And only 3-5% of the population is gay - so why are gays targeting the priesthood? Easy pickings? Easy access to boys? A safe place in which to control?
same reason they're targeting the boy scouts. access to young boys - prey.
As part of the soul-searching--so to speak--maybe it's time to rethink the practice of celibacy.
Simple, it is an all male fraternal organization... once a few are in they can push for others to get in.... soon they are in the majority and are trading sexual favors for promotions and other things.... They are actively attempting to turn the Catholic priesthood into bath houses, and by and large the lay catholic is unaware of this, and the shortage or priests in general in the US has brought about silence from the top on the issue!
The Catholic church has to take steps to straighten this mess out if it hopes to survive.
The truth is that the steps they have taken are pitiful.
We must ask ourselves why this has gone on for years and we cannot overlook the fact that Bishops and yes: even Cardinals are picked from the ranks of Priests and therefore some of them may be contributors to the problem and not the solution.
Christ's church has been corrupted and surely the corrupters will spend an eternity in hell. For how can one who believes in God not see that God will punish severely one who uses His Church for sexual gratification.
If this percentage is indeed this high, and I doubt it, it is not nearly as high among the younger priests. Those ordained prior to the seventies may have found it easier than to live as a single homosexual. It cloaked their true nature. Now that sodomy is at least somewhat accepted in certain social circles, there is less need to hide the perversion.
I don't know. Maybe they go in with good motives, hoping to bury their temptations. One priest claimed, of the days when they went into the seminary at 16, that "at that age, you are programmed to fall in love."
My former parish does not even have a rectory. The priest has a house in some unknown location. The former priest was convicted of sexually abusing boys, and it is my belief that the present priest is also homosexual, although he may be celibate.
In my father in law's parish in NYC, the priest took the money from the building fund and bought a condo in Fire Island (pretty obvious) because he needed a place to "relax." He had the authority to use the funds as he saw fit.
A priest in Spring Lake has been charged with embezzling 500,000 dollars from the parish and setting up his young friend with a house and luxuries and a janatorial job at the church. The parishoners thought he was independently wealthy.
I would guess that perhaps 30% of priests I have known were homosexual. They may well have been celibate. But few of that number impressed me as good priests.
I have never seen a bishop who did not look sleek.
I think the priesthood and the bishops have not addressed the other temptations they face - power, the charge of money, luxury (at least for bishops). Throw in homosexuality, and you get an enormous cliquishness, and a sense of entitlement for sacrifices made.
There are good priests out there. They are not seeking power, or to climb the hierarchical ladder. May God call more of them, real men.
The Lavender Mafia still controls who does and does not make it into the priesthood and will insure that problem priests continue to be furnished to unsuspecting parishs.
Remember the Village People? "In the Navy", "YMCA" ... the construction worker? The cop?
They go where the MEN (males) are. Priests are males with very little female interaction.