God Only SEEMS Nonexistent!
In case you ever wondered why God allows horrors in the world:
[H/t Effect Measure.]
Add comment March 7th, 2010
Posts filed under 'Religion'
Religion flourishes with economic insecurity, declines with security
A new research study by independent researcher Gregory Paul finds religious belief declines with increased living conditions, especially economic security. Seems he has rediscovered Marx’s position that religion is the heart of a heartless world.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the US, one of the most insecure industrialized countries, without even universal access to medical care, is also one of the most religious.
Here is an announcement from the journal Evolutionary Psychology. The full paper is available as pf here.:
Is religiosity beneficial in affluent first world nations?
Contact: Gregory Paul
Email: GSP1954@aol.comIn recent decades, scholars have discussed the evolutionary origins of religious beliefs. Some hold that religious beliefs confer benefits to individuals’ abilities to cope with their life experiences; others propose that religious beliefs and identities facilitated the successful survival of human groups and their competition with other groups for land and other scarce resources.
As some nations become increasingly secular, one may wonder what role religious beliefs play for those living in technologically advanced societies. Advocates for religious systems often argue that these beliefs are instrumental in providing moral foundation necessary for a healthy, cohesive society – a view shared by Benjamin Franklin and Dostoyevsky.
In a follow up to his 2005 paper, Gregory Paul argues that high religiosity is not universal to human populations, and it is actually inversely related to a wide range of socio-economic indicators representing the health of modern democracies. Paul holds that once a nation’s population becomes prosperous and secure, for example through economic security and universal health care, much of the population looses interest in seeking the aid and protection of supernatural entities. This effect appears to be so consistent that it may prevent nations from being highly religious while enjoying good internal socioeconomic conditions.
National level statistics suggest that strong mass religiosity is invariably associated with high levels of stress and anxiety, which are created by impoverishment, inequality, or economic security, related to high levels of societal dysfunction. These relationships are largely consistent when the United States, an outlier amongst advanced democracies in the high level of both religious belief and social decay, is removed from the comparison.
The belief held by some scholars that strong religious belief is the universal human condition deeply rooted in our psyches, may be false. Also contradicted is the hypothesis that evolutionary selective forces have played the leading role in determining the popularity of religion. Environmental conditions appear to exert great influence on the degree to which religious beliefs are held. The popularity of religious belief may be a reflection of a psychological mechanism for coping with the high levels of stress and anxiety resulting from adverse social and economic environments.
Because creationism can be popular only when religion is widespread, extensive disbelief of evolutionary science is also associated with the dysfunctional societal environment, which encourages the conservative, scriptural based theism that favors special creation. Large scale secularization is the only method proven to suppress creationist opinion to well below majority status.
The findings also have strong implications for consequential political debates, such as the current tussles amongst politicians and interest groups over health care reform in the United States. This may be seen as part of a larger ideological battle between those advocating for progressive government policies leveling health and economic outcomes and social conservatives who oppose the secularization associated with such outcomes.
The study, The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions, appears in the current issue of Evolutionary Psychology and is accessible at: http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07398441_c.pdf
September 20th, 2009
The Mormon connection to US torture
David R. Irvine writes in The Salt Lake tribune of the Mormon connection to US torture:
LDS lawyers, psychologists had a hand in torture policies
By David R. IrvineAn overheard conversation among several women at a local deli: “I can’t believe this country elected Obama as president; it must be a sign of the end times when the Constitution will hang by a thread.” The irony of this uniquely Utah political thread about church elders saving the Constitution might have shocked the lunch bunch had they read The Dark Side by Jane Mayer (Doubleday, 2008).
Reading Mayer’s disturbing book is likely to lead to the conclusion that the Constitution is more imperiled than ever; but it also reveals the troubling fingerprints of several of my fellow Mormons whose handiwork, not the Obama election, did so much to create the present crisis.
Although the decisions which put us in the grim business of torture, body-snatching, extraordinary renditions, making people disappear, indefinite confinement without charges and warrantless wiretapping were made by the president and vice president, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints served as helpful enablers. Not only did they provide the legal architecture, they provided the “scientific” patina for the plunge into the barbaric business of torture.
