Wicked wind blows up Vatican witch-hunt document

A US seminary has made the Vatican’s confidential Instrumentum laboris, (the guidelines for the team visiting US seminaries to root out homosexuals) available on the Internet to “provide necessary information to ordained graduates who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.”

The Aquinas Institute for Theology has confirmed in a press release that the investigation is “the result of a meeting in 2002 between U.S. bishops and Vatican officials who met to respond to the crisis created when a clergy sexual abuse case in Boston led to revelations of abuses by priests throughout the United States.”

However, the 13-page guideline – which can be downloaded – makes no mention of child abuse. Instead it included 6 compulsory questions relating to homosexuality, including the blatant:

“Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary? (This question must be answered.)”

The Aquinas Institute’s press release also tells us how it will all happen:

The Apostolic Visitation of U.S. Seminaries and Houses of Formation has just begun nationwide. Teams of bishops and seminary personnel will conduct visits through Spring 2006 at an estimated 230 schools of theology, college-level seminaries, houses of formation and other schools that form priests. Members of the team visiting Aquinas Institute include a seminary professor, campus chaplain, parish pastor and director of religious studies, also at a seminary.

And, of course, why (well, sort of):

Visitors will examine the admissions process for candidates to the priesthood. They also will examine how seminaries and schools such as Aquinas Institute foster the intellectual and moral development of priesthood candidates and ensure the men are prepared to live chastely.

And, in the unlikely event you happen to be a freshly graduated priest reading this, don’t think you’re in the clear. The investigation will not only be looking at seminaries, but at those who have “graduated” in the last three years and each graduate will be subjected to a personal interview.

If you’re a gay priest, leave now with dignity.