Re "The Vatican's real scandal," editorial, Dec. 4
Again the Vatican's approach to dealing with a definable problem is to send up a massive smokescreen of rhetoric and verbiage limiting its ranks to men without a "deep-seated" homosexual tendency who have demonstrated a three-year period of abstinence.
There is a huge difference between being gay and being a pedophile. It would be unlikely for the Vatican to issue a doctrine requiring would-be priests to be free from a deep-seated pedophilic tendency.
One would expect that, regardless of homosexual or heterosexual tendencies, the vow of celibacy would mean just that; and of course let's not forget: no indulgence in criminal activity. This is the essence of Christianity.
