Jesuit provincial leads backlash against gay priests document

American clerics send delegation to Rome in protest at new document
FROM JERRY FILTEAU IN WASHINGTON DC
A SENIOR American Jesuit is leading the backlash in the Church against a forthcoming Vatican instruction that allegedly bars gay men from entering the priesthood even if they are celibate.
Fr Gerald Chojnacki, the New York Jesuit provincial, wrote to members of the province to say that such an instruction would be unjust and discriminatory.
He said he feared “the great harm this will cause many good priests and the Catholic faithful” if the Vatican issue such an instruction. “We know that God does not discriminate,” he said. “We know that gay men have felt God calling them to serve the Church as priests and religious.
“We know that gay men have felt those calls confirmed by prayerful and legitimate discernment processes. We know that gay men who have responded to the call have served the Church well as priests and religious — and so why would we be asked to discriminate based on orientation alone against those whom God has called and invited?” He said the American Jesuit provinces “have had, for a good number of years, a policy of non-discrimination as to sexual orientation for entrance into the novitiate”.
He added: “We look for a person’s ability and capacity to live a chaste life whether he is homosexual or heterosexual.” A press release from the New York provincial office after the letter became public said the letter “was intended to be an internal communication” only.
The statement said it was Fr Chojnacki’s “strong desire and clear preference to be in dialogue with other religious superiors” and also with the “bishops of the Church around this issue”.
The New York Times has revealed that the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) was sending a delegation to Rome to voice its concerns about the instruction.
Fr Paul Lininger, CMSM executive director, said the internal letter that he had sent to the heads of men’s religious orders around the country was intended to remain private “because we don’t want to inflame situations, but we needed to respond”.
He said: “This is an anxious moment; it creates difficult issues for people.” The planned ban on celibate gay men entering Catholic seminaries might have been deliberately leaked to a conservative website based in Vati can City to elicit the response of the Church, according to one source. The hostile reaction has led some Vatican observers to suggest that the Congregation for Education, which controls the world’s Catholic seminaries, may make the document less restrictive before it is published, possibly on October 13.
There has never been a study of the numbers of gay priests in America, but estimates ranging from 20 per cent to 50 per cent have been frequently reported. Adding to fears of a “gay witchhunt” was a question in a working document used for a Vatican visitation of American seminaries, which asks: “Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary?” The main purposes of the visitation are to determine how well seminaries are forming prospective priests to live celibate lives and how well they are forming them to understand, accept and follow Catholic moral teaching.
The questionnaire that formed part of a working document for the visitations touched on a wide range of concerns in seminary life and formation, but many news reports singled out the homosexuality element for special treatment.
Media reports also focused on a comment made last month by Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of the Military Services, the American coordinator of the visitations.
When asked about the homosexuality question in the visitation document, he said seminaries should not admit applicants who have a strong homosexual orientation or a past history of homosexual activity, even if they have been celibate for a decade or more.
But last week Archbishop O’Brien said his comment about not admitting men to the priesthood “who have engaged in homosexual activity or who have strong homosexual inclinations” reflected only his personal opinion based on 12 years of experience as a seminary rector.
He said he was not speaking on behalf of the Vatican or the American bishops and his job as coordinator of the visitations means that “I simply oversee the logistics”.
He rejected media efforts to link the anticipated Vatican instruction with the visitations.
“Such a document has been said to be in preparation for several years as a policy directive for the whole Church,” he said.
“Connecting the possible release of this document to either the visitation or the sex abuse crisis in the United States in 2002 ignores those facts.”