Take Timothy E. Flanigan, deputy White House counsel and LDS father of 14 children, who, along with David Addington, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, and Jim Haynes comprised the secretive “War Council” of lawyers — a self-appointed group Mayer describes as having virtually no experience in law enforcement, military service, counterterrorism or the Muslim world.
Together, they were the brain trust that devised the legal cover that Vice President Dick Cheney needed to work his will. They secretly crafted the warrantless surveillance program which allowed the National Security Agency to intercept telephone calls and e-mails to and from American citizens within the United States. They secretly devised the Bush military commissions, which were essentially kangaroo courts and legally insufficient to satisfy the minimal adjudicatory standards required under the Geneva Conventions, which, as provided by the Constitution and Congress, constitute the supreme law of the land. They secretly conspired to ignore the law and frame interrogation techniques around the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, the Soviet KGB and Chairman Mao.
Flanigan once told his LDS ward congregation that it was gratifying “to work in a White House where every day was begun with prayer.” In 2005, prior to his rejection by the Senate to be Gonzales’ deputy attorney general, Flanigan was asked whether waterboarding, mock executions, physical beatings and painful stress positions were off-limits. “[It] depends on the facts and circumstances… .” He went on: “‘Inhumane’ can’t be coherently defined.”
BYU law school graduate Jay S. Bybee was the assistant attorney general directing the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. At the instigation of Addington and Yoo, Bybee issued official legal opinions that redefined the crime of torture to make it all but impossible to commit. Barbarity was not torture unless it created pain equal to death or organ failure. A newly-declassified Bybee memorandum lists 10 previously top-secret interrogation techniques approved for use by the CIA, including waterboarding.
Incredibly, Bybee seems to have been unaware that the United States had prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime after World War II. In 2003, before his role in authorizing U.S. torture was known, Bybee was given a lifetime judicial appointment on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Had his role in torture been known, it is unlikely he would have been confirmed.
Two devout Mormons also engineered the more grisly wet work. Because the CIA lacked personnel in 2001 with interrogation expertise, the agency turned to two psychologists, James E. Mitchell and John B. Jessen, who had worked with the Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape programs. Neither had an intelligence or interrogation background or had experience with Muslim terrorists, but, according to the FBI, they had experience in designing, testing, implementing and monitoring torture techniques that were illegal in the United States and elsewhere in the civilized world.
These two were responsible for “reverse-engineering” the SERE program — which was intended to toughen American pilots against torture (and the false confessions it had produced in the Korean War) — and they built the CIA’s surreal secret interrogation program around the same brutal coercion that had successfully forced American POWs to lie to their North Korean and Chinese captors. In other words, they assumed that the very brutality which had forced American soldiers to lie would magically force a Muslim terrorist to tell the truth, even if he had to be waterboarded 183 times.
Mitchell advised that suspects must be treated like dogs in a cage. “It’s like an experiment, when you apply electric shocks to a caged dog, after a while, he’s so diminished, he can’t resist.” The Mitchell/Jessen methodology became the basis for prisoner treatment at Guantanamo, Bagram, CIA secret prisons and Abu Ghraib. It involved isolation, sensory deprivation, disorientation, nudity, sexual humiliation, waterboarding, painful stress positions, withholding food and medical treatment, extended sleep deprivation and subjection to temperature extremes. These were used singly and, more commonly, in combination with one another.
Retired Air Force Col. Steve Kleinman, a former SERE instructor and interrogator, says of Mitchell and Jessen: “I think they have caused more harm to American national security than they’ll ever understand.”
***********
David R. Irvine is a Salt Lake attorney and former Utah legislator residing in Bountiful. He was commissioned in the U.S. Army Reserve as a strategic intelligence officer in 1967 and retired as a brigadier general. He taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years for the Sixth United States Army Intelligence School.
3 comments April 30th, 2009
Change you don’t need to believe
Religion declining, survey finds:
[H/T Effect Measure.]
March 22nd, 2009
Evangelicals for Human Rights: A Christian Rationale for a Truth Commission
From Evangelicals for Human Rights come this call for a Truth Commission:
A Christian Rationale for a Truth Commission
By David P. Gushee
Senator Patrick Leahy has begun hearings exploring the possibility of establishing a Truth Commission to investigate Bush detainee policies. His proposal is viewed as controversial, but here is why I support it as an evangelical Christian.
