A healthier, holier church
By John Rupkey, Winona

The only good homosexual is the homosexual who stays hidden inside his closet of fear. This has been the operative position of the Roman Catholic church for centuries, perfected in Nazi Germany and vigorously promoted by today’s Vatican.

On Oct. 30, the Vatican issued guidelines for seminarians and priests, which proclaimed that persons with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” are unsuited for the priesthood. The Vatican spokesperson stated this was an attempt to address the priest sex abuse scandal.
Somehow driving gay seminarians and priests deeper into their closets of shame and self-loathing is supposed to help solve the problem.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Pope Benedict that his theology of self-hate for gay people might be a root cause of the problem. Of course he can’t even consider this obvious likelihood, because that would shatter his delusion of absolute infallibility in all moral issues.

How can any self-respecting Catholic priest or bishop help spread the Roman Catholic church’s immoral self-hate theology designed to keep gay people inside their closets of deception and still claim to be faithful to the one who said, “For this reason was I born and for this reason did I come into the world, to bear witness to the truth”?

How can any Catholic university claim to be truly American — educating those people for whom it is self-evident that God creates all persons equal — and still tacitly support Pope Benedict’s self-hate theology for gay people?

I would like to respectfully suggest that the members of the psychology, philosophy, theology, education and counseling departments of the St. Mary’s University seriously consider breaking their silence on this subject by issuing a public statement that will either affirm their acceptance of the self-hate theology of Pope Benedict — which claims God believes the love of gay people have for each other is disordered — or will offer something more enlightened for Winona’s Catholics and all the people of God.

The pathway out of homophobia to a healthier and holier church has to start somewhere.

If you want your students to think for themselves, be courageous and help change the world for the better, why not show them the way?

Editor’s note: Rupkey has a doctorate in education.

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