That old chestnut

First Oliver you hero, once I get the photocopies together I shall email you. I figure if I don't get OCI then I'll just wander about S E Asia as a tourist. Also I am beginning to realise that most problems or jobs in life either go away or get done by someone else or you wish you hadn't done them so it's often better to do nothing. Having said that I will probably call upon your assistance some time in December this year, there is some magic figure of 12 weeks and I return in March but I have come to realize the details don't matter because closer to the day everything changes.

So I asked the elderly prof now we were getting along and all, since Chastity properly understood had nothing to do with celibacy, celibacy being accidental while chastity essential. Chastity being for God and God's People in love so that God and God's people can love you back with being possessions and deeds. And since the gift of our sexuality had to be accepted and integrated, and since suppression, avoidance, sublimation and transcendence are essentially dishonest ways to approach this gift, what about homosexuals who are celibates, if they aren't going to express their sexuality should they too accept and integrate it into their religious lives. At which point he stated no because homosexuality is really like depression or Hodgkin's disease and being a moral disorder of the Will was a sure sign that the person did not have a vocation to a canonical religious life, although we should approach with compassion etc. When I pointed out that DSM IV no longer treated homosexuality as a disease he still maintained in the case of homosexuality the sexuality is disordered and cannot be redeemed I did mutter and take a look around the room but he probably didn't hear it he is more than a little deaf and they use that voice contraption (oh it's a microphone we have them in blighty but never really seen lecturers depend on them so much). He didn't feel the question of integration and acceptance was relevant because they would not have a religious vocation. I am not there to argue with the man the question seemed clarified. Now in the break of course peeps approach me and say so what do you think one word about homosexuality. I said Hypocrisy. We got into a frank exchange where I think by pure force of will and unable to stand the breeze my priestly opponent accepted that the Church had as much competence to rule on what is and what is not a mental illness as they did on determining whether the Sun went round the earth or vice-versa. And clearly there are many priests and religious who are homosexual. I remember as my parthian shot which apparently was once north indian, but before the Brits came and there was an India mind, bit like China's view of its boundaries hmm. I said well I am sure it is an important discussion but not one that will be had today coz no one is going to say anything. And then this other priest in the back first thing at restart asks for clarification on homosexuality with reference to the recent supreme court decision which decriminalized the act for the first time in India since the Victorian Age, and the trend in the modern world etc. To which the elderly priest said it was an important issue but he didn't have the expertise to clarify it for us and he asked him to press the course Director for such an expert to come forward. Good for him.

I think asking a few questions makes the class more interesting. What I hates is when someone thinks asking questions is the new silent note taking and they say oh what about Micah, oh what about Amos, oh what about, that's not really a set of intelligent questions designed to draw us deeper into mystery. They have their brains in their uteruses if you ask me.