This is the second post on the topic. The topic is filling the blog sphere and a follow-up musing is in place. It seems that Aquinas Seminary at St. Louis was the first scheduled. A team of four (a seminary professor, a campus chaplain, a parish Pastor and a director of religious studies) will visit with a set of questionnaires and, I suppose, some interviews. The questions to be answered are: is there evidence of homosexuality in this seminary and can the seminarians live celibate lives.
1. Let us look at this in the most simplistic way to better understand what is going on. In the States, the problem is being gay or homosexuality. Here in Asia, the problem is having women and, occasionally, latent homosexuality. Let me distinguish the three. For priests to be attracted to women is natural but out of place in the seminary or the priesthood. Latent homosexuality is caused by the undue arousal of the natural passions and since this happens within a tight enclosed environment, like a seminary for men, the natural attraction (which should had been controlled through asceticism ) is misdirected towards the same sex. Here the passion is natural to fallen nature but misdirected. In the case of gays, the tendency is not a natural misdirected passion but a perversion of the passions. It is a natural passion gone berserk, therefore, un-natural.
2. Let us work on the assumption that the Catholic Way of Life in the seminary is watered down, which is the common state of affairs: those attracted to the opposite sex (and are unable to overcome this tendency due to a weak spirituality) will have to leave and marry to help them control the natural tendency. For those in the seminary with a natural aroused passion but misdirected object of affection, they will have to leave and be exposed to the opposite sex (it is unthinkable to bring in women into the seminary to cure this tendency.) For the third, those with perverted movements of their passions, there is no natural or human cure that I know of. The seminary ambiance will worsen their state. This, as the Philadelphia investigation report shows, has devastating consequences.
3. But the observance of the Catholic Faith in its fullness can cure the three defects. So by living the faith in its fullness, the person can even forgo marriage and live a celibate life. If he can give up something natural to his nature, it should be easy for him to give up a misdirected attraction and even a perversion, which is not natural to his nature. I hope my point is evident.
3. The goal of the visitation (I have not read the Instruction) is to weed out sex abusers and solve the problem of declining vocation. Let us take the first goal: if the goal is to keep the priesthood a holy state, which it must be, then we should not weed out sex abusers only but all sinners, including the worldly seminarians. That would mean weeding out the whole seminary. If the visitation is meant to solve the declining vocations, Christ said “it is praying to the Lord of the harvest” that would solve it.
4. There is no psychological test (Gestalt or Projective) that can detect sexual perversity. The answer to the questionnaires can easily be manipulated to show normalcy and hide perversity. And there is great danger of rash judgments and the consequent lack of charity in the well-intentioned visitations.
5. As I hinted earlier, the visitation should find out if they are living the fullness of the Christian life. If they are, the three problems mentioned above will be solved resulting in holy priests. If the way of Evangelical life is rejected, by any of the three, they will find the Ascetical life unbearable and leave on their own. In fact, all those who are not “really seeking God” will leave. Doesn’t this sound simpler and yet orthodox? This is how the first monasteries did it? And seminaries are a poor imitation of monasteries. Did I say: “Why not transform seminaries into monasteries?”
6. Let’s put one and one together from the words of Pope Benedict XVI. He wants us to master the catechism. If this is studied side by side with living the monastic life “under the patronage of St. Benedict” the seminarians will reach “passionlessness,” a control, not the elimination, of their passions. The desert Fathers were experts in this. The Seminary visitators should be four hermits (oh, I forgot that race is extinct). With a program like that “Au revoir” to all sexual problems. (Painting above is by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez, “meeting between St. Anthony and St. Paul the hermit,” ca.1633.)