"MONTREAL -- In an unusual public dissent with their leaders, 19 Quebec Roman Catholic priests published yesterday an open letter taking issue with the church's opposition to both same-sex marriage and the ordination of active gays into the priesthood.
Does the church "have the last word on the mysteries of political, social, family and sexual life?" the 980-word letter asks. "In these matters, the official teaching of the Church has shown itself more than once to be wrong."
One of the authors, Father Claude Lefebvre of the Saint-Étienne parish in Montreal, said the letter stemmed from a discussion group of Quebec priests who felt uneasy about the church's official discourse.
"We don't want people to believe that everyone within the church thinks the same way," he said in an interview.
The priests' pastoral activities with regular faithful had put them at odds with their leaders, he said. "Our contact with people influenced our action and way of thinking. We wish that, within the Church, Christians lend an ear to people who live their homosexual orientation. That they live with the people rather than just with books."
Disputing the Vatican's position that homosexual acts are "intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law," the letter notes that humans have endlessly strived throughout history to redefine what is natural to them.
The letter also criticizes the Canadian bishops' presentation to Parliament that opposed Bill C-38 on same-sex marriage. "Was there any trace of the compassion that marked Jesus's passage on Earth? Not a paragraph, not a sentence in your brief that takes into account the historical discrimination against homosexuals and the tragedy of their social and ecclesial exclusion."
Analysts said it has been decades since Catholic priests in Quebec have disagreed so widely and so publicly with their church leadership.
"I wouldn't call this unprecedented but I'd be at a loss to come up with a precedent," said Christophe Potworowski, the Kennedy-Smith Chair in Catholic Studies at McGill University. "It points to a serious crisis in the Quebec church and the lack of communion between priests in pastoral positions and their bishops."
Prof. Potworowski and another expert, Guy Ménard, a professor of religious studies at the University of Quebec in Montreal, agreed there hasn't been such a broad, open protest in Quebec since the 1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical that declared contraception immoral.
Yesterday's letter was signed by priests from five dioceses across the province, in Montreal, Joliette, Longueuil, Gaspé and Gatineau.
The authors say they were prompted to write because of two recent developments: the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops' criticism of the new law on same-sex marriage, and the release in November of guidelines from the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education that restated the church's ban on ordaining priests who are "actively homosexual."
The signatories include the maverick, outspoken Father Raymond Gravel. Father Gravel -- who had a rough-and-tumble youth as a prostitute and barman in a leather bar before he entered the priesthood -- has often criticized the church's views on gays in the past.
The 19 who signed the letter could be gambling on the fact that there is a shortage of priests in Quebec to avoid disciplinary measures from their bishops, Prof. Potworowski said."
¿Habrá religiosos en México con la integridad de hacer algo semejante? Honestamente, lo dudo.... En México hay sacerdotes, pero sirven al miedo. No a la verdad, no al amor. Y sirviendo al miedo se han dejado de ser libres, y se han convertido en simples esclavos. Hasta parece que ya se matan entre ellos por conservar su poder. No esperen nada de ellos.
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