That headline is merely meant to be provocative. I am sure Fr. Harvey would never dissent from Church teaching. However, a friend wrote taking me to task for posting Fr. Harvey's interview responding to "that document" as if he were defending the Church (scroll down a bit to find it). At issue is Fr. Harvey's comment
A person can be chaste and have same-sex attractions; quite a number have been able to do that. If a man is constantly chaste, is in his mid-20s and has control of himself, there is reason to believe he could continue living a chaste life.
The statement implies --or at least could be read to imply-- that Fr. Harvey thinks a chaste person could be ordained in spite of homosexual tendencies. That is of course not what the document says. It says you can't ordain a person with the homosexual orientation (leaving some wiggle room about what that means with respect to youthful experimentation or fleeting thoughts). The point is that chastity, although certainly vital to the priesthood, is not the question being addressed by this document; the key issue is affective maturity, of which ability to be chaste is only one element. I read the document to say that the homosexual orientation is de facto evidence of affective immaturity. It's a compassionate treatment, but also a tough and courageous one.
