I find it appalling that a letter in your Jan. 6 issue was published without an editor’s comment. The Rev. Alistair McKay says that the very lives of homosexual men are witness to selfishness and sterility, even those who are celibate and chaste. That is a gratuitous and totally unwarranted insult to every gay man in the world. How could you have published that without comment? The same applies to his question, How can homosexual priests proclaim the holiness of family life when their whole being is centered in attraction to others of the same sex? Father McKay’s very apparent homophobia prompts the unfounded and rash assumption that there are no homosexual priests (and never were any) who proclaim the holiness of family life. He then makes the totally illogical and unsubstantiated jump to the statement that barring homosexuals from the priesthood will help to restore faith in the Vatican and the U.S. hierarchy. Moreover, you helped to create a completely false notion by providing for his letter the caption, Restore Faith. It must have been a bad day in the editing department.
Peter M. Kopkowski
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand (Mk 1:41)