Vatican Test Screens Would-Be Pedophiles

(AP)  The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians Thursday - the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates following a series of pedophile scandals.

The church said it issued the new guidelines to help church leaders weed out candidates with "psychopathic disturbances." Sex abuse scandals by pedophile priests have rocked the church in recent years, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

"(The guidelines) became ever more urgent because of the sexual scandals," Monsignor Jean-Louis Brugues told reporters. He stressed, however, that psychological testing was used in some seminaries as far back as the 1960s - or at least a decade before the pedophile scandals exploded in public.

"In all too many cases, psychological defects, sometimes of a pathological kind, reveal themselves only after ordination to the priesthood," the guidelines said. "Detecting defects earlier would help avoid many tragic experiences."

The guidelines said problems like "confused or not yet well-defined" sexual identities need to be addressed.

A 2005 Vatican document said men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies shouldn't be ordained, but that those with a "transitory problem" could become priests if they had overcome them for three years. The Vatican considers homosexual activity sinful.

The new guidelines reflect the earlier teaching, stressing that if a future priest shows "deep-seated homosexual tendencies," his seminary training "would have to be interrupted."

The guideline say priests must have a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity" and the capacity to "integrate his sexuality in accordance" with the obligation of celibacy.

The church is struggling to provide enough priests for parishes in many parts of the West because of waning vocations. But Pope Benedict XVI has said it is more important to have good priests than a greater number of priests.

[indianaman13]

about time they started screening for priests, i pray the next ones will be the politicians and business executives. Who else has enough power and clout to destroy countries from within? Weed them out before hand and save every country.

[good4always]

WARNING !!! THE PSCHYCOPATH BABY KILLER PEDOPHILE birdlcky has changed its name to autumn987 !!!

[good4always]

WARNING !!! THE PSCHYCOPATH BABY KILLER birdlcky has changed its name to autumn987 !!!

[honestabe8]

"It shows they care and want to do something about the problems."

No, all it shows is that they are sick of paying out the tax free money they have scammed to pay for ***** priests.

[hennighg]

Okay, so now you''re scaring me. Is this screening to keep the molesters OUT? Or is it to put them IN? I mean, after umpty hundrety years of abuse the Catholic Church did nothing. Is this preventative? Or recrutative?

[caliengineer]

hmmm... Why don''t they just pray and ask God about each candidate? That would be the most wise.

Oh... that''s right- they teach that the voice of God (the Holy Spirit is our teacher on earth) is dead.

We all need to pray that these people will find the living God!

People, read your Bibles. Believe God. Seek God.

Whatever you seek, that shall you find!

[spadeisspade]

So....the church is REALLY screening for homosexuals. How is this helpful? Not all child molesters are homosexuals (and vice versa).

[brianbwb-2009]

There is an emotional disturbance, with a common psychological architecture that draws many people to become priests, cops, kkk wizards, neo-Nazis, volunteer military, right wing radio pundits, and the like. It stems from a lack of self esteem and self worth, and manifests in the attempt to create a sense of authority by donning a uniform, spewing hate speech, or pretending to engage in a "noble cause" of unnecessary war.

The problem is that this sociopathic tendency is not yet classified as a mental illness, and if it were, would cause the need to take large numbers of people and segregate them from civilized society.

[raven1949-2009]

The Catholic Church''s problems are:
*the requirement that priests be male.
*the requirement of celebacy, which prevents close relationships with women under a "certain age."
*Would-be-priests were often sent to the seminary at ridiculously young ages(12-16) before their sexual identities were developed, and then that education and development was stiffled.
*Now it looks like they ignorantly have co-mingled pedophilia with homosexuality and appear to be on a hunt to root out all priests with homosexual orientation (even if not acted on.)
At the end of the day the only "good" priests we will have left will be males who are uninterested in men or women and have the sexual mores of a 12 year old.
The laity had better get used to deacons conducting communion services, because there will be no priests left and the ones remaining will be loonies.

[o2brich]

Belief in God does not require a religion it requires faith no man can tell you Gods intention only you can.
Posted by antoniof123 at 12:39 PM: Oct 30, 2008

That doesn%u2019t make a lot of sense. If no man can tell you God%u2019s intention it doesn%u2019t stand to reason that you could know it on your own. Aren%u2019t you just a man as well? Gods isn%u2019t some nebulous concept that we each are free to define for ourselves. God is real and has definite opinions on what is going on here on earth, including homosexuality and pedophilia. It%u2019s clear enough from the bible that Jesus thought organized religion was necessary. The problem through out history is that so many people and leaders, claiming to act in His name, have committed atrocities. But they are not acting in his name. That%u2019s what he meant when he said by their fruits shall ye know them. Instead of broadly condemning all Christians, you should continue looking for that organized group of Christians practicing along the lines Christ taught. But that takes effort, something so many people are not willing to put out. And so there continue to be those like antoniof123 who condemn Christianity. It is much like G. K. Chesterton said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."