaries to identify gays gets (story) in the aftermath of the child sex abuse scandal that has gripped the Church in the US. Bouchard said that it is wrong to link homosexuality with pedophilia but he hopes the questioning points that out to the Vatican.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (S.N.A.P.) agrees. "They are mixing apples and oranges. A homosexual is not a pedophile. To make this a homosexual issue is just wrong," said spokesperson Barbara Dorris.
But the outcome of the investigation appears to have been predetermined.