The Catholic Church’s New Interview Questions

Want to apply for Seminary?

According to the New York Times, you’ll have to answer an interesting string of questions…:

“When was the last time you had sex?” all candidates for the seminary are asked. (The preferred answer: not for three years or more.)

“What kind of sexual experiences have you had?” is another common question. “Do you like pornography?”

Depending on the replies, and the results of standardized psychological tests, the interview may proceed into deeper waters: “Do you like children?” and “Do you like children more than you like people your own age?”

You know, it seems like it’d be very easy for pedophiles to game the system.

All you have to do is not be stupid when answering the questions…:

In any case, they’re less interested in child-rapists and more interested in weeding out gay people.

In seminaries that seek to hew closely to the Vatican rules, a candidate may be measured by the extent to which he defines himself as gay.

The church views gay sex as a sin and homosexual tendencies as a psychological disorder, but it does not bar chaste gay men from participating in the sacraments. That degree of acceptance does not extend to ordination.

“Whether he is celibate or not, the person who views himself as a ‘homosexual person,’ rather than as a person called to be a spiritual father — that person should not be a priest,” said Father Toups, of the bishops’ conference.

…

“And not the least irony here,” [professor Mark D. Jordan] added, “is that these new regulations are being enforced in many cases by seminary directors who are themselves gay.”

…

Father [Kevin J.] Sweeney said the new rules were not the order of battle for a witch hunt. “We do not say that homosexuals are bad people,” he said. “And sure, homosexuals have been good priests.”

“But it has to do with our view of marriage,” he said. “A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship. It’s not about condemning anybody. It’s about our world view.”

We don’t condemn. It’s our “world view” that condemns.

We’re not bigots. It’s our god who’s a bigot.

Got that distinction?

The Church is not going to improve until it fixes its priorities. The more they cling to their idiotic ideas of right and wrong, the more young people are going to walk away from the church.

Which is fine by me. At least some people are coming to their senses.

Anonymous

Scientific studies have found no link between sexual orientation and abuse, and the church is careful to describe its two initiatives as more or less separate. One top adviser to American seminaries characterized them as “two circles that might overlap here and there.”

Wonder what that means for the 82-95% of pedophiles in the secure world who are heterosexual men. Not to mention the disturbingly high reports of nuns being raped abroad.
Claudia

I still find it disturbing that even despite everything that’s happened, the Church is still distinctly more interesting in making clear that they don’t want gay priests than in making clear they don’t want pedophile priests.

This is especially disturbing because (disgustingly) they consider pedophilia and homosexuality as both being sins (because consenting adult sex between two men or two women is the same as raping an 8 year old boy ugh). They’re so quick to say that they are putting programs in place to weed out teh gay but barely talk at all about programs to weed out and kick out the kiddie-rapists.
Bob

The problem with this questionnaire is that it presumes behavioral issues like pedophilia can be easily recognized. It is complicated further by this strange ‘gays can’t be priests, because priests have to be married – to the church’ nonsense.

Wasn’t that the justification for the pastoral shuffle with molester priests? That they were, ultimately, good shepherds devoted to the Mother Church?

This basically reminds me of the confession scene from ‘Ladder 49.’
Luther

Do you like having sex with older men who wear black? Best answer: Not sure but I’d like to try.
Not Guilty

There are some things that aren’t worth fixing. Sometimes it just has to go in the trash. Religion is that. Let’s not fix it; let’s drive it to the dump.
Bob

@Not Guilty:

Can’t just take it to a landfill, it’s like a plastic bag – it doesn’t biodegrade, and if you put it on your head, it’ll smother you.

Come to think of it, it probably qualifies as toxic waste …
JT

More concerned with getting rid of up and coming gay priests than actively participating pedo-priests. Here’s a better question that needs to be asked:
Have we relocated you because you had sexual interactions with children?
You don’t even have to ask it, you have all the records on hand…assuming you haven’t burnt them already in anticipation of the day all the world’s governments wake up to your bullshit and actually pursue real justice instead of “church justice”.

Oh well, here’s hoping that after they weed out all the gays those gay people decide to join their non-self-loathing brothers and sisters in living their lives how they want. And the church will have to find a new group “responsible” for the awful things they do. My guess is that prize goes to women…
Emily the non-Catholic

“A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship. It’s not about condemning anybody. It’s about our world view.”

They’re directly saying that a gay man cannot feel the same about his partner as a straight man. How is that not condemning anybody? It’s so frustrating and flat-out stupid, it’s as if they can’t remember what they just said 5 seconds earlier. And that’s before you even get into the pedophilia, which really demonstrates their so-called standards.
Anna

Women have already been getting the blame for centuries starting with ‘Eve’. The ‘holy’ books are rife with misogyny and loathing for women. It all defends domestic abuse no matter how they all claim to be peaceful and respectful. They are only peaceful and respectful to those who share their chosen world-view and they all require their followers to give up thinking for themselves.
Greg

“But it has to do with our view of marriage,” he said. “A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship.”

