Sunday, March 22, 2009

Interfaith Sexual Dialogue?

I was intrigued as I read about Cardinal Egan's comments on the issue of celibacy for priests and his suggestion that perhaps the issue deserves revisiting. Sexuality, both homo and hetero, is a topic that is often discussed in the context of Judaism in terms of being an issue that needs to be re-evaluated in light of modern sensibilities and it is interesting for me to see that similar discussions are taking place in the Catholic Church as well. I only wish that our leaders would be as proactive in confronting these issues as theirs are, instead of mostly sweeping them under the rug and/or clinging to old-fashioned lines of thinking. Then again, the Pope did recently cite condoms as one of the principal culprits in the pervasive spread of AIDS, so maybe they're just as bad.

4 comments:

  1. "so maybe they're just as bad."

    I think you mean "so maybe they're much worse?"

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  2. dude, seriously? the catholic church has been proactive on the gay issue? not that i recall. (i am referring of course to talking about gay issues, not performing gay acts. they've been pretty proactive in the latter area).

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  3. I didn't say anything about Catholics and the gay issue, but having one of the most prominent leaders in the Catholic Church frankly discussing sexual issues and being open to the possibility of reforming their stance I think is more than we can say for our Orthodox leaders so far.

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  4. yeah, but we (jews) already solved the problem of celibate clergy. we realized it was a stupid idea and nixed it. so i don't see why it's so encouraging the egan talked about it, particularly when celibacy is not actually part of official catholic doctrine (as per the nyt article).

    on the actually contentious sexual issues - like gays and birth control - catholics are as reticent as jewish leaders, it seems to me.

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