Like Patrick O’Hannigan, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus takes issue with Will Saletan’s assessment of the Catholic Church’s new document on the ordination of homosexuals at the First Things blog:

Contra Saletan, the Church pastorally cares and prays for people who struggle with disordered desires. But she should not jeopardize the mission of the priesthood by ordaining those who are thought likely to succumb to such desires.

Cardinal Grocholewski, head of the dicastery issuing the instruction, puts it this way: “It is not discrimination, for example, if one does not admit a person who suffers from vertigo to a school for astronauts.” More precisely, it is discrimination, although not in the pejorative sense of the term. I suppose it is possible that somebody with a transitory, or even deep-seated, problem with vertigo might be a successful astronaut, but as a matter of policy you don’t want to put the possibility to the test.