So, let me get this straight – the Catholic Church, the misogynistic organisation that it is, considers itself to be female?

The church takes the place of the spouse. Heterosexuals’ spouses are female, homosexuals’ spouses are male.

Yup – that’s gotta be it.

Incidentally, I wonder what their view is on bisexuals?
JimG

But if priests are “married to the Church,” and the Church is “the body of Christ,” isn’t that a gay marriage anyway? Even when they just make stuff up, they still can’t be consistent.
Yet Another Atheist

“A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship. It’s not about condemning anybody. It’s about our world view.”

Gee, a homosexual man cannot have the same relationship… because the Catholic church made it that way.

Pretty clever on their part. “Since we don’t allow gays to marry, they obviously can’t feel the same way about the church and God that we ‘normal’ dudes do.”

The church is a crock. I remember reading interpretations of Nostradamus’s predictions (back when I believed such things) that said the Pope would be involved in a crime and would lead to the downfall of the entire Vatican and Catholic church.

Now I’m pretty sure those interpretations are the correct ones. 😉
Buffy

“A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. ”

So the priest is supposed to impregnate the church? M’kay.
BeeDee

One would be remiss not to revisit this clip from “Airplane”:

http://www.entertonement.com/clips/dhgybmnhpp–You-Like-Movies-About-Gladiatorspeter-graves-awkward-questions-Airplane-gladiators-
Sunioc

“A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship. It’s not about condemning anybody. It’s about our world view.”

Yeah, only straight men are allowed to marry jesus.
Jeff P

“only straight men are allowed to marry jesus.”

Finally someone has explained the Catholic church to me. Thanks!
Margaret

“But if priests are “married to the Church,” and the Church is “the body of Christ,” isn’t that a gay marriage anyway? ”

Ah, so the body if Christ is married to itself, and it is a sexual relationship equal to marriage. Proof that religion is mental masturbation.
Josha

So the priests are “married to the church” which we have deduced here must be a female. So that makes all nuns lesbians as they are also “married to the church”. Or are they married to Jesus? Quick, someone grab me a catechism!
miller

A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship.

What interests me about this response is that it means he also opposes people of asexual orientation entering the seminary, but not bisexuals. How silly and arbitrary!
SickoftheUS

There are some things that aren’t worth fixing. Sometimes it just has to go in the trash. Religion is that. Let’s not fix it; let’s drive it to the dump.

I’m always amazed by gay people or whatever minority people trying to fight the church’s bigotry and “reclaim” the church for themselves so they can continue practicing their faith. I read this over and over again in the news.

The solution is to walk away from all of it and stop trying to make sick ideology accept you. If you want to have your own “faith” that is a bizarro world Catholicism where gays are accepted, then it’s no longer Catholicism, is it? Just walk away from it, and in the process make a step towards rationality.
Sarah Trachtenberg

This reminds me of the old days at the airport when they would basically ask, “Are you a terrorist?”
To the Vatican’s credit, at least they’re trying to avoid pedophilia.
Do they at least do background checks?
Erp

Well I would certainly fail the question of whether I was male before getting to any other.

As far as I can figure the view is that

Jesus is married to the Church (and the Song of Songs is not an erotic love poem but is really about God and the Church)

Priests stand in place of Jesus when acting in their priestly role hence have to be male like him (and also have the same sexual orientation it seems now).

Nuns are spouses not of the church but of Jesus. I wonder if they will hunt lesbian nuns next much like they are already hunting U.S. nuns who are ‘activist’ (or ones who decide saving the life of a mother is more important than aborting the fetus if the not aborting means letting both die).
MikeTheInfidel

the Song of Songs is not an erotic love poem but is really about God and the Church

Really? Do they really believe that? I mean… the book that mentions breasts on an average of once per chapter?
Erp

Well yes though sometimes it as seen as an allegory of Jesus and a human soul.

Read

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03302a.htm
from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908

“The proper connection of scenes and parts can only be found in the realm of the ideal, in allegory. In no other way can the dignity and sanctity befitting the Scriptures be preserved and the striking title, “Song of Songs”, receive a satisfactory explanation.”
fritzy

“It’s not about condemning anybody. It’s about our world view.”

Actually, we should look at this as progress for gays–it wouldn’t have been that long ago (maybe 10, 15 years at the most) when the Cat-o-lick church wouldn’t have even felt compelled to mince words like this–they would have felt perfectly comfortable condemning gays.

The cat-o-lick church is what it is (evil rubbish) and we cannot expect any better of them in terms of their “world view.” It says something, however, for the gay rights movement, that the Church feels pressured to try to explain away their bigotry.

I have no desire to see the Church accept gay priests into their fold–I would prefer to see gay Catholics turn away from this backward institution. Additionally, the last thing I want to see is the Church claiming, 50 years from now, that by allowing gay priests, they helped lead the way in gay civil rights.
fritzy

So when the priest marries the Church, I bet they have a buck-wild marriage night *wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more…*