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The Forum > Article Comments > The Pope is not Gay: book review > Comments

The Pope is not Gay: book review : Comments

By Ralph Seccombe, published 28/9/2010

Could Josef Ratzinger be a closet gay?

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Dear Baygon,

Speaking as a Catholic, I agree with much of what
you've posted.

Dr Paul Collins in his book, "Believers..."
tells us that the requirement of celibacy as a
precondition for ordination was imposed on the clergy
of the western church in the 11th century for reasons
that make absolutely no sense today. Even then it had
nothing to do with improving the spiritual or moral
life of priests. Celibacy was used in the 11th century
as a way of maintaining a primitive form of ritual
purity, and of preventing the alienation of church
property by laity and stopping priest-fathers from
passing on their parishes to their priest-sons."

As Collins tell us, "Nowadays the requirement of
celibacy is seen for what it is: a requirement of
church law that could be changed today. But despite
the massive shortage of priests and the fact that a
large majority of the Australian bishops would ordain
properly trained married men immediately, they are
hamstrung by Popes and Roman authorities who stolidly
refuse to face up to the problem of the shortage of
clergy."

Part of the problem is also as Sydney Bishop Geoffrey
Robinson states:

"I believe that the Catholic church is in a prison...
It constructed the prison for itself, locked itself
in and threw away the key. The prison is the prison
of not being able to be wrong... Far too often the
Catholic church believed that it had such a level of
divine guidance that it did not need the right to
be wrong... even when clear evidence emerges that
earlier decisions were conditioned by their own time
and that the arguments for them are not as strong
as they were once thought to be."

I'm still optimistic that the church will recover,
and that serious change is a possibility.
I also believe that the sexuality of a priest is
not an issue - it's how well he performs his duties
that matters. Catholicism has both strengths and
weaknesses as it faces its decision and its destiny.
Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 30 September 2010 3:30:40 PM
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