"Would engaging in homosexual acts with another consenting adult end a priest’s career?"
To which the Bishop replied:
“It could. It’s a serious violation of his vow of celibacy...But I am not prepared to say that any single action between consenting adults would mean automatic dismissal."
As this excellent article from CWR explains:
"..it has only been in the last 35 years, since the advent of the 1983 Code, that such “consensual adult relationships” among clergy have not been treated as crimes under canon law!
1917 CIC 2359 § 2 stated:
If [clerics] engage in a delict against the sixth precept of the Decalogue with a minor below the age of sixteen, or engage in adultery, debauchery, bestiality, sodomy, pandering, [or] incest with blood-relatives or affines in the first degree, they are suspended, declared infamous, and are deprived of any office, benefice, dignity, responsibility, if they have such, whatsoever, and in more serious cases, they are to be deposed."
Perhaps it's time to revise the Code of Canon Law once again so that these perverted "consensual adult relationships" may once more be deemed crimes under Church Law?
