From: kellyc@ul.ie
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: The Vatican, and an Irish Priest
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:46:44 GMT
Organization: University of Limerick, Ireland


Taken from the Irish Times, Wednesday September 9, 1992

Without permission.


Vatican criticised over view on homosexuality

The Catholic Church should avoid becoming a political power-broker, 
according to the Provincial of an Irish order

THE RECENT Vatican document on homosexuality is unhelpful and confusing, 
according to the Provincial of the Irish Redemptorists, Fther Raphael 
Gallager.

Father Gallagher has also urged that church to avoid becoming a "poltical 
power-broker" in the abortion debate.

The Vatican document which described homosexuality as an "objective 
disorder", and which supported discrimination against homosexuals in 
certain circumstances, was issued to bishops in the United Staes in July.
As such, says Father Gallagher in the current issue of _Doctrine_and_Life_, 
it should not be seen as ahving the same importance as an encyclical, a 
declaration or an instruction issued to the universal church.

Howver, he says, "in the public forum, such theological distinctions are 
not readily understood" and the document " will not help in the pastoral 
care of homosexual people in Ireland".

The document "fudges" the distinction between homosexual orientation and 
homosexual activity and "will cause anxiety and fear to mant good 
homosexuals employed in socially sentsitive positions, " he says.

The Vatican document stated that in areas such as adoption and fostering, 
in the employment of teachers and athletic coaches, and in military 
recruitment, it was "not unjust discrimination" to take sexual orientation 
into accunt.

"I know many teachers who are of a homosexual orientation, who lead exemplary 
moral lives and are known to be homosexual to at least some members of the 
staff and studenst," writes Father Gallagher. "DO they deserve to be 
`discriminated' against?"

The defenders of the Vatican document would try to say that they did not, 
but "because the implication is given that o decllare one's homosexual 
orientation is part of a political agenda regarding rights accorded to 
homosexual acts, there is a real pastoral danger that discrimination would 
be used against good teachers who, in God's mysterious providence are of a 
homosexual orientation," he writes.

Becausethe Vatican document reveals "a homophobia in not ackowledging with 
sufficient clarity the distinction between homosexual condition and activity 
the use of the term `not injust discrimination' will cause anxiety and fear 
to many good homosexuals employed in socially sensitive positions".

The Vatican document stated that the "homosexual inclinationmust be seen as 
an objective disorder" but, says Father Gallagher, "for some homosexuals 
there is no other `order' but the one they have personally experienced even 
if they never engage in homosexual activity.

"These people will continue to feel that the church regards them as outside 
the norm of valid human experience because their orientation is, objectively 
speaking, judged to be a disorder."

[Article continues for four paragraphs about Fr Gallagher's comments on `the' 
church's role in Irelnad's forthcoming referendum on abortion]

--------------------

Cathal


---------------------------------------------
|     Cathal Kelly                             
|     Ollscoil Luimnigh (Uni. Limerick),    For the benefit of 
|     National Technological Park,          the non-Irish the
| IRL Limerick                              't' in 'Cathal' is       |
|                                           silent and the name      |
      (Ireland)                             is attached to the       |
                                            male of the species.     |
      kellyc@ul.ie                                                   | 
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