Tucson Region

Kicanas praises edict on gay clergy

Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas on Tuesday praised a Vatican document that bars gay men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from entering the priesthood as a succinct summary of church teaching on homosexuality. But he added that it's unclear whether timing of the document was a response to the increasingly high-profile debate over gay rights, or to the sexual-abuse crisis of priests abusing children in the United States, or a response to something else. The document applies to Catholics worldwide, not just those in the United States. "It's worded very abstractly. But this is a significant issue today in the culture and in some ways it's time for the church to articulate its position," said Kicanas, chairman of the communications committee for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and former rector of Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Ill.. Retiree Kenneth Brush, who attends St. Odilia's Catholic Church on Tucson's Northwest Side, said the Vatican document doesn't seem to mean very much. "You are supposed to be celibate, whether you are gay or not gay, so then it doesn't make any difference," said Brush, a former seminarian. "If they eliminate gays or known gays from going into the priesthood they are hurting themselves. The thing is, we need priests." Similarly, Frank Douglas of the local lay Catholic group Voice of the Faithful, said the document doesn't address any of the real problems in the church. "The real problems include failure to remove complicit bishops who covered up criminal behavior by abuser priests. The real problems include Catholics-lay people, priests, bishops, and popes-who place the institutional church ahead of basic gospel principles requiring compassion for victims and justice for perpetrators and their protectors," Douglas wrote in an e-mail. "The overarching problem is an institutional church culture that doesn't have the moral backbone to clean house from top to bottom." Kicanas said there is not an "easy yes or no" answer to the question of whether the document says all gay men are barred from becoming priests. He said the ultimate decision lies with the bishop of each diocese, but that seminaries and the seminarian himself play a role. "I think it's a helpful document in the sense that it summarizes the wisdom of the church and captures the practice of seminaries for the past 20 years. Prior to 20 years ago, sexual history and behavior were not asked of candidates entering the priesthood," Kicanas said. "This is a lifelong commitment similar to marriage and requires careful discernment." He said the criteria are intended to ensure that a seminarian can live a celibate, chaste life. He stressed that a gay person is a child of God and to be treated with respect, but homosexual acts are not permitted because in the Roman Catholic Church any act outside of marriage is not permitted. "Acting out on homosexuality is not acceptable and we understand that to be unnatural to natural law, to the way God has created human beings," he said. He noted that a person's sexual orientation is not the sole definition of someone's character, though a priest must be comfortable with church teaching on homosexuality, and he should not be advocating "gay culture." "If it's what they wear on their sleeve in every situation - that person would not be an apt candidate for the calling," Kicanas said, adding that a heterosexual seminarian fixated on singles bars and living a "bachelor lifestyle" also would not be an appropriate candidate for the priesthood. Kicanas said there has been no official link between the release of the document to an attempt at preventing sexual abuse of children by priests, which has been a high profile issue since 2002. A majority of the reported victims of sexual abuse by priests were boys. Most of the local abuse reportedly occurred during the 1960s and '70s. Troy Gray, a Colorado resident who recently received $300,000 from the local diocese to settle a sexual-abuse lawsuit, said he doesn't think barring homosexuals from the priesthood will prevent future sexual abuse of children. Gray says that during the 1980s he was abused as a teenager by the Rev. Kevin Barmasse, who led his youth group at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church on Tucson's Northwest Side. "The issue should be about removing pedophiles and those who covered up for them for years," Gray said. "Barmasse targeted older boys, but he also wined and dined women. I don't think he was gay. I think he was an abuser and it was about power." The Rev. John Harvey, founder and director of Courage International, a New York-based support group for men and women with same-sex attractions who wish to live chastely according to the teachings of the church, praised the Vatican document. Harvey observed that the document does not make any universal statements and does not define "deeply seated homosexual tendencies." "It leaves the definitions in the hands of superiors, seminaries and bishops," Harvey said. "I regard this as an excellent document. It is saying we have to look at the person in complete form. It's saying look at each case carefully. It's a typically Roman document, and a very reasonable one that will help the church." No such document pertaining to the sexual orientation of nuns exists and Sister Annmarie Sanders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said Tuesday that she has not heard that one is forthcoming.