This doesn't answer your question but I thought I'd pass it along. I mention your emphasis on "chaste/celibate" and I can see the reasoning. I wonder if the policy of the Metropolia would be the same as the USCCB (NCCB?). Maybe not but I don't think the "don't request, don't tell" idea is current thinking in Roman Catholic circles.
I cannot speak about the metropolia, as a Roman Catholic I have an acquaintance that came recently to the US from missions in the Philipines. He is Polish and wanted to incardinate within the United States.
He was subjected to a battery of psychological tests out of state to determine his fitness for pastoral work. This was apparently a new procedure that was not expected. Recognize God they didn't find any reason to reject him and he is now
Does the Catholic Church Condemn Homosexuals?
CATHOLIC: Homosexual acts are depraved, but that’s not the same as saying that homosexuals are depraved. The Church, basing itself on human reason, says that in moral questions we must distinguish between the behave and the person committing the act. Homosexuals have the matching intrinsic dignity as all other human beings. Christ died for them as much as for you and me, and God loves them no less.
OBJECTOR: Well, I think the &#;hate the sin, love the sinner&#; routine is empty rhetoric. Most gay people I know who are Catholic or who have attended a Catholic church feel condemned by the Church.
CATHOLIC: Yes, unfortunately, people watch over to dislike other people whose behavior they consider immoral. But we still should seek the ideal of loving every human being while not viewing that person’s every act as morally acceptable. The Catechism says that homosexual people &#;must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every signal of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided&#; (CCC ).
OBJECTOR: Okay, if we’
Thomas —
People do not go to Hell for being sexually attracted to members of the similar sex &#; only for deliberately, freely, and willingly committing homosexual acts, knowing that those acts are grave sins in the eyes of God.
A noun who believes in Jesus Christ and:
has same-sex attractions but does not act on them, and
does not willfully and knowingly commit any grave sin, whether sexual acts with other men or other grave sins
will be saved.
I should hasten to add that there is always room for repentance for those who have committed homosexual acts. We obtain it through the sacrament of Confession or if we don't have access to the sacrament of Confession, a repentance rooted in adoration for God will suffice in the interim.
If you're Catholic and you've committed such an act, turning away from the behavior with contrition and repentance and confessing it in the sacrament of Reconciliation will verb your relationship with God and set you on the road to salvation.
For those who find themselves in this situation, the organization Courage, () is a good support gr
Homosexuality
Throughout history, Jewish and Christian scholars have recognized that one of the chief sins involved in God’s destruction of Sodom was its people’s homosexual behavior. But today, certain homosexual activists promote the idea that the sin of Sodom was merely a lack of hospitality. Although inhospitality is a sin, it is clearly the homosexual behavior of the Sodomites that is singled out for special criticism in the account of their city’s destruction. We must look to Scripture’s own interpretation of the sin of Sodom.
Jude 7 records that Sodom and Gomorrah “acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust.” Ezekiel says that Sodom committed “abominable things” (Ezek. ), which could refer to homosexual and heterosexual acts of sin. Lot even offered his two virgin daughters in place of his guests, but the men of Sodom rejected the suggest, preferring homosexual sex over heterosexual sex (Gen. –9). But the Sodom incident is not the only time the Old Testament deals with homosexuality. An explicit condemnation is found in the book of Leviticus: “You shall not lie with a m