President of US Conference of Catholic Bishops tells Vatican they are wrong

According to an article on 365gay.com News, the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, has blasted the Vatican and their new witch hunt on gays within the Church.

Bishop Skylstad said that “witch hunts and gay bashing have no place in the church.” He went on to say, “There are many wonderful and excellent priests in the church who have a gay orientation, are chaste and celibate and are very effective ministers of the Gospel.” The Bishop’s remarks were made in his diocesan newspaper last week.

According to the article:

Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was addressing concerns about an upcoming Vatican document that will address whether homosexuals should be ordained.

Conflicting reports have surrounded the contents of the document, which has been in the works for several years. Some church officials had previously signaled the Vatican would instruct seminaries to prohibit gays from enrolling.

But earlier this month, a Vatican official said the document would stop short of a sweeping ban and would instead permit candidates who have lived chastely for at least three years.

Skylstad wrote that if the latest reports are accurate, the document will be “nuanced and balanced.”

Vatican teaching holds that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The church, however, says homosexuals should be treated with compassion and dignity.

Estimates of the numbers of gays in the American priesthood vary from around 25 percent to 50 percent, according to a review of research on the issue by the Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of “The Changing Face of the Priesthood.”

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Wow! It is not very often that a Bishop just up and tells the Vatican that they are wrong. I mean, that is basically what Bishop Skylstad did. Let’s just hope the Holy Father doesn’t respond to Bishop with a Papal bull of excommunicaiton.

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