A reader writes:
I have been discerning a vocation to the priesthood. Though I’m in college, my home-diocesan vocations director has indicated that the diocese would accept me into the seminary as a candidate for priesthood if I were to apply now (or, presumably, when I’ve graduated). He knows that I experience same-sex attractions; that for about three years I have had a deep and varyingly consuming obsession with a particular male; that my homosexuality has been related to (if not causal of or resulting from, or both) a weak masculine identity and other affective problems; that I am speaking regularly to a NARTH psychiatrist to overcome these problems; etc. But the vocations director has explicitly assured me that the same-sex attraction does not present an impediment to my entering the seminary with a view to being ordained (all else going well).
I understand that even my life-long, exclusive attraction to the priesthood is neither sufficient nor necessary to demonstrate that I do have a vocation. I know that I have no right to be ordained, that the Church must discern with me and make the ultimate decision in the person of the bishop and his assistants, etc. But I am concerned here that the vocations director would be allowing me to do something which the Church universal, traditionally and also most recently in the Instruction issued last year by the Congregation for Catholic Education, has prohibited. The Instruction prohibits the ordination or admission to the seminary of those who (1) practice homosexuality, (2) present deep-seated (or, in what I consider a closer translation of the Italian, deeply rooted) homosexual tendencies, or (3) support the ‘gay’ culture.
Never having been in a sexual relationship with anyone, I don’t meet the first condition. Nor do I meet the third. My question, then, is how precisely to interpret the second condition, and how to differentiate it from the "transitory" tendencies which the Instruction indicates might not disqualify a man, provided he has been chaste for three years before ordination to the diaconate. Because I personally believe that same-sex attraction is in most cases the result of developmental problems, I consider most if not all homosexual tendencies to be in principle transitory (that is, not insuperable). And I’m still quite young; that leaves time for change, natural or induced. But I am also a realist and recognize that my tendencies, which do reveal some degree of affective immaturity and sometimes manifest themselves in difficulties in dealing with men and women (or in asserting myself healthily, or in leading, etc.), may not in fact ever go away because of contingent factors. They are rooted in childhood and early adolescent difficulties that are not easily overcome.
Even if my diocese grants official approval, if the Church has expressed a will that people in my condition not be ordained, I take this alone as sufficient to show that God has not called me. I do not want to take advantage of my diocese’s laxity in this regard if it is indeed illicit laxity, and I consider it my responsibility to discern whether I’m fit to present myself to the diocese. But do I in fact meet the second condition of the Instruction? Or if you do not have sufficient information to determine this in my case, can you explain precisely what you take the second condition to mean? I have read a wide variety of opinions, some of which would exclude me and others not.
I have to say that I have nothing but admiration for the clear-eyed, level-headed way in which the reader is approaching this situation. He is displaying a great deal of personal integrity, and I think he deserves the applause of everyone for the way in which he is conducting himself in this.
In addressing the question, I would suggest several points:
1) Individuals can try to shoulder too much of the burden of discernment. The question of whether the reader’s degree of same-sex attraction would be sufficient to prevent his admission to seminary is not exclusively his own to discern. In principle what the Church would want him to do is present the facts to the relevant officials and then they would have the primary burden of determining whether the degree of SSA is sufficient to meet the criteria in the document that the Holy See issued. In other words, in the ideal, he should be open and honest and submit to their judgment.
2) That being said, it is clear that there are individuals who have tried to minimize the import of the document and to interpret its second clause in manifestly inaccurate ways that would have the effect of gutting its meaning. Thus seminarians in some areas are not in the ideal situation and have some duty to use their own judment in determining whether or not their SSA meets the criteria described in the document.
3) The document itself also does not elaborate its criteria in great detail. As a result, there is some ambiguity in interpreting its meaning. Just what degree of SSA is needed for it to be "deep-seated" (or "deeply-rooted")? This is not altogether clear, and the resulting ambiguity is presumably something that the Holy See intends, so that the issue can be more thoroughly worked out in practice. Perhaps in the future the Holy See will publish more detailed guidance on the subject, but in the meantime there is at least some liberty of interpretation that local officials have in applying the document. It isn’t as if the Holy See said that any SSA–even light and momentary–bars one from the priesthood. The document speaks (see below) of some candidates for the priesthood having overcome a transitory problem with homosexual tendencies, but if one has ever had these, it is likely that they will continue to manifest at least occasionally and in a minor way later in life. How strong that manifestation would have to be to bar a candidate from ordination is something that the Holy See has not yet told us and thus the determination falls to local officials.
