I just noticed that Andrew Sullivan has taken me to task

You notice a couple of things about the two NYT op-eds that have appeared on the subject of the proposed ban on chaste gay seminarians in the Catholic church. The difference between Amy Welborn’s description of the new policy on her own website as "insane" and her milque-toast defense of the new policy in the NYT just speaks to the limits of someone’s ability to tell the full truth when the spotlight is really on her. But John Allen’s piece is merely bizarre. The Vatican’s defense of their reversal of the classic policy of "hate the sin, love the sinner" to "ban all gays, regardless of their conduct" now comes to this: we won’t really enforce it. Of course, they’ve already conceded that by saying that they wouldn’t bar any already-ordained gay priests (the only logic here is prudential; if they actually enforced their new policy, they could lose up to a third of their current employees).

Andrew. My NYTimes piece was not on the rumored-forthcoming policy on homosexuals in seminaries. It was on the seminary visitation. The seminary visitation is not just about the gays, no matter how much left and right would like it to be so.

Retraction and apology, please, for mischaracterizing me and my statements at every turn, and especially for the bitchy "when the spotlight is really on her."

Oh, and you want bitchy? I can do that. Your reading of my piece doesn’t exactly do much to argue against the bigoted perception that narcissism is an important element in male homosexual culture.

You may want to watch that.

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