The Vatican wants spiritual directors to attempt to discern whether seminarians have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, and then it wants them to dissuade those who do from becoming priests. I am sure that in the relevant Vatican document, just released, the word "arousal" does not appear. It's not a Vatican word. Yet it is the core of this matter. What is a director to ask a young man, "Do you have good male friends?" "Do you like them a lot?" "Do you want to be very close to them?" No response to any of these wimpy questions is going to settle the matter the Vatican wants settled. The only question that will make a difference is, "By what sorts of images are you aroused?"
This bothers me on a couple of levels. First, it seems a colossal assault on the dignity of someone who has professed willingness to remain celibate for life to press this question. It is not a cocktail party question. I don't recall ever daring to ask it of anybody.
Further, this is a question that, in the nature of things, can't get a clear response on the first asking. Anyone with truly deep-seated tendencies toward a socially disfavored kind of sexuality will likely be in major denial about that sexuality. So what does the conscientious spiritual director do? Is it really his or her responsibility to bring in pictures, saying, picture by picture, "Does this turn you on?" -- with maybe furtive glances at the young man's trousers.
The Roman Catholic Church has elicited outrage in the past, sometimes for saying true things, sometimes for saying wildly odd and clearly false things. But I can't see how this Vatican pronouncement escapes being funny. And that should worry the very dignified gentlemen in Rome.
Posted by shea0017 at November 24, 2005 9:10 AM