Priestly Prerequisites

When I was in Year 10, we had to choose the subjects we would study for the last two years of our high school as part of the Victorian Certificate of Education. And most of us chose subjects that ensured we would meet the prerequisite requirements of our desired university courses. A year later, in Year 11, a high school friend of mine told me he still didn’t know what he wanted to do after high school. He confessed to me that he was considering a vocation in the priesthood. He may have been Irish and he may have come from a Catholic family but he certainly wasn’t particularly religious, or at least he didn’t appear to be remotely religious to me.

Despite being aghast at the thought – not so much so of him becoming a priest per se, but more so what seemed to me at the time the hypocritical incongruence of a nonreligious person representing God in a religious vocation – I tried to ask him as sensitively as possible for his reason why. He responded to my question with a question. “Why not?” He said it was as valid a vocation as any of the other more common occupations. But to me, I had serious doubts about his reasons. An occupation was something you could work in for a few years, and then maybe switch to something else if you wanted a new challenge. The priesthood was a lifelong commitment to God. It wasn’t like any other job. It wasn’t just a job you did in order to pay the bills. It wasn’t just another job you could go into whimsically for a few years and then simply quit it for something else once you got bored with it.

To me, the priesthood was a calling. It was something that you felt called to by God and were convicted deep down, to serve others, not something you chose just because you woke up one day and thought, “Hmm. I think I like the idea of wearing a dog collar. I know, I’ll be a priest!” That was 10 years ago now and if he’d applied to enter a Catholic seminary then, he probably would have gotten in without too much trouble.

Fast forward nearly 10 years or so and this time, the tables have turned – well, almost but not quite. “You’re seriously not considering the priesthood, are you?!” asked a concerned friend one day, when he saw that the wallpaper on my PC desktop was that of a recruitment poster for priests.

“No,” I replied. “But there is something enticing and intriguing about the priesthood that the poster has stirred within me.” And it was true. I had become intrigued, perhaps even captivated, by the thought of me wearing a dog collar. I thought about my high school friend. He never did end up going into the seminary but ended up in law instead.

However, if he were to change his mind today and wish to enter the seminary now, I doubt his chances of getting in would be all that high. In university, he came out as a gay guy and eventually ran as a candidate for the Queer Officer in the Student Union Council. I ended up voting for him and he got the job.

In hindsight, I perhaps should have put two and two together back in Year 11 but I didn’t. I should have seen that his sharing with me about him joining the priesthood was in some ways, his way of hinting to me the turmoil that was probably going through in his life then. Perhaps it was a way for him to test the waters, to see what the reaction would be from people. But all the jigsaw pieces only fell into place for me after he came out as gay.

It wouldn’t be too presumptuous to make the assertion that the priesthood can indeed seem to be a very attractive alternative vocation to gay men, especially those who aren’t open about their sexuality and have no wish to come out to their family and friends. It was and hopefully still is an honourable vocation, and taking on the job also meant a convenient excuse to deflect all questions about dating, girlfriends and marriage or the lack thereof. The priesthood would be a sanctuary, where their vocation would give them a sense of usefulness and purposefulness in a world that tends to devalue the single, the uncoupled, the unmarried.

However, at a time when the many states are tightening their borders to not only refugees, asylum seekers but also anyone seemingly deemed as questionable and a risk to the safety of its citizens, the Catholic Church too appears to be doing the same as it tries to ascertain who might pose a risk to her flock and reputation.

When news first leaked out last month about the likelihood of the Vatican banning men with homosexual tendencies from the priesthood, even those willing to accept a vow of celibacy, I found myself caught in a conundrum. (Read BBC News article here) Although I am not Catholic, I respect and understand the significance of the Pope’s decisions on the broader worldwide church community. If such a ban were to go ahead, I would be deeply disappointment. Yet on the other hand, I can also see, understand and accept the possible rationale behind such a decision.

Nevertheless, news of this impending ban on all homosexually-inclined men prompted a flurry of thoughts, criticisms or affirmation of the ban from Catholic writers from both the left and right side of the political and theological spectrum, religious commentators and gay advocates.

Muriel Porter’s article criticised the move as an attempt to scapegoat priests with homosexual tendencies for the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in the past decade.

A more recent report from the National Catholic Reporter, however, suggests that the forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals probably won’t demand an absolute ban on all candidates with a homosexual inclination but rather insist that seminary officials exercise “prudential judgment” on what seems to be on a case-by-case scenario and only for candidates to be excluded if they fall into one or more of the following categories.

• If a candidate has not demonstrated a capacity to live a celibate life for at least three years;
• If he is immersed in or part of the “gay culture”, for example, attending gay pride marches
• If his homosexual orientation is sufficiently “strong, permanent and univocal” as to make an all-male environment a risk.

While I think the first two categories are sensible and reasonable, I have concerns and doubts about the third one. Perhaps more pertinent to eligibility criteria would be the individual’s willingness to accept and abide by the vow of celibacy and the Church’s understanding and teaching on homosexuality rather than on how strong and univocal their sexual orientation is, something generally not of one’s own deliberate choosing. The first two categories are choice-dependent but the last isn’t.

In the meantime, I’ll just hold my breath for any homosexually-inclined Catholic guy out there (and who also accepts the Church’s teachings on homosexuality) wanting to join the priesthood – that he won’t be abandoned by “a church founded by a man who abandoned no-one”.