The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided" (CCC 2358).

As such, I cannot understand why a Church whose priests take vows of celibacy and chastity should be at all concerned by whom those men would be interested in having sexual intercourse with were they in a situation to do so. Homosexuality has not been listed in the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) since 1973. Alcoholism, considered under the headings of its two distinct categories of "alcohol abuse" and "alcohol dependence" since 1987, is still listed in the current DSM. Pedophilia was first included in 1968 and is categorized in the Text Revision of the DSM-IV as one of several paraphiliac mental disorders.

The Vatican, however, has not issued statements preventing the admittance to seminary or holy orders to men who are alcoholics. I can not help but see the recent attentions of the church to the issue of homosexual men in the priesthood as a knee-jerk reaction to the scandals involving the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Children were not abused because the church admitted homosexual priests; children were abused because the church shuffled pedophiles from parish to parish instead of removing them and reporting the incidents to the authorities.

Given that the Catholic Church ordains men who are alcoholics and until fairly recently actively protected a number of men engaged in pedophilic behavior, I find myself coming to one of two conclusions: either the church believes that God can call men with mental disorders to the priesthood, or the church is entirely unqualified to decide to whom God has given such a vocation. In either case, for the Catholic Church to discriminate against homosexual men who may have legitimate vocations at a time when it is in desperate need of priests seems to me to be tragically shortsighted.