Catholic Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz said that gays could serve as priests in the Catholic Church provided they passed the required academic and psychological tests.

From The Philstar News Service (quotes in bold translated from Tagalog):

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said the Church imposes no ban on effeminate or those perceived to be gay men who want to be priests.

“They are the same just like everybody. So there’s no discrimination,” Cruz said in a radio interview this morning.

He said it all depends on how the person controls his sexual urges when he is already in the seminary or convents.

“Just like gay people we as priests also have to fight the temptation towards women,” Cruz said.

He noted that there are gay priests serving in the Churches but they have passed the required academic and psychological tests.

The archbishop said there are many heterosexual men who have not been allowed to enter the seminaries because they failed to meet these requirements.

This is not the first time Cruz has voiced support for the gay community, having favored the rights of gays to join religious processions.

From the Manilla Standard…

But Dagupan-Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz disagreed, saying he did not oppose gays joining the religious procession as long as they acted with dignity and wore formal dresses.

“If they are devotees, they are religious and they look decent, I believe they have the right to join in,” Cruz said.

“I think it would be better for us to see gays who act formally and decently in the Santacruzan rather than young and beautiful women who are not clean and [are] immoral,” he said.

I am try so desperately hard to avoid jokes about heterosexuals unqualified to be priests and unclean, immoral women. But I must resist. 🙂

In any event, this is as “gay friendly” an attitude we are likely to get from the church in one of the most Catholic countries on the planet. Bravo Father Cruz! Bravo!

Visit the Archbishop’s blog…

Note: Thanks to my husband for providing the translations…

Frank Rich in yesterday’s NY Times seems to think so, where he guts the infamous NOM video “Gathering Storm” and explores the movement’s waning support in the face recent gay marriage victories in Iowa and Vermont.

Far from terrifying anyone, “Gathering Storm” has become, unsurprisingly, an Internet camp classic. On YouTube the original video must compete with countless homemade parodies it has inspired since first turning up some 10 days ago. None may top Stephen Colbert’s on Thursday night, in which lightning from “the homo storm” strikes an Arkansas teacher, turning him gay. A “New Jersey pastor” whose church has been “turned into an Abercrombie & Fitch” declares that he likes gay people, “but only as hilarious best friends in TV and movies.”

Yet easy to mock as “Gathering Storm” may be, it nonetheless bookmarks a historic turning point in the demise of America’s anti-gay movement.

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

And Rich closes with this zinger…

“It is justice, not a storm, that is gathering. Only those who have spread the poisons of bigotry and fear have any reason to be afraid.”

Read the full NY Times essay. And in case you missed Colbert’s hilarious take on “Gathering Storm…”

New York State Senator and evangelical minister Ruben Diaz has come out strongly against NY Governor Patterson’s support for gay marriage, asking the governor to step down.

From Senator’s website:

“The Governor is also being disrespectful to the new Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan and to every Catholic in New York City by pushing a gay marriage bill the same week that Catholics are celebrating welcoming ceremonies for his arrival; If I were Governor Paterson, I would abstain from going to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the welcoming ceremony and to celebrate Mass.”

Senator Diaz will also be organizing a rally in May to ask the governor to step down. Audio from WNYC.org.

Here’s hoping the response from the gay community is swift and unrelenting. This is New York we’re talking about.

Unhappy with the “tenor and  doctrinal content of addresses given at annual assemblies,” former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada,  now head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF),  has initiated an investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the largest women’s religious leadership organization in the country.

From the National Catholic Reporter…

The Vatican assessment has become necessary, according to Levada, because at the 2001 meeting between the women’s leadership conference and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which took place in Rome, the women were invited “to report on the initiatives taken or planned” to promote the reception of three areas of Vatican doctrinal concern: the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the 2000 declaration Dominus Jesusfrom the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and “the problem of homosexuality.”

…

In a 1986 letter written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, to the world’s bishops, he wrote: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

I’m glad at least that they can look at my disorder objectively.

The LCWR has long been at odds with Vatican over their more open and modern attitudes toward gays and lesbians. Back in 1999 they expressed sadness over the termination—by the CDF no less—of gay-supportive services provided by the New Ways Ministry in Maryland.

We respectfully acknowledge those congregations’ longstanding support of their members’ efforts to educate and challenge society to recognize the human rights and pastoral needs of persons who are lesbian or gay. Sister Gramick and Father Nugent, in the course of their long ministry, have consistently affirmed the essential dignity of each human being and have worked to change attitudes that, unchecked, have led to derision and physical violence against lesbian and gay people.

We regret the suffering and sense of alienation experienced now by those who have found ministry a reflection of God’s love for them in the ministry of Sister Gramick and Father Nugent.  We applaud the SSND (School Sisters of Notre Dame) decision to establish a fund that will support an individual in pastoral ministry to those who are lesbian and gay as an authentic expression of the congregation’s  charism.

The current Executive Director of LCWR Sister Jane Burke, helped establish that fund. Later in 2002 LCWR issued a letter to the New Ways Ministry …

In the spirit of lived eucharistic communion, we members of the national board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious wish to express our gratitude to you and your staff for your compassionate presence in ministry to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the Church.  We recall the words of our bishops in their pastoral letter, “Always Our Children,” affirming that all are children of one God.

I applaud LCWR for moving their faith into the 21st century, and hope they and their ideals can survive until a more inclusive and sympathetic Pope becomes head of the Catholic Church. In response to the investigation LCWR has issued the following statement:

“At this time, LCWR knows neither the process nor timeline for completion of this assessment. As more information is made available to LCWR, the conference will take the appropriate steps to prepare for its participation in the assessment. LCWR faces this process with confidence, believing that the conference has remained faithful to its mission of service to leaders of congregations of women religious as they seek to further the mission of Christ in today’s world.”

Prefect William Levada should be wary of what closet doors he chooses to open, as he has a host of skeletions hiding in his own closet.