Our nation needs a Truth Commission on the issue of torture because we need to know, at last, exactly what happened. We need the truth, and we need it from multiple perspectives. Minimally, such a body needs to gain access to all government documents in which policies related to detainee interrogation were debated and articulated. The commission further needs to talk to the policymakers who developed the policies, at least some of the people who implemented them, and some who were on the receiving end of that implementation and are willing to speak about it. If there are surviving videotapes of these interrogations these also need to be examined by any Truth Commission.
The Bible teaches that truth is central to God’s character, to a community’s well-being, and to the way of life of God’s people. Many people who know the Bible only minimally think of truth primarily in terms of a moral obligation not to bear false witness. But the Bible at least as often emphasizes truthfulness as an aspect of character—both personal and national character. Believers are called to live in truth, to walk in truth, to stay on the path of truth. And it is recognized repeatedly in scripture that truth is essential to healthy public life, and that lies corrode life in community. When “truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips” (Jer. 7:28), society is at risk of moral collapse.
It has been very difficult to have an honest public debate about exactly what our nation has done to those in our custody because we have never been given full information. We have half-debated what has been only half-revealed. We need to bring what has been done in the shadows into the full light of day, and see how it looks when exposed to that cleansing sunlight. Those who have defended these policies as both moral and essential to national security would be given full opportunity to make their case in light of what was actually done, to how many people, with what results, and with what effects on everyone involved. If the policies were truly defensible they will reveal themselves as such in the process of exposure to the sunlight of public scrutiny. If they were not defensible, as I firmly believe, that will also very likely be obvious in the course of public examination. It’s time to have a full public airing.
Finding out exactly what happened could be the first step toward a process of national and international reconciliation. In scripture, reconciliation is a fundamental theme. It is God’s goal in relation to humanity and should be the goal of Christians (and all people) in relation to one another. It is sufficiently important to fractured societies and to international relations that in many cases lives depend on it.
Biblically, reconciliation generally involves truthtelling, repentance, and forgiveness. Unpacked a bit further, reconciliation includes the wrongdoer’s acknowledgment of responsibility, confession of the act as sin, expression of grief for any harm done, serious commitment to a new course of action, and request for forgiveness. It sometimes also involves some concrete form of recompense offered to the one harmed by the one who did the harm.
Of course, forgiveness then needs to be extended by the aggrieved party for full reconciliation to be experienced. And in situations in which wrong has been done by both sides, both parties need to walk through this process and extend forgiveness to each other at the end of it.
Is it too much to dream that the United States of America could walk through a process like this in relation to our detainee policies? Once our nation’s acts have been exposed to the clear light of day, with nothing any longer hidden, if the facts merit it, I dream that we would demonstrate the moral courage to acknowledge responsibility for wrong acts, confess them as sin, express real grief for the harms done, commit ourselves to a new course of action (and solidify that commitment in concrete legislation and executive policies), offer recompense especially to those innocent persons whom we have harmed where that is appropriate, and ask our victims for forgiveness.
We are living through a period in which private deceptiveness and lies in economic life is having disastrous consequences for our society and the world. But we need to likewise see that the public deceptiveness and lies in political life also have had disastrous consequences for our society. As a people, we need to rediscover integrity, and the truthfulness that is its indispensable prerequisite.
March 19th, 2009
Brazilian Church keeps child rapist, excommunicates mother of victim
A Brazilian Archbishop has excommunicated the mother of a nin ywar old who was repeatedly raped by her stepfather, becoming pregnant and had an abortion. The doctor was also excommunicated:
A CATHOLIC archbishop has sparked controversy in Brazil by saying the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion on Wednesday following a rape is automatically excommunicated for allowing the procedure to go ahead.
Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife also declared that according to canon law the doctor who performed the abortion is considered excommunicated, along with anyone else involved.
The child was raped by her stepfather, who has since admitted abusing her over the last three years. Abortion is generally illegal in Brazil but allowed in cases of rape or when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.
The Brazilian church further showed its profound hatred of real, live, human beings:
Before the abortion was carried out the archdiocese’s lawyers threatened to charge the mother with homicide, citing the Brazilian constitution’s guarantee to the right to life.
