catholicsphere

There’s been much talk around the web about this forthcoming document from the Vatican that allegedly says that those with homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to seminaries, and thus the priesthood. Without having seen the document, there are some who are pointing to Fr. Michael Judge, who died while administering Last Rites to a fallen firefighter on 9/11/01, as an “openly gay priest” and “whom some think should have never been ordained due to his ‘disordered condition’.”

There is controversy as to whether Fr. Mike was or was not a homosexual. Some, such as Dennis Lynch who claim to have known Fr. Mike well, say that there was no indication that he was a homosexual.

But, there is something that I feel is mendacious in how this is being represented. The insinuation is that homosexuals are being excluded from the priesthood because they are all evil. However, to me, the Catholic Church is not saying that at all. Homosexuals, just like heterosexuals, can, and do, good things as well as bad things. The good that Fr. Mike did was independent of his “sexual orientation”; as was any bad. It is not the capability to do good or evil that is involved with the barring of homosexuals from the priesthood. That is a point that I feel is lost on those trying to put Fr. Mike up as some poster child of homosexual priests.