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The schools that train U.S. priests require students to be chaste, but most allow them to be gay. A Vatican probe may change all that
Depending on whom you ask, gay and bisexual men make up anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of the student body at the college and graduate levels. “I don’t want people to think that in a negative way,” says a 28-year-old gay alumnus, who believes all seminarians there are chaste, regardless of orientation. “It isn’t like Christopher Street or West Hollywood. But some seminarians are gay, openly gay, and very loud about it.”
May 20 issue — There will never be a gay students’ group—or gay film series or gay dance—at St. John’s Seminary, one of the most respected training grounds for Catholic priests in the nation. Yet the 64-year-old institution, nestled in the hills of Camarillo, Calif., may be one of the country’s gayest facilities for higher education. THOUGH THEY CONSTITUTE JUST over
5 percent of the population, gay men may make up half the student body at the 76
high-school, college and graduate-level seminaries across the country, according
to broad estimates. For decades Roman Catholic Church leaders have quietly
reckoned with this surprising truth about seminary life. There is no rule
against celibate gays as seminarians, theologians say. But for a church where
priests preach that homosexuality is an “intrinsic evil,” it is at the least
incongruous that so many would-be priests are gay.
American church leaders are now wrestling with these demographic
realities, in part because some of them are blaming gays for the growing crisis.
Last week, while Cardinal Bernard Law was ordered to say what he knew about
abusive Boston priests and the Rev. Paul Shanley and another cleric were
arrested and charged with raping young boys, dioceses across the country were
preparing for a lengthy evaluation, or “apostolic visitation,” of U.S. seminary
cultures and admissions policies to see if more gays should be screened out. The
Vatican had agreed to conduct this study, which will begin immediately, at last
month’s summit with American cardinals.
Rome’s sentiments on this subject
are well known. Though the pope has not addressed the issue of gay seminarians
publicly, last year the Most Rev. Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Vatican’s
Doctrinal Congregation, declared, “Persons with a homosexual inclination should
not be admitted to the seminary.” A small number of American church leaders are
now echoing that thought. They consider the widening scandal to be a
“homosexual-type problem,” as Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida has said, despite the
near plurality among psychologists, sociologists and theologians—even abuse
victims —who say that is not case. “It’s not a homosexual issue,” says the Rev.
Jim Walsh, of the National Catholic Educational Association. “The issue is
identifying the sick members that need help and need to be removed.”
Details of the imminent evaluation are not yet known. The Rev. Edward
Burns, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops officer in charge of
vocations who will likely be the Vatican’s U.S. point man, says gay admissions,
psychological screening tests and enforcement of celibacy rules will all be
examined.
Among the concerns of American prelates are reports that an aggressive
gay ethos has arisen on campus, manifesting in unwelcoming cliques and
ecclesiastic flamboyance—a tendency to embrace the stagier elements of the
liturgy, for instance. Witnessing this, some may conclude that the men are
freely breaking their vows, but there is no evidence of this. Regardless, books
on the subject argue that heterosexual seminarians feel so uncomfortable in this
culture that they question their vocations. “People I know quite well have left
the seminary either in disgust because people are not keeping vows, or in
alienation because they’re not gay. In some cases it’s a serious problem,” says
R. Scott Appleby, a history professor at Notre Dame. The Most Rev. Wilton
Gregory, who heads the bishops’ group, has come to a similar conclusion.
”[T]here does exist a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexual
men think twice,” he said last month. Such complaints irritate gay clergymen and
their defenders. “I think straight priests and seminarians shouldn’t be
whining,” says the Rev. Charles Bouchard, president of the Aquinas Institute of
Theology in St. Louis. “I just don’t think it’s a big deal.”
Right now, gays are admitted to
seminaries as long as they meet the same rigorous standards as straights. They
must pass written psychological exams including the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory, which can detect a broad list of traits, though not
sexual orientation. In addition, applicants undergo in-depth and extremely
personal interviews. According to admissions officers, it is common to inquire
into an applicant’s sexual orientation point-blank.
St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia is believed to be the only
one in America that bans gays outright, seminary officials say. Most others,
like St. Patrick’s Seminary near San Francisco, have no restrictions. “Shouldn’t
you consider a homosexual as equally fit? I would think yes,” says the Rev.
Gerald Coleman, the rector there. However, a growing number of administrators
are adopting specific requirements for flagging gays with notorious histories.
At St. Mary seminary in Mundelein, Ill., men who have HIV are excluded,
according to the provost, the Rev. Thomas Baima, while Conception Seminary
College in Missouri is considering a criminal-background check of applicants.
Modern seminary practice nonetheless encourages all students to reflect
on their own sexuality without fear of reprisal, says the Rt. Rev. Jeremiah
McCarthy, director of accreditation for the Association of Theological Schools.
This represents a major sea change. Decades ago celibacy training at the
seminaries was conducted entirely in euphemisms—even the human-sexuality
chapters of moral-theology textbooks were written in Latin, as if in code. Pope
John Paul II changed that in a 1992 call for one-on-one “priestly formation,” in
which a faculty member helps mentor seminarians through all aspects of their
spiritual growth, including psychological and psychosexual development. These
checks and balances have resulted in a sharp reduction in charges of sexual
abuse, experts say.
News of the Vatican’s probe has drawn mixed reactions. Dr. Jon Fuller, a
priest and physician at Boston Medical Center who specializes in treating
priests afflicted with AIDS, calls the effort to screen out gays “unfortunate.”
Not only will it further reduce the number of seminarians, which has plunged
from 49,000 in 1965 to fewer than 4,000 today, but it may also reintroduce a
code of secrecy among those gay men who enter the seminary anyway—or discover
they’re gay only after enrolling. “If we now say you can only be approved if
you’re straight or appear to be straight, we really are creating a very
dysfunctional situation that from a psychological perspective is tempting
disaster,” he says. “It brings us back to a very unhealthy time.”
At St. John’s, officials welcome the study. “I think we do a good job
recruiting solid candidates, and welcome the opportunity to do better,” says the
Rt. Rev. Helmut Hefner, the school’s rector.
He accepts
that his gay enrollment may be as high as 50 percent,
[N.B. Msgr. Hefner has vigorously refuted this misquote]
but that hasn’t caused any discomfort to heterosexuals, much less an epidemic of
straight flight, he says. Jim Bevacqua, the student-body president, agrees. “I
can speak firsthand, as a heterosexual seminarian. I have a lot of friends here
who are heterosexual, I know they are, and this has never been an issue here at
our seminary. To be honest, people don’t talk about it much.” With the upcoming
Vatican investigation, that will likely change.
With Sarah Downey in Chicago
© 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
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