The danger to the nine-year old mother didn’t matter:
The doctor who carried out the procedure has defended his actions. “If the pregnancy had continued, the damage would have been worse, being a high risk pregnancy. The risk would have been of death or at the very least that she would never have been able to become pregnant again,” Dr Olímpio Moraes told O Globo newspaper.
“There are two legal justifications for abortion envisioned by the law, which are rape and risk to life. She [the girl] falls within the two and, as a doctor, I could not let a girl of nine years be submitted to this suffering and even pay with her own life.”
The stepfather who repeatedly raped her is apparnetly, still a member in good standing of the Catholic Church. For, as we know, the Church has profound understanding for child rapists. They’ve known so many.
March 7th, 2009
The Catholic fascist brought in from the cold
Andrew Sullivan has more on the holocaust denier who Pope Benedict just reinstated in the Catholic Church. According to Sullivan “Notice the word “violent”. This man is a fascist.” [The word "fascist" is Sullivan's].
Sullivan quotes Jim Burroway:
Williamson argues that women should not wear trousers and that “almost no girl should go to any university” because doing so contributes to the “the unwomaning of woman.” He blames modernism for causing the Rwandan massacre, he describes pluralism as the major threat to the Faith and salvation of Catholics today, and he decries religious liberty as a substitute religion. He has even criticized the movie The Sound of Music because of how it portrays those “nasty Nazis” and elevates “self-centered” romantic love. His views on gay people, engaging in a sin “crying to Heaven for vengeance,” are all too predictable.
It is clear that the Catholic Church under this Pope has lost any semblance of a moral center. Pedophilia is punished by being moved to a location where the children have no ability to complain. And fascists are to be rehabilitated.We should stop citing the Catholic Church when they happen to agree with us, as on the Iraq war.
But the conspiracy folks should be thrilled. He’s a 9-11 Truth kind of guy:
None of you believe that 9-11 is what it was presented to be. It was, of course, the two towers came down, but it was absolutely for certain not two airplanes which brought down those two towers. They were professionally demolished by a series of demolition charges from top to bottom of the towers. …
Even if I took the 9-11 Truth seriously, I’d be ashamed to be in such company. Evidently Pope Benedict is not.
January 26th, 2009
Catholic Church rehabilitates holocaust denier
Unbelievable. This is the man Pope Benedict decided to allow back into the Catholic Church as a Bishop.
[h/t Andrew Sullivan]
It is impossible to think of words to convey one’s disgust at this decision. I felt nauseas watching this. While not a Catholic, I can understand the words of Andrew Sullivan:
I am truly, deeply ashamed of my church for this action and hope this provokes such an outcry it is reversed. These are not the words of Christ. They are the words of evil.
At this historical moment, this act is also profoundly dangerous to world peace. It will reinforce the sense among many Jews, Israelis included, that the whole world is against them because they are Jews, and that any compromise with the Palestinians will be the first step towards annihilation. The cause of peace in the Middle East has been dealt a serious blow.
One other point. One wishes that the 9/11 “Truth” people would note that this holocaust denier also agrees with them. While that doesn’t prove they are wrong, it might give pause to those willing to easily jump onto these immense conspiracy theories. As for a purported 9/11 conspiracy, if the most incompetent administration in US history could pull off and keep secret the greatest conspiracy in human history, then we have witnessed a miracle greater than any claimed by any religion.
January 25th, 2009
British Jews compare Gaza attack to crushing Warsaw Ghetto
UPDATE: I have added below a Guardian article reporting another letter by prominent British Jewish leaders, also critical of Israel’s actions, though apparently with quite a different tone. [The letter is here.]
The Guardian has published an important letter from over 70 British Jews objecting to the war on Gaza and making the natural connection with the Warsaw Ghetto. They call for “a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions”:
We the undersigned are all of Jewish origin. When we see the dead and bloodied bodies of young children, the cutting off of water, electricity and food, we are reminded of the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto. When Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, talked of putting Gazans “on a diet” and the deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, talked about the Palestinians experiencing “a bigger shoah” (holocaust), this reminds us of Governor General Hans Frank in Nazi-occupied Poland, who spoke of “death by hunger”.
The real reason for the attack on Gaza is that Israel is only willing to deal with Palestinian quislings. The main crime of Hamas is not terrorism but its refusal to accept becoming a pawn in the hands of the Israeli occupation regime in Palestine.
