What Psychologists “Know”
Este artículo: en español
America’s editorial urging that the homosexually inclined continue to be admitted to seminaries (see the above New Oxford Note) elicited an interesting letter supporting the editorial. Andrew P. Haffey of Spokane, Wash., writes (America, Dec. 23-30, 2002): “As a clinical psychologist who provides my diocese with psychological evaluations of seminary applicants, I am most distressed with the announcement that the Vatican is set to bar gay men from entering seminary training and ordination…. We psychologists know [italics added] that seemingly to bar gays from the priesthood will only have the opposite effect to what it intends — that is, gay men will be forced to repress their sexuality, which will only lead to eventual catastrophe.”
Oh, no! We can’t have priests, especially “gay” priests with their “gifts,” repress their sexuality. No, no! We’ve got to let them express their sexuality. Let it all hang out!
Of course, this is a sure recipe for immediate and ongoing catastrophe instead of eventual catastrophe (and we seriously doubt there would be eventual catastrophe, for Haffey overlooks grace and apparently has never heard of sublimation).
You May Also Enjoy
The Vatican evidently wants neither to ban nor not ban homosexuals from the priesthood, since it again chose to do neither in a recently-issued document on clerical formation.
The priest and school rector demanded a retraction and apology from the concerned parents or they would not be permitted to enroll their children in the parish school.
Francis’s soundbite approach to theology has been a disaster for the Church. But worse have been the machinations from which the dissembling serves to distract us.