Brazil's Federal Council of Psychology (CFP) has announced that it will prohibit psychologists from helping the Catholic Church to screen out candidates to the priesthood who have homosexual tendencies. According to an announcement on the Brazilian "Psychology Online" website, the CFP has ruled that "psychologists cannot evaluate people for this purpose, under penalty of infringing the Code of Ethics and Resolution 001/99 of the CFP, which establishes norms of behavior for psychologists in relation to the issue of sexual orientation."
The resolution in question, passed in 1999, states that psychologists "will not carry out any action that favors the pathologization (labeling as a pathology) of homoerotic behavior or practices."
The same resolution declares that "psychologists will not collaborate with events or services that propose the treatment and cure of homosexuality" and "psychologists will not pronounce nor participate in public pronouncements in the media in such a way as to reinforce existing prejudices in relation to homosexuals as carriers of any psychological disorder."
The ruling, which can be legally enforced in Brazil, could make it more difficult for Catholic officials to apply new Vatican guidelines for screening candidates for the priesthood to remove those with "deep seated homosexual tendencies."
The Vatican announced the guidelines for psychological testing last month in an attempt to enforce its centuries-old policy, reiterated in 2005, of excluding those with deep seated homosexual tendencies from the priesthood. The 2005 pronouncement came in the wake of the clergy sex abuse crisis, which mostly involved priests molesting adolescent boys.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: LSN)