The decision last month by the EU council to upgrade relations with Israel, without any specific conditions on human rights, has encouraged further Israeli aggression. The time for appeasing Israel is long past. As a first step, Britain must withdraw the British ambassador to Israel and, as with apartheid South Africa, embark on a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Ben Birnberg, Prof Haim Bresheeth, Deborah Fink, Bella Freud, Tony Greenstein, Abe Hayeem, Prof Adah Kay, Yehudit Keshet, Dr Les Levidow, Prof Yosefa Loshitzky, Prof Moshe Machover, Miriam Margolyes, Prof Jonathan Rosenhead and 65 others
UPDATE: Here is the Guardian/Observer article:
Leading British Jews call on Israel to halt ‘horror’ of Gaza
By Peter Beaumont, David Smith and Ben Quinn
A group of Britain’s most prominent Jews has called on Israel to cease its military operations in Gaza immediately, warning that its actions, far from improving the country’s security, will “strengthen extremism, destabilise the region, and exacerbate tensions inside Israel”.
Describing themselves, as “profound and passionate supporters” of Israel – and supporting its right to defend itself against the “war crime” of Hamas rocket attacks – they added that the current tactics threatened to undermine international support for Israel.
The intervention, in a letter published in today’s Observer, came as fears grew that Israel was to launch a “new phase” of its military offensive inside the Gaza strip. Yesterday warplanes dropped leaflets warning Gazans “not to be close to terrorists, weapons warehouses and the places where the terrorists operate”. The two-week-old campaign has already killed more than 800 Palestinians, while 13 Israelis have died, three of them civilians killed by Hamas rockets.
Although individual Jewish writers and religious figures have expressed their opposition to the conduct of Operation Cast Lead, the letter represents the most significant break with Israel’s tactics from a group of UK Jews.
Prominent rabbis, academics and political figures are among the signatories, including Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, head of the Movement for Reform Judaism; Sir Jeremy Beecham, former chair of the Labour party; Professor Shalom Lappin of the University of London; Baroness Julia Neuberger; Rabbi Danny Rich, chief executive of Liberal Judaism; Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein, principal of Leo Baeck rabbinical training college; and lawyer Michael Mitzman, who set up Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for the Home Office.
Their demand comes amid increasing pressure on Israel from the diplomatic community to halt its operations, and rising criticism of the humanitarian impact on Palestinian civilians, including allegations of potentially serious breaches of international humanitarian law. Demonstrations around the world yesterday called for a ceasefire.
“We look upon the increasing loss of life on both sides of the Gaza conflict with horror,” reads the letter. “We have no doubt that rocket attacks into southern Israel, by Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups, are war crimes against Israel. No sovereign state should, or would, tolerate continued attacks and the deliberate targeting of civilians. Israel had a right to respond and we support the Israeli government’s decision to make stopping the rocket attacks an urgent priority.
“However, we believe that now only negotiations can secure long-term security for Israel and the region.”
The letter was written before the escalation of ground fighting in Gaza City itself signalled by Israel yesterday.
“There can be no alternative to a negotiated solution,” said Beecham. “Israel should be demonstrating, along with the Palestinian Authority, that there are economic and political benefits to be gained from peaceful engagement rather than violent confrontation.”
His sentiments were echoed by Lappin: “Relying on overwhelming military force to respond to terrorist provocations invariably imposes horrendous suffering on innocent Palestinian civilians while entrenching the agents of terror in their midst. We have no alternative but to pursue rational, long term political options that promote moderation and marginalise extremists.”
In London violent clashes broke out near the Israeli embassy as tens of thousands marched in protest. Helmeted riot police with batons and shields charged a group of demonstrators who hurled sticks, shoes and traffic cones back at them while chanting “Free Palestine!”
Protesters tried to force entry to the north gate of Kensington Palace Gardens and six climbed an adjoining wall, setting fire to an American flag. The windows of a Starbucks opposite the embassy were smashed.
The police charges created waves of panic. Protester Ahmed Mohammad, 23, claimed he saw women and children get hurt: “It was a peaceful protest until the riot police came. I’ve seen a mother and little girl pushed to the ground.”
Some protesters attempted to throw barriers and other missiles at police.
