What the US Military could learn from the Catholic Priesthood

Now that Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been repealed for the US Military, the Americans will learn the hard way what opening up the military brotherhood to open homosexuals will do. Destructive effects of bad decisions don't always show up straight away as the Catholic Church has learned.

Homosexual relationships caused a deep fracture in the priestly male fraternity. Pseudo-intimacy and intrigue replaced the outward looking evangelization of apostolic brotherhood. Bishops were unwilling to discipline the abusive priests under their charge. The Communio became divided. Religious leaders hid their own homosexual proclivities. The worst priests desacralized the liturgy and their vows and their priestly identity, while good priests often became isolated, fearful, and rigid. All priests were maimed.

But priests are not soldiers nor are soldiers priests, so having open homosexuals around should not affect soldiers in the same way. Surely?

In the priesthood, the priest unites with the spotless Bride – the Church. The priest sacrifices his own desires, giving up the love of another, for a far greater love. He surrenders his own singular needs and desires for the good of the many – Christ’s Body, the Church.

A soldier makes this same archetypal masculine sacrifice for the nation. He sacrifices personal freedom and family for the good of the nation. In both cases, it’s a sacrifice that, in different times and places, requires the shedding of blood – for God and country. And, in both cases, it’s a peculiarly masculine sacrifice.

The Church has an intimate understanding of the human person and properly ordered love. When the brotherhood is perverted, the institution breaks down. The breakdown in fraternity is a fissure that threatens to corrupt the entire institution.

Somehow, I think, all of this is just going to be too subtle for a whole lot of people.

Related link: What the military must learn from the Church ~ WTPRS