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BOSTON — The Boston Archdiocese’s newspaper said Thursday that a week-old editorial raising questions about priest celibacy, ordination of women and homosexuality had been widely

misinterpreted. A new editorial published in the Pilot, the nation’s oldest Catholic newspaper, denied that it intended to challenge church policy when it published “Questions that must be

faced.” Last week’s editorial said Boston’s child molestation cases involving the church raised questions about whether there would be fewer scandals if celibacy were optional for priests,

and whether the priesthood attracts an unusually high number of homosexual men. It offered no answers, but stated: “These scandals have raised serious questions in the minds of the laity

that simply will not disappear.” The editorial was written by Msgr. Peter V. Conley, the paper’s executive editor, who is said to be a close confidant of Cardinal Bernard Law, Boston’s

archbishop. Many commentators called it a noteworthy statement of independence from the Vatican, which considered such issues closed. The editorial took on “a life of its own” and sparked

inquiries from around the globe, the Pilot said Thursday. “But even on a second reading, it takes a great stretch of the imagination to conclude that this local journal of religious

conviction was distancing itself from the discipline of the Church.” Last week’s editorial was intended to “take notice” of questions raised during a convocation held in Boston earlier this

month, the Pilot said, even though that editorial made no mention of the convocation. Philip Lawler, editor of the Pilot from 1986 to 1988 and now editor of Catholic World Report, called the

latest editorial an attempt to undo last week’s damage. “It’s baloney,” Lawler said, adding that last week’s editorial was “certainly putting the ball in play, and it is just awfully hard

for me to imagine you could do that without realizing what you’re doing.” “This speaks to the whole reason we’re in this trouble,” Lawler said. “People blaming the media instead of telling

the truth.” MORE TO READ