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Loading ...Vatican calls for psych tests to weed out gays
10.30.2008 2:48pm EDT
(Vatican City) The Vatican said Thursday it is considering psychological testing for prospective priests to screen out candidates “with strong homosexual tendencies” and heterosexuals “unable to control their sexual urges.”
The document, released by Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, said that early detection of “sometimes pathological defects” would help avoid tragic experiences – a veiled reference to the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Church and which the Vatican has blamed on homosexuality, despite evidence showing no link between sexual orientation and pedophilia.The Vatican said that testing would be decided on a case-by-case basis when seminary rectors feared a prospective priest had “grave immaturity.”
“Such areas of immaturity would include strong affective dependencies; notable lack of freedom in relations; excessive rigidity of character; lack of loyalty; uncertain sexual identity; deep-seated homosexual tendencies, etc.”
The document also said that it was “not enough to be sure that [a candidate for the priesthood] is capable of abstaining from sexual activity” but also to “evaluate his sexual orientation.”
Gay groups have accused the Church of using homosexuals as scapegoats for the abuse scandals.
In 2005, the Vatican ordered a major evaluation of U.S. seminaries to look for evidence of homosexuality. It said that men with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies shouldn’t be ordained, but that those with a “transitory problem” could become priests if they had overcome them for three years.
It is unknown how many gay priests have been forced out of seminaries and the Vatican Thursday declined to give specifics.
All I can do is laugh. I have just finished yet another book about the “historical succession” from Peter: so many horrific men using power & resources for their own benefit — damaging all in their way.
what is it about living in glass houses??
Big deal, the murderer and his minions are going to perform some tests on 5 or 6 losers over the next 10 years. The corporation isn’t the church, the sheep are the church. BTW Pet was an apostle, never a bishop, and was “X” out many years before the first bishop wad elected in Rome. The monarchists just fudged the dates to create the acting King on earth and start that murdering dynasty. U know like the jews did with mathusala when no one could remember the names of the guys in the 840 or so years in between. Talk about “Fairy Tales”!
While this edict by the church is unfortunate, you should not criticize the Church’s beliefs if you do not know what they are. First of all, unlike other denominations, the Catholics do not believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Their Magisterium has, in fact, approved of the theory of evolution. Genesis and Jonah are allegories.
The presence of homosexuals in the church, I believe is necessary. In the past, the best philosophers and those who have pushed progressive attitudes within various fields have been gay. The Church should not concern itself with orientation but whether a person is willing to become celebate. It is those who are unstable and with untamed urges that threaten the role of the priesthood. Orientation has nothing to do with that.
This is an unethical abuse of psychology and psychiatry aka Soviet Union and the US 1900-1970(where gay people were lobotomized, tortured, drugged with hormones et al and even murdered) and amounts to gay bashing in that it amounts to what another person perceives as gay. We have already seen this kind of gay bashing in Jamaica, in the US where a heterosexual man and his wife were perceived as gay and murdered.
Gay People are not recognizable by any tests, physical characteristics or vocal sounds or any mental tests even by gay people themselves—despite the myth of gaydar. You will find heterosexual men and women who might come across as gay but who are not like wise you will find gay men and women who come across as heterosexuals but who are not.
The Roman Catholic Church does not get it. It took them nearly 400 years to apologize for trying to burn Galileo at the stake and they still have not apologized for accusing Kepler’s mother of being a witch and were going to burn her also.
This witch-hunt seems to be prompted by the Pope’s probable self-hatred and Nazi upbringing. Considering his behavior; I suspect he is also gay and since he like Shakespeare says: “the lady doth protest too much” in trying to hide his own gayness. The present Pope was the power behind the throne of the last Pope and tried to shut down the International Gay Pride event in Rome a few years back when he issued the harshest papal bull on gay people by any publics figure. The Pope for such an allegedly smart and well-read man is terribly dumb when it comes to sexuality. He seems to think because some of his pedophiles inappropriately messed around with little boys —therefore they must be gay when 99.9% of pedophiles are heterosexuals acting in situational sex encounters.
Hence, the Gay community has been unjustly accused and victimized by this Nazi.
Is it little wonder that most of Europe rarely claims to be Roman Catholic and looks upon the Church as some kind of out of date myth worshiping antique? For my part I can not be part of a Church which pretends to be Christian but spreads hatred and failed to do anything about the persecution of gay people and Jews in Hitler’s Germany.
Ludwig
Apple Valley, CA
What are gay seminarians doing there in the first place? If you are not wanted, what is the point of forcing yourself …especially to a catholic church.
Let me tell you Bud as one who was in the seminary there is more than just wanking going on there. The place I was at in the late 90’s was hotter than most gay clubs on a Saturday night. Happy Halloween.
So what is the pope going to do? He’s just an old German drag queen who is as vain about his robes and glasses as any old queen. So if they want to get rid of the gays; I say, start at the top.
So now they’re also including heterosexuals with “strong urges”. Just what are they talking about exactly? In the absence of women in the seminary, how do they come up with a standard to detect strong urges in straight seminarians, on what do they base it? Either way, the Vatican is writing its own prescription for self-destruction. Lets hope it continues, the world will be well rid of it.
Huh? Charlie, what were you on?
Who cares. Why would a gay person join that cult, much less become one of it’s leaders? The catholics are sick, sick, sick. Here in Mass they boarded their children on buses and forced them to carry hate signs marching to our statehouse.
These sick parents took time out of their lives to sit on a bus for two hours and make their children jump into the fracus over equal marriage. Those poor kids.
No wonder child abuse is so rampant with them…this is abuse too, forcing your kids to hate, when they are too young to even understand the issue and would probably lean towards equality if their parents weren’t accepting the medieval lifestyle their cult requires.
What an irrelevant group they are becoming…look at the story about the Queen of Spain on this page. 75% of CATHOLIC Spaniards disagree with their queen and church.
Good bye, RCC…I can’t wait to attend your auction! “Deck my halls with Roman Baubles ha ha ha ha ha – ha ha ha ha!”
How will they be administering these “psychological evaluations”? I mean the science of psychology was derived from the use of the Scientific Method of research and study. This fundamental construct is at odds with church teachings. Is the Catholic church going to rely on a “technology” constructed from the very science they and their good book question? How exactly does that work?
The whole notion of having a psychological evaluation presumes there is a mistake in someone and these examinations are to weed out those mistakes from being teachers and believers of the religion. Doesn’t that go against the very nature of Christian creation, stating that all of us are made in God’s likeness and his creation is infallible? With these examinations and the subsequent excommunications or removals of clergy because of the findings make judgment calls about one’s being? Doesn’t that question God’s creations?
And if they do believe it is a choice, wouldn’t tested clergy just choose not to be gay for the evaluation to “pass”?
There are so many fundamental flaws with this effort that it is astonishing.
Heir Ratzinger, er Pope Pompous – is continuing his life long obssession with gay men. Hmmm, can anyone say “closet queen”.
Start with the Pope!
I would be hard pressed to select a more insidious and dysfunctional organization than the Catholic Church. Anyone gay who would willingly join the seminary deserves whatever twisted pseudo-psychiatry they are subjected to. Stop joining them! They are lost to us and will never embrace us. For Christ’s sake (and trust me I do mean for His sake) let the Catholics implode on themselves and reveal to the world just how twisted and self-loathing they really are. If we stop supporting and joining them they will have to stop blaming us!
You have to know what a vocation is like before you can just advise people to avoid the RC church. It’s not that simple for someone called to serve God. The problem is in Rome.