In the first of a series of nationwide investigations, Aquinas Seminary was visited last month by representatives of the Vatican.The visits are intended to evaluate United States seminaries with regard to a number of criteria, including whether there is "evidence of homosexuality in the seminary."
While there is only one question, in a document with eleven sections of questions, directly pertaining to homosexuality, this issue has gained the most direct media spotlight.
A Vatican document expected to soon be made public stops short of a sweeping ban on homosexuals entering the priesthood, allowing those who have lived chastely for three years to be candidates for the clergy.
Beginning Sept. 26, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien (the archbishop for the United States military) visited Aquinas, on the campus of St. Louis University, for four days.
Seminary President Father Charles E. Bouchard said that the men spent time with every single candidate for the priesthood at Aquinas, in addition to each faculty member and any priests who have recently been ordained.
It will be months before the Institute sees the findings of the Apostolic Visitation.
Asked about the question pertaining to "evidence of homosexuality," Bouchard said "The visitors were interested in whether there were attitudes or a culture about sexuality that was not conducive to celibacy."
When pressed about what sort of "evidence" Aquinas and the visitors might be looking for, Bouchard said "Aquinas Institute probably wouldn't choose a word like ‘evidence,’ simply because it suggests we're seeking clues for something hidden. We ask for forthrightness. We expect honesty from men considering the priesthood. Their ability to speak about their sexuality is an important part of achieving the maturity and health necessary to be a good and faithful priest."
In fact, Bouchard recently published an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which was intended to turn the focus away from the sexual abuse of boys which, apparently, prompted this series of visits — and the opportunity to improve the priesthood. The scandal has led to more than 11,000 abuse claims in the last five decades.
Most articles published recently about the search for homosexual activity in seminaries have credited the investigation to the child abuse scandal.
Paedophilia, however, is distinct from homosexuality, in that it is characterized by sexual desires for children and not adults of the same or opposite sex. Statistically speaking, the sexual orientation of most pedophiles is heterosexual.
Expanding upon his statements in the Post-Dispatch, Father Bouchard said that "We need to see sexual energy not just as a means to personal satisfaction but as a way to experience life and to do great things. Celibate chastity does not mean we lose our sexuality but that as men or women, gay or straight, we choose to channel our sexual capacity in a way that does not involve sexual activity or procreation."
The Catholic Church's official position on homosexuality is that it is "intrinsically disordered."
Along with the question about evidence of homosexuality, the Apostolic Visitation investigated the seminary's admissions policies.
Bouchard says that approximately one of every three applicants to Aquinas Institute is turned down. For those that gain admission, the next six years are filled with what Bouchard characterizes as "challenges unique to priestly life."
"To help the men meet these challenges, they have spiritual directors and at least one year in an internship, he said, which provides the seminary with "input about how a candidate conducts himself in a public ministry."
The Catholic Church has battled rumors of sexual misconduct dating back to the medieval times and later, when Protestant Reformers cited homosexuality in monasteries as evidence of the Church's decay.
Bouchard agrees that the challenge of reforming church life isn't new. What is new, he says, "are changing attitudes about sexuality in culture, which requires us to rethink the ways in which we form our students for a celibate life."
He adds that, "Someone once said that even though we consider sexuality and sexual desire to be occasions of sin, 'if we extinguish desire, we extinguish the lights of civilization.'"
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