On June 10, 2004 the Moscow Times reported the startling news that "the State Duma (Russian Parliament) is to consider Friday a bill that would ban alcoholics, homosexuals and pedophiles from holding seats in parliament."

        According to the Moscow Times story, the proposed legislation "would require newly elected deputies to undergo physical and psychological examinations to make sure they are fit for office. Health Ministry doctors would be responsible for declaring each deputy free of… homosexuality and pedophilia…"

        Isn’t this exactly what the Catholic bishops were supposed to do in keeping with the Vatican’s 1961 instruction that homosexuals must not be admitted to the seminary or to holy orders? But now we find that a rumored Vatican document that would have reaffirmed that instruction has been sidetracked and may never appear. As reported earlier in this forum, Vatican officials, after consulting non-Catholic "experts" on the matter, have apparently decided that homosexuality — an intrinsically perverse and disordered condition — ought not to be an impediment to ordination after all. One might as well say that kleptomaniacs or transvestites are fit for ordination. Simply unbelievable.

        Yet the proposed Russian legislation is prefaced by the observation that "Chronic diseases and latent diseases undoubtedly influence one’s capability to communicate and observe acceptable behavior norms… They prevent [deputies] from making decisions for their electorate." As a proponent of the bill put it: "Only people who are psychologically fit should aspire for a Duma post." No kidding! And if that is true of a seat in the Duma, its infinitely truer of a place in the sacred priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.

        But, apparently, this elementary good sense is lost on the Vatican apparatus, which now seems prepared to allow the continued ordination to the priesthood of men with a profound psychological disorder that strikes at the very root of the masculine image of the priesthood as configured to the manliest Man of all: Our Lord Jesus Christ.

        Now of course this proposed bill will never pass the Duma, for Russia today is a morally depraved nation whose spiritual condition worsens by the hour under the reign of the neo-Stalinist, Vladimir Putin. Indeed, as the Moscow Times story notes, "it was highly unlikely that the bill would make it all the way to the reading Friday. A number of deputies have slammed the bill as unconstitutional, saying it fails to uphold the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty." And let us not forget that it was Boris Yeltsin who legalized homosexual acts in Russia during the run-up to the bogus "perestroika" that has since given way to Putin’s dictatorship.

        The point, however, is this: Russian lawmakers have at least proposed sound morals legislation of a kind that the Vatican now seems unwilling even to consider. And that is a terrifying comment on the state of the Catholic Church today. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.