The Stop the War Coalition, which organised the event, claimed that “at least” 100,000 people had made it “the biggest demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian people in the history of this country”. The Metropolitan Police estimated the total at 12,000.
Earlier, Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park was turned into a sea of Palestinian flags and banners condemning Israel. Speakers included human rights advocate Bianca Jagger, singer Annie Lennox and the Rev Garth Hewitt, canon at St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem.
January 10th, 2009
LA Times: Psychologists shouldn’t help church screen out gay priests
The Los Angeles Times editorialized on the ethics of psychologists helping the Catholic Church screen out gay priests. As they state:
Pope’s new edict on the priesthood
How can psychologists ethically help the Catholic Church screen out gay priests?
Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2008
The Roman Catholic Church requires its priests to refrain from any sexual relationship, whether heterosexual or homosexual. So one might think that the sexual orientation of an aspirant for the priesthood would be a nonissue — especially in light of the distinction the church has drawn between homosexual conduct, which is considered sinful, and homosexual orientation, which is not.
One would be wrong.
The Vatican recently issued a statement re-emphasizing that even chaste gay men are to be barred from the priesthood. Never mind that large numbers of gay priests — estimates range from 25% to 50% — already serve the faithful, with most adhering to their vow of celibacy.
“Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood,” released Oct. 30 by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, not only reiterates the teaching that men with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies are unworthy of ordination, it also urges seminaries to enlist the aid of psychologists in screening candidates for homosexuality and other “psychic disturbances.”
Yet even if the U.S. church is following a more compassionate policy than Vatican pronouncements would seem to authorize, the role of psychologists in screening applicants raises troubling ethical questions, as even psychologists who approve of such cooperation admit. Aiding the church in weeding out homosexuals is hard to reconcile with these guidelines of the American Psychological Assn.:
“Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual and role differences, including those based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language and socioeconomic status, and consider these factors when working with members of such groups. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone activities of others based upon such prejudices.”
If the church — or a diocese within the church — takes the Vatican decree literally, it’s hard to see how a psychologist could lend his or her expertise to the thwarting of a young man’s aspiration to serve God simply because he happens to be gay. In our view, that’s not just cruel; it’s unprofessional.
An additional issue regarding such “screening” is that it is questionable that psychologists have a valid way of determining who is “gay” that would not generate many false positives.
Here is the whole editorial:
The Vatican’s hard line against chaste gay priests seems to be inspired by the condemnation the church justly received for its passive response to the sexual abuse of minors — most of them male — by some priests. But, as Pope Benedict XVI conceded during his visit to the United States this year, homosexuality isn’t the same as pedophilia. That statement was a rebuke to conservative Catholics, and others, who have attempted to equate the two. (Despite the pope’s enlightened comments, he approved last month’s statement.)
Obviously, the church must be free to define the qualifications for its clergy based on theological arguments that many outside (and within) the fold find unpersuasive. In this country, the 1st Amendment allows the church to bar homosexuals from the priesthood, just as it does women. But even many Catholics will be horrified by the idea of the church employing psychologists to “out” prospective priests. Nor is it much comfort that the psychological scrutiny will be voluntary. What young man who feels called to the priesthood will feel free to object?
To be fair, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States — including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles — operates under its own guidelines for the screening of prospective priests, which can include consultations with psychologists. Although the U.S. policy professes to adhere to Vatican pronouncements (and was approved by the pope), it seems to adopt a narrower definition of “deep-seated” homosexual inclination, one that allows gays to be ordained as long as their sexual orientation doesn’t interfere with their ministry.
Yet even if the U.S. church is following a more compassionate policy than Vatican pronouncements would seem to authorize, the role of psychologists in screening applicants raises troubling ethical questions, as even psychologists who approve of such cooperation admit. Aiding the church in weeding out homosexuals is hard to reconcile with these guidelines of the American Psychological Assn.:
“Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual and role differences, including those based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language and socioeconomic status, and consider these factors when working with members of such groups. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone activities of others based upon such prejudices.”
If the church — or a diocese within the church — takes the Vatican decree literally, it’s hard to see how a psychologist could lend his or her expertise to the thwarting of a young man’s aspiration to serve God simply because he happens to be gay. In our view, that’s not just cruel; it’s unprofessional.
November 17th, 2008