Madam, - As a devout Catholic who has been a daily communicant for 46 years and has served very happily for over 30 years in Holy Orders I totally reject the latest document on homosexuality and the priesthood from the Vatican and Pope Benedict. As a pastor, who happens to be of the sexual orientation condemned, I find this document sex-obsessed, highly discriminatory and utterly hypocritical.
The document claims that a homosexual cannot be a priest because in ordination "the Holy Spirit configures the candidate to Jesus Christ"! Nobody knows what Christ's sexual orientation was. He had very little to say about sexuality in general and nothing to say about homosexuality at all.
The document implies that homosexual priests are "affectively immature" and incapable of relating "correctly" to men and woman. What nonsense! Since I was ordained in 1976 I have had no problem whatsoever relating correctly to both men and women. If anything, my very successful pastoral relationships with both sexes have been facilitated and enhanced by the very important process of integrating my sexuality and spirituality.
The most immature priests and bishops I have known were in fact heterosexual men, sexually active and otherwise, who sat around presbytery tables eating and drinking and talking and giggling like schoolboys about the female body, heterosexual sex, football and golf.
I reject the Vatican view that homosexuality is intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law. Every homosexual man and woman has either been created or allowed to develop in that way by their loving Heavenly Father and that same Father smiles upon all His homosexual sons and daughters who use their sexuality responsibly, morally and especially in the context of love, life-enhancing intimacy and commitment.
When I was studying dogmatic theology in the seminary I was taught that the reception of the Sacrament of Holy Orders was absolute confirmation of the presence of a priestly vocation and that even if a vocation was not present beforehand such a vocation would be given as part of the grace of the Sacrament.
The fact that so many thousands of homosexuals have been ordained over the years and centuries, many of them going on to become bishops, cardinals and Popes, is surely proof that homosexuals can have and do have vocations to the priesthood. The fact that a sizeable number of today's priests and bishops are homosexual, active and otherwise, is surely a further sign.
Not only can homosexuals be priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, but they can also be canonised saints. Prominent on the calendar of gay, lesbian and bisexual saints are people such as St Alred of Rievaulx, abbot; St. Sebastian, martyr; Sts Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs; St Anselm of Canterbury, bishop and doctor; St George; St Augustine of Hippo, bishop and doctor; St John of the Cross, priest and doctor; Ruth and Naomi; St John the Evangelist; David the prophet and Cardinal John Henry Newman.
The truth is that our sexual orientation is only one aspect of our whole personhood and God has told us He will judge us by the love He finds in our hearts. Jesus spent His ministry healing and rehabilitating lepers and outcasts. Today - and, shockingly, in His name - the Vatican seeks to reinforce old hatreds and create new lepers and outcasts. - Yours, etc,
Bishop PAT BUCKLEY, Larne, Co Antrim.