More on What Ails the Catholic Church. A very
fine piece in Sunday's
Washington Post looks at Roman Catholic seminaries in the U.S.
Not unexpectedly, a large number of those studying to be priests
are gay and they tend to socialize together, which sometimes leads
to sexual tensions that are readily apparent. But the topic is not
allowed to be openly discussed. The result is a "weird" atmosphere
that is driving both straight and gay seminarians to abandon their
dreams of becoming priests. Says one straight former priest-to-be
about "the atmosphere of suffocating sexual repression" at his
seminary:
"You need to create a space where people can be who they are. Being gay is not the problem, but when it's all underground it's no good."
Indeed, clearly it's not.
On German "Marriage". Readers have written to
chide me for the recent item in which I wrote, "Meanwhile, Germany
(of all places) joins France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden
in granting same-sex couples the benefits of matrimony." Wrote one
reader:
"Despite the impression you might get from watching the History Channel, the second world war ended a long time ago and fortunately LOTS of things have changed since then. Modern Germany is far from being a perfect place, but general attitudes towards homosexuality in Germany are far ahead of the U.S. and have been for a long time."
Another reader pointed out that Germany's law does not grant the
full rights of marriage:
"The German Eingetragene Partnerschaft (registered partnership)--the so-called 'Homo-Ehe' (gay marriage)--in fact does not grant same-sex couples all of the benefits that verheiratete (married) opposite sex couples get. Most notably, they do not get the same benefits as regards taxation--income and inheritance"."
The reason, I"m informed, is that portions of the partnership bill equalizing taxation were rejected by the Bundesrat (the upper house), which is controlled by the CDU/CSU (Christian Democrat Union/Christian Social Union). Moreover, the partnerships, unlike marriage, are not recognized outside of Germany. Hope that helps clarify matters.