"Estimates of the numbers of gays in the priesthood vary from 25 percent to 50 percent..."
Estimates that surely were issued by various gay lobbies and the definite minimum of 10 percent of homosexuals in the priesthood. This is abject crap. We cannot have a "rational discussion on homosexuality in the Church!" until we factor OUT all the Catholic bashers, Catholic haters, liberal-agenda and/or gay-agenda opportunists who want nothing more than to tear the institution of the Catholic Church down to BELOW its foundations, then replace it with a more "compassionate" version where at least half the priests will be women and the other half will wear hassocks that end just above their exposed pubic hair and plumbing, because it's really natural, and aren't all men really gay anyway?
The homosexual lobby and the MSM media (hmmm...one in the same?) have convinced a majority of Americans that homosexuals number 10+ percent of the male population is gay, when the real number is less than 3 percent. Now let's do some math. If their 10+ percent is actually less than one third of that...and if the article's 40 percent of gay priests is reduced by a bit over two-thirds, we arrive at the 10 percent or so of gay priests I cited above.
Scientific proof that the Catholic Church, for all its sins, still really scares the crap out of the Godless moral relativists, and that they'll do anything to chip more credibility away from it.
And for those here who would bring up "all the incidents of sexual molestation" among priests, always remember that the media created an hysterical whirlwind on this issue much like they did with the McMartin preschool case in California a while back.
Yes, there are predatory priests who will burn in hell for their sins and broken trust. And for every one of them there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of priests who have to go through their days knowing that many people, Catholic or not, think that they're actually homosexual child molesters. But they keep going, literally doing the Lord's Work.
Remember: the general impression, especially among non-Catholics, is that Catholic priests are overwhelmingly gay predators. Yet, even during the top of the media frenzy, the actual percentage of accused American priests was less than ONE PERCENT. You would have thought it was every damned one of them.
I am grateful for our new pope, who is pushing us back to a more conservative Church.
I wisxh you were right. But a few nights ago on Catholic radio (EWTN), a caller phoned in with a question about how many seminarians are gay and the priest answering questions had to admit to 25-50%. So those are the church's own figures.
God bless this Pope for his brave confrontation on this politically incorrect issue, I have a feeling he and the Catholic Church will be under a lot of MSM "fire" for this re-affirmation of church teaching. Prediction: Catholic priests may one day be able to marry and have families. Priests marrying is not a part of the church doctrine which cannot be changed, many people do not understand this fact. The MSM and others with an overt liberal agenda would not like that...lots of strong Catholic/Christian families with conservative values and morals are not what they're about.
I am not a Catholic-basher.
The difference between the 1-2% of actual gays in the population and the 10% often quotes comes, if I remember, from the fact that the sampling which resulted in the 10% figure was taken from a group of male prison inmates and dealt with whether they had ever had a homosexual relationship (Kinsey study? Masters & Johnson?). If anything, the 10% figure was probably low for male inmates.
We don't know the methodology of the studies identifed in Post 21, nor the agenda, if any, of the researchers. However, unless the studies were focused on a particular sampling that was guaranteed to skew the results (like inmates did for Kinsey's study), the percentage of homosexual priests is high -- probably 25% at the bottom end and quite likely higher than that. Thsse studies (particularly the one with a 75% response rate) are probably closer to the mark than Kinsey's study.
In the old days, it may really have been as simple as being a homosexual Cathololic and picking an occupation (for them, not necessary a calling) where you didn't have to justify not being married.
Once you had any meaningful percentage of homosexual priests and no strict control over it? Well, look at high school drama clubs, male Broadway dancers, male florists, male interior decorators, male fashion designers/critics, etc. Unless there IS a gay gene and it is tied to some kind of aesthetic taste and dancing ability, homosexuals seek out the safe harbor of other homosexuals. Wouldn't you?
Next, offer a situation where over at least the past thirty years, pedophilia has been hushed up by the Church and if not commonplace, just far too frequent to make anyone comfortable (just look at the size of the "deprogramming" center in New Mexico or Arizona).
The problems are anti-Catholics who use this to bash Catholics, and Catholic apolgists (I'm certainly not calling you one; I'm talking about those with whom I work) who refuse to believe there are more than one or two homosexual priests in the whole state.
In my volunteer position, I meet priests with some frequency for brief periods of time. It could be that delicate, sensitive men select the priesthood -- they are more focused on the spiritual than the earthly. On the other hand, if these men were not wearing the collar and I met them at work, I'd peg a large percentage of them as being gay. A significantly larger percentage of them than the LDS, Methodist and other religious leaders I meet (not than many Baptist churches run Scouting programs, so my cross-section of Baptist preachers with whom I have the same kind of brief, first-impression experience is much lower).
I've met three men who claimed to have dropped out of the seminary (sorry, don't remember what the Catholic church calls it, if not a seminary) because of the high number of homosexual men there. It could be just an excuse.
On the other hand, the Catholic clergy -- not the Catholic Church, not the Holy Father, not the wonderful Catholic men, women, and especially Scouts I deal with on a frequent basis -- may have developed into a significant "sanctuary" for homosexuals in the United States over the last 30 years.
I get most extremely reliable inside information that the number of active homosexuals in the Priesthood is very large. I mean Really Large. Names were named, though I will not share them. You would be deeply shocked.
I suspect that the % of homosexual priests varies Diocese by Diocese, depending on the seminary-admission/retention policies of the various Bishops.
It's a safe bet that every Diocese has at least ONE homosexual priest; not so safe, however, that the number is 30+% nationally...