No homos in the priesthood ... Toldja. Pope Francis is faithful.

Vocation screening.

Fr. Rector:  Now we come to the word association test:

When I say scantily clad, what do you think of?

Candidate:  Towels. Wet towels.

Fr. Rector:  Next!

New document on priestly formation: The Gift of the Priestly Vocation

I actually skimmed through it last night.  I think it's good, but what do I know?  I think Pope Francis loves his priesthood, THE priesthood, and his priests and seminarians ... yet some seem to think otherwise.

Anyway - Crux has a report, and it should make the Francis critics who claim he swept open the closet doors and welcomes gay priests, reconsider their exaggerated claims.

Just like the previous document was approved by Benedict XVI, the one released this week was approved by Pope Francis. However, in neither case were the documents signed by the pontiff, but by the heads of the Vatican department behind it.

In this case, that means Italian Cardinal Benamino Stella, prefect of the congregation, Archbishop Joel Mercier, Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patron Wong, and Monsignor Antonio Neri.

The document says when it comes to gay men who want to enter the seminary, or discover they have “homosexual tendencies” during the formation years, the Church, “while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’”

It also says that the Church can’t overlook the “negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”

The document, again, taking much of its content from the one issued in 2005, makes an exception for the cases in which the “homosexual tendencies” are only “the expression of a transitory problem - for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded.”

In any case, however, the norms indicate that such tendencies have to be overcome at least three years before the ordination to the diaconate. - Crux

Works for me.

It will be interesting to see reactions to this - especially now days when some Catholic schools and teachers pretty much affirm lgbtq values and identity.  In secular culture this is already considered a civil right.  My point is that kids now growing up will have this mindset, they will have been indoctrinated into accepting homosexuality as a normal variant, or equal to heterosexuality.  I'm not using the PC terminology, but you know what I'm saying.

We must begin a new investigation. 

As one online priest might say, 'no snowflakes - the priesthood is no place for snowflakes.'

So.  The following may seem 'off-topic', but I think it fits in with the 'ain't no place for snowflakes' attitude.

Complaining and griping, about others and about things in one’s own life, is harmful “because it dashes hope. Don’t get into this game of a life of complaints.” - Pope Francis

Good advice.  Perhaps even much kinder than the following maxim from St. John of the Cross:

"He who complains isn't even a good Christian." 

What?  I didn't say anything.

Yet complaining and feeling victimized has been seen, more or less, as a 'gay' trait.  A couple of excerpts from older posts on this subject may help the reader understand my point, as well as the problems associated with ordaining gay men.

"...an especially common view of self (for the homosexual) is that of the wronged, rejected, 'poor me'. Homosexuals are therefore easily insulted; they 'collect injustice', as psychiatrist Berger has so well put it, and are liable to see themselves as victims. This explains the overt self-dramatization of the militants, who adroitly exploit their neurosis to gain public support. Attached to self-pity, they are inner (or manifest) complainers, often chronic complainers. Self pity and protest are not far apart. A certain inner (or overt) rebelliousness and hostility to others who do them wrong and to 'society' and a determinate cynicism, are typical of many homosexuals." - The Battle For Normality

Why are so many attracted to priesthood?

"Why are so many Protestant and Catholic homosexuals, male and female alike, interested in theology, and why do they not infrequently want to be ministers or priests? Part of the answer lies in their infantile need for sympathy and contact. They view church professions as soft and sentimentally caring and imagined themselves in them as being honored and revered, elevated above common human beings. They see the Church as a noncompetitive, friendly world where they may enjoy high status and be protected at the same time. For male homosexuals, there is the additional incentive of a rather closed men's community where they need not prove themselves as men."

"These interests stem for the most part then from an infantile, self centered imagination and have precious little to do with the objective contents of Christian belief. What some homosexuals see as their calling to the priesthood is an attraction to an emotionally rewarding, though self-centered way of life. These are self imagined or 'false' vocations. Needles to say these ministers and priests are inclined to preach a soft, humanistic reinvention of traditional beliefs, especially of moral principals, and a distorted concept of 'love'. Moreover, they tend to create a homosexual subculture within their churches. There they undoubtedly pose a suitable threat for the orthodoxy and undermine church unity by their habit of forming subversive coteries that do not feel responsible to the official church community (the reader may recall the homosexual complex of 'not belonging'.) Otherwise, they lack the balance and strength of character necessary for giving fatherly advice." - Battle For Normalcy