Homosexuals, even those who are celibate, will be barred from becoming Roman Catholic priests, a church official said Wednesday, under stricter rules soon to be released on one of the most sensitive issues facing the church
This statement – in today’s New York Times – has put me in a spin. While there is a case for the differentiation of a “celibate homosexual”, qua celibate heterosexual, as a segment apart from the sexually active, one had understood the Church’s stance on this rests on the distinction between sexuality (practiced or otherwise) and asexuality.
There is an important distinction between the celibate heterosexual and the asexual. Christian asceticism has rid itself of the very trace of sexuality from its core. Celibacy here means only the denial of a particular aspect of an already contaminated being.
