By Kathleen Gilbert
PHOENIX, Arizona, May 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An openly homosexual Roman Catholic priest of the diocese of Phoenix, who once endorsed a pornographic film entitled “Naked Boys Singing” for a homosexualist paper, has been excommunicated by Bishop Thomas Olmsted.
The excommunication of Fr. Chris Carpenter, who has long been publicly opposed to the Church’s condemnation of active homosexuality, was issued last month but only made public on Monday.
After Bishop Olmsted repeatedly chastised him for his homosexual activism, Carpenter precipitated the excommunication by joining the “Reformed Catholic Church,” an offshoot religious group that endorses homosexuality, homosexual priests, and women priests.
While Carpenter had been in the process of repudiating the Catholic Church for the last three years, in an email sent to supporters and quoted in the East Valley Tribune, Carpenter said he has “had a fire lit under me in recent months via several critical letters from Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix.”
“Among other things,” wrote Carpenter, Bishop Olmsted “disapproves of my ‘involvement in the homosexual community,’” citing his participation in a Los Angeles homosexual ministry.
An avid film buff, Carpenter had offered reviews of films for publications such as Orange County and Long Beach Blade and the Movie Dearest blog, both of which are heavily pro-homosexuality.
In one column for The Blade in November 2007, Carpenter praised the advent of more full-frontal male nudity in several films. “Anyone with a locker-room fetish ought to run out and see Eleven Men Out,” he wrote.
Carpenter added a recommendation for a movie titled Naked Boys Singing – which is rife with songs celebrating homosexual sex – “if after seeing these eye-filling spectacles you still haven’t had your fill of naked men.”
“Here’s hoping a full-frontal Santa fills your stocking this Christmas, and that all your holiday wishes come true!” wrote Carpenter.
In another Blade column, Carpenter complained of the Vatican’s stance against homosexual priests as “prejudicial, hypocritical, and cruel,” saying that the Vatican “didn’t offer any evidence to support” the ban on homosexual priests.
The Catholic Church has in recent years received stinging criticism from non-Catholics and Catholics alike for its policy excluding homosexuals from the priesthood. However, the Church has maintained that loosening this restriction in the seminaries in previous decades has had dire consequences for the Catholic community. In 2002, the USCCB released a study commissioned to John Jay College that showed adolescent boys were the victims of 80-90% of offending priests in the U.S. sex abuse scandal.
In November 2005, the Vatican restated its policy against active homosexuals in the priesthood, a few months after the American priest abuse scandal triggered an official investigation of U.S. seminaries.
Distinguishing between homosexual activity and persons with homosexual tendencies, the papal-approved document states that homosexual persons are “in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women.”
Therefore, it states, “One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Church Abuse Crisis- Notable Articles, Documents & Quotes
https://www.lifesitenews.com/features/churchscandals/notablearticles.htm
Vatican Encourages Psychological Testing to Prevent Homosexual Priesthood
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08103004.html
Homosexuals Not Permitted in Any Seminaries, Reaffirms Vatican
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08052009.html
Ban on Homosexual Men From Priesthood Was Always in Place – Decision from 810 A.D. Cited
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05113001.html