Banning gay priests, smothering sexuality, silencing scholarss, losing the Sacraments: happy Thursday!

One of the attendant concerns of being a public Catholic is that every time a story like this drops (Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence) people who are generally kind and nonconfrontational march up to you, shove clippings in your face, and demand "So what about THIS?"

It's a good question. What about shaming and stigmatizing good gay priests who've been "celibate for 10 years or more?" What about refusing the vocations of gay men as a priest shortage cripples the life of the Church? What about witch-hunting seminary instructors who "disagree with Church teaching"--how does that express trust in God who gave us free will and who orders the future? Yes, what is there to say?

I tend to prepare a little statement in these situations, and here it is. The proposed Vatican document banning the ordinations of gays that this article mentions has been "proposed" for a good two years, and the Times has been raising regular alarms each time it boils back up to the surface. Progressive Catholic media, on the other hand, are generally waiting for something new to actually happen on this. The reason it's been on the simmer for as long as it has, I believe, is that Rome as a whole is unwilling to publish a document banning the ordination of gay priests. Perhaps it's pragmatism in the face of Eucharistic famine for parishes, perhaps it's Christian tolerance. (To those who snippily default to the former, I'd point out that such pragmatism would tend to recommend, at the very least, allowing priests to marry, which is nowhere near "proposed" at present. So we may allow ourselves to believe that the cardinals are unwilling to further alienate gay Catholics, which is water in the desert, for sure.) OK, the apostolic visitation of seminaries is news that is happening now, but it'll be a few years before they find anything and more before their findings are acted upon.

I learned in divinity school this week that "seminaries" are technically diocesan institutions to train up diocesan priests. My school, which forms diocesan and ordered religious and lay students (huzzah), is not technically a seminary, therefore, but we're being visitationed this fall nonetheless. They're putting a positive spin on it around school, pointing out that the visit reflects concern, in the wake of the abuse crisis, about how priests are being formed and what they're learning about sexuality. How different a framing than the Times', right, and how appropriate: it's neither politic nor pastoral to be like, "Shit, the bishops are coming!" I hope we'll show them that high-quality inquiry might permit some disagreement with the magisterium, and that a healthy understanding of one's sexuality is integral to healthy personhood, is integral to good ministry.

If the Vatican publishes their document, which I still have hope to doubt, I don't think it'll keep many gay men out of the priesthood. It will throw gay priests under a constant shadow of fear, knowing that any personal adversary has a Church-sanctioned weapon to use against them. It will further stigmatize and embitter gay and lesbian Catholics, both vowed and lay, who live their sexuality in healthy and faithful ways. It will cause a sad waste in the souls of young men being trained for the priesthood. Without a doubt, we'll see that newly formed priests will be taught to subsume and ignore and be scared of their sexuality. Like pedophiles. They won't be taught to accept and befriend and learn how to own their sexuality--as faithful celibates and faithful members of couples have forever done.

We don't expect straight celibates to hide the trappings of their sexual and gender identity. Who we are as a sexual, gendered being is expressed in the things we enjoy, the way we see our roles, and above all the way we interact with people in ways that are impossible to hide or deny. (Think about the workplace for most of us: we are expected to function as essentially sexless beings because of the danger of creating a hostile environment, but we'll still form friendships, and perhaps pay close attention, along the gender lines that we frequent after hours.) The notion of having any sort of ministers who are not celibate men is so new to Catholics that many of us aren't prepared to think about what an integrated sexuality in ministry looks like: we've only seen the one example and have nothing to compare it to. This will change as lay men and women gain greater exposure in ministry, and would change radically if more straight or gay priests and nuns felt comfortable speaking about how their own sexuality exists in their personhood and in their ministry. I had the good fortune once to receive spiritual direction from an openly gay Episcopal monk who talked about the challenges that had come with being accepted in his religious community, how being a minority made him more sympathetic to the dispossessed and to people who struggle against their sexuality, and how ultimately he came to know that his worth to God was more fundamental than even sexuality. He was literally the happiest and most peaceful person I've ever met.

If this document is published, and if it speeds the priestly drought, Catholics will become very good at counting backwards. There are seven sacraments for men, six for women, five for lesbians. Five for gay men as well, if the priesthood, at least on paper, closes to them. With fewer and fewer priests in parishes around the world, the Eucharist is already slipping through some Catholics' fingers. Which sacrament will be next to go?