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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
Msgr. Andrew R. Baker, a priest of the Diocese of Allentown, PA and a member of the staff of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome, argued that they should not.
Most Catholic Exchange readers will not be surprised to find Bishop Gumbleton taking this position; he is well known for his advocacy of liberal causes. Yet he makes several points that deserve serious consideration. He starts with a fact we cannot deny: No doubt there are now, and have always been, good priests, brothers and nuns with homosexual leanings. If these men and women have lived celibate lives, we would have no way of knowing about their sexual yearnings. I have heard solid and orthodox priests speculate that there could be saints in this category. Who knows?
Gumbleton: “Without being aware of it, untold numbers of people in the church have been blessed by the compassionate and healing ministry of gay priests and bishops. Ordinary common sense tells us that such ministry is of God. It is authentic and it is valid.” If these men and women have remained celibate, Gumbleton continues, “We must ask ourselves: do we really want to deprive the church of the valuable and blessed ministry that is already being provided by priests and religious who are gay or lesbian? Do we really wish to increase the pain and hurt that many of them have experienced throughout their lives? Do we really want to instigate a ‘witch hunt’ to expel from the ministry gay priests, and, I might add, gay bishops?”
It must stressed that Gumbleton is talking about celibate homosexuals, priests who are living up to their vows: “I have worked with and come to know well many gay priests. They are healthy psychologically, and their committed ministry has been very effective.”
Fr. Baker disagrees. But not with the idea that a homosexual “attraction as such is not a sin. Only when one chooses to pursue the attraction in thought or deed does the disordered inclination become a disordered, and therefore, sinful, choice.” Then why deny ordination to those who are determined to overcome this temptation? Because, says Baker, the homosexual tendency is “to view the other person of the same sex as a possible sexual ‘partner’ or even to reduce the other (also a temptation for heterosexuals) to a sexual object. In such a clearly male environment as the seminary and the priesthood, the temptation is ever-present for those with the disorder. This temptation could present very difficult circumstances and the overwhelming presentation of the object of their attraction (men), which is naturally part of an all-male and intensely close community, could make their efforts to live chastely or to be healed of their disorder very difficult.”
Fr. Baker offers several other, more complex, observations about what it means when a homosexual takes the vow to live a celibate life as a member of the clergy. I recommend his article for your consideration.
But who is right on the basic point? Can homosexuals overcome their inclinations to this sin and live celibate lives as good priests and religious? Or is this disorder too debilitating to permit those beset with it to be considered for the priesthood and religious life? One bishop quoted by Gumbleton argued, “I don’t think drug addicts should be pharmacists, I don’t think alcoholics should be bartenders, I don’t think kleptomaniacs should be bank tellers and I don’t think homosexuals should be priests.” (Gumbleton thinks this logic “bizarre,” by the way.)
If Gumbleton had no more to say on the topic than that there probably have been celibate homosexuals who have been good priests, one might call his debate with Baker a standoff. But he does say more. You see, the “gay” priests he is determined to defend are not just the celibate priests of the past, who overcame their inclination to sin and served the Church admirably. His goal is for something else: for “gay” priests to “come out” of the closet; to admit their homosexuality openly to their superiors and to the communities they serve. He quotes one such priest who yearns to “be able to be ‘out’ (in appropriate ways) and honest with the people I serve. I feel rejection by the people I try to serve in love, which causes me much pain…I am saddened that I am prevented from sharing those parts of who I am, the source of my compassion and that which energizes me.”
It is here that the nature of the homosexual revolution within the Church becomes clear. Gumbleton and the priest he quotes may have told us more than they intended. Look: One does not call a sin to which one is drawn the “source of my compassion and that which energizes me.” A priest tempted by adultery or illegal drugs would not speak of his temptation in this manner. A priest who has not engaged in the adultery to which he is attracted would not call himself an ‘adulterer priest.” A priest who stays away from the illegal drugs that attract him would not call himself a “doper priest.” They would not want to come “out of the closet” and be identified to their parishioners by the sins that tempt them. Yet certain priests with homosexual longings do. Why?
The only conclusion I can reach is that they do not accept the Church’s teachings that homosexual activity is sinful. Their goal in “coming out” is to play their part in promoting the notion that homosexuality is a legitimate sexual “orientation,” different from the majority orientation, but not inherently sinful.
Gumbleton is prudent enough to not state openly that he rejects the Church’s teaching about the sinfulness of homosexual activity. But it is difficult to read his statement that follows without coming to the conclusion that his goal is to create an equivalence of sorts between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Consider: “As a heterosexual person I have had to learn how to integrate my sexuality in a healthy way in all of my loving and mutual relationships. As a celibate person, I chose to do this without full sexual intimacy. And as Professor Grisez puts it, I arrive at a point of ‘peaceful chastity and the sublimation of sexual energy’ into priestly service for the kingdom’s sake.”
Bishop Gumbleton becomes specific: “What is true of me as a celibate heterosexual person is just as true of the celibate homosexual person. The homosexual priest or bishop brings the same charism to the service of the church as the heterosexual and can achieve this same ‘peaceful chastity and sublimation of sexual energy’ for priestly service.”
I submit that Bishop Gumbleton would not take this position about a priest beset with temptations to other types of sexual deviancy. (It isn’t necessary to get graphic here, is it? But just to make the point: I don’t think he would speak of a necrophiliac’s “sublimation of sexual energy.”) Gumbleton’s words seem to indicate that he does not think homosexuality a disorder. The Church does.