4) It therefore seems to me that the reader should seek to make the best determination he can based both on the judgment of local officials and his own understanding. He should not submit uncritically to the judgment of officials if they are unambiguously ignoring the meaning of the document, but neither should he presume to judge what the document requires exclusively according to his own judgment, for the Church has not charged him with that task. He should seek to make the best determination he can through an appraisal of the situation that seeks to incorporate both deference to local officials with his own judgment serving as a back-up if they are manifestly misinterpreting the document.
5) To apply the document to the reader’s own situation, it would be useful to review what it actually says:
In the light of such teaching, this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called "gay culture".
Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.
Different, however, would be the case in which one were dealing with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem – for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded. Nevertheless, such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate.
The contrast that the document presents between "deep-seated tendencies" and "tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem" that is capable of being "clearly overcome" would seem to refer to a contrast between tendencies that are strong and enduring and those that, while they may be strong for a time, are eventually mitigated and thus overcome.
It would be a mistake to read the tendencies as having to be so strong that they actually drive the person to homosexual behavior. That is clearly not required (a) because the word "tendencies" is being used and that word does not imply outward action based on the tendencies, (b) because the commission of homosexual acts is listed as a separate criterion (albeit an ongoing commission), and (c) because the Holy See did not say "tendencies so strong that they lead the individual to commit homosexual acts."
It also would be a mistake to read the the document as saying that once the tendencies have been overcome that the individual never experiences SSA again in his life. Any time one has had a particular sexual temptation for any period of time, human nature is such that this temptation is likely to recur at some point, even if it is just a mild and momentary desire.
Putting these pieces together, it seems to me that the Holy See would find acceptable a candidate who had a period of strong homosexual desires, whether or not they led him to have homosexual sex, who then is able to overcome these to the point that, even if they do not go away entirely, they markedly diminish and remain at their diminished level for a period of years.
In this regard, the document mentions them needing to be overcome for a period of at least three years prior to ordination to the diaconate. That clause seems to be included primarily to cover those who are already in seminary, but it (or a significiant portion of it, like two years) might serve as a useful guide in determining whether one is ready for admission to seminary.
6) As to what the overcoming of the temptations might involve, I can only conjecture here, because the Holy See has not given us criteria on this point, but I would conecture that the temptations have not yet been overcome if one or more of the following conditions obtain:
* An individual finds himself spending a significant amount of time fantasizing about homosexual acts.
* An individual finds himself spending a significant amount of time having romantic but non-sexual fantasies about members of the same sex.
* An individual regularly commits autoerotic acts that have homosexual fantasy content.
In suggesting these criteria, I am not talking about temporary slips but about ongoing, regular patterns of behavior.
7) In applying all of this directly to the case of the reader, it strikes me that at least at one time the reader has had a strong tendency (I’d not the apparently long-standing crush on another individual), but it is not clear to me whether this level of temptation still applies. It may well have moderated or begun to moderate.
There also is the fact that he is seeing a NARTH counsellor and the fact that he is still very young (I have removed his actual age in keeping with my policy of omitting personally identifying information from posts). All of these are positive signs, and I would encourage him to bide his time and see what happens with his SSA. It may mitigate to the point and remain mitigated long enough that the document would not prevent him from persuing a vocation to the priesthood.
If I may also offer one bit of advice from personal experience: When I was in college I once had an enormous crush on a young woman and the crush finally abated when I realized what a jerk she actually was. I’m not suggesting that the reader foster ill-will toward the individual to whom he is attracted, but trying to form a clear-eyed appraisal of the individual, including his faults, may serve to dispel some of the romantic aura that surrounds him.
As always, I would encourage my readers to keep the gentleman who wrote in prayer, as well as all who are in similar conditions. May they handle matters as oustandingly as this gentleman is.
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