Posted on 04/24/2002 9:58:46 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
The Vatican summit of U.S. cardinals on ending the American sex abuse crisis has made many Roman Catholic priests wary that they will be sacrificed in a frenzy to restore trust in the church. While clergymen remain committed to ousting pedophiles from their ranks, they worry innocent men will be suspended and priests who could be rehabilitated will instead be discarded. Many also remain deeply concerned about comments from top-ranking prelates about a renewed need to bar homosexuals from the priesthood, regardless of whether they remain celibate. Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit and Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, emerged from the meeting Tuesday saying the issue is among those the church must address. "I think that priests, having been overprotected in the past, are concerned there may be a tendency to throw them overboard to save the ship," said the Rev. Philip Murnion, director of the Pastoral Life Center in New York, which is not affiliated with the New York Archdiocese. "They want to assure that care be taken that the concerns and rights of all will be protected." Christopher Bellitto, a church historian and academic editor of The Paulist Press in New Jersey, said homosexual clergy have told him they are terrified they will be made scapegoats as the scandal drags on. "There is a real fear among gay priests that they are going to be seen as the fall guys," Bellitto said. American church leaders in Rome have been working on a communique expected to be completed at the close of the two-day summit Wednesday. Advocates for victims of priestly abuse have long complained that bishops have protected abusive clergy at the expense of children. Pope John Paul II, in an address to the cardinals, said there was no room in the priesthood for clergy who hurt young people. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said Wednesday the prelates had agreed on a "one-strike-you're-out" policy on future sex abuse cases involving priests. That means priests who commit sex abuse would be dismissed from the clergy. But McCarrick said there was still some question about whether such a policy should be applied in old cases that have recently come to light. After the scandal erupted in Boston in January, bishops nationwide began scouring personnel files for past allegations, suspending dozens of priests and turning over church records to state prosecutors. The Rev. Robert Bullock, head of the Boston Priests Forum, a group of more than 100 priests formed in response to the crisis, called the "one-strike" approach misguided. "It's so sweeping that it does not seem to me to leave room for the presumption of innocence. Even for priests there's a presumption of innocence," Bullock said. At last week's annual conference of the National Federation of Priests' Councils in Montreal, some of the 300 priests at the event were so worried that they proposed creating a national forum to air their concerns, said the Rev. Robert Silva, the federation president. "It's frightening to us," Silva said. Removing a man from the priesthood is different from firing them from a regular job, Silva said. Under Catholic tradition, once a man is ordained, the church has a lifelong obligation to him for housing, financial support and other needs. Only the Vatican can remove a priest. "We are not a corporation, we are not a business and priests are not employees. There is a spiritual relationship which exists between a bishop and his priest," Silva said. Marianne Duddy, executive director of the gay Catholic advocacy group Dignity/USA, said she's been fielding calls from homosexual priests who are so frightened about the prospect of losing their jobs, they can't sleep at night and have sought counseling. "One guy has been a priest for 28 years," Duddy said. "Where would he go? What would he do? Would he able to leave with any kind of retirement money?" Estimates of the number of gays among seminarians and the 46,075 Catholic clergy in the United States vary dramatically, from 10 percent to 50 percent. Experts in sexual disorders warn there is no evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children. Silva called the idea of weeding out gays "absolutely absurd." "The problem isn't being oriented one way or the other. The problem is whether you can live a celibate life," Silva said.
-- Priests Wary of Summit Results
If we are comparing hetero and homo sexual acts, it only matters that the age groups be consistent.No, whether pederasty is wrong or not also matters. You are ducking this question. Is pederasty a crime in your view, and more importantly do you think it should be a crime?
If you have the data, give the ratios or absolute numbers of adult to teenage sex -- homo and hetero.
No, whether pederasty is wrong or not also matters.
You chopped the context where I was asking about teen to adult sex, both homo and hetero.
The Roman Catholic Church is neither a democracy nor a republic, thank God, since morality is not a matter of popular opinion. Homosexuality is an intrinsically disordered behavior and the incl;ination towards it is also intrinsiclly disordered. Those suffering or cultivating such a disorder (a mental illness still because illness is also not up for a democratic vote since it either is or is not illness objectively) have no business in the seminary much less in the priesthood. In the Vatican, better minds than mind and more informed folks than me can figure out the basis for what amounts to annulment of Holy Orders entered into in tragic error by those unfit.
If anyone's feelings are hurt as a result, too bad!
On this thread and others like it, we, as Catholics, have and know the truth. The arguments by statistical allegation or by distinction in psychological or sociological description are merely distractions meant to divide and conquer. We have seen, heard and learned enough. It is time to act.
This post is not a criticism of patent but of those who seek any port in a storm to divert our enraged attention and obscure the reality that we are dealing with priestly betrayal of those who had a right to trust their priests to behave properly, episcopal betrayal of those who had a right to expect their bishops to punish rather than cover the malefactors and that the ongoing welcome mat unfurled by the usual gang of seminary suspects for the lavenderly inclined together with the entry into the priesthood of a brigade or two of priests who, by inclination, do not know or do not care as to what properly belongs where among their flocks and who refuse to accept that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered and that celibacy, in any event, means celibacy.
We have been betrayed. It is time for, umm, reaction on a massive scale. Appoint an archbishop of unquestioned orthodoxy as "seminary vicar" analogous to the military vicar. Abolish all seminaries in the United States, fire all of the administrators, faculty and others involved in priestly formation. Create four regional seminaries with a policy of no nuns, no psychiatrists or psychologists, utter orthodoxy, and the new staff to be Fr. John Waynes and the new seminarians to be orthodox and men's men. Clean house absolutely and now. Live with the priest shortage resulting from dismissal of those who had no business in the priesthood to begin with or bring in Third World orthodox priests for the time being.
Otherwise, is pederasty a crime in your view, and more importantly do you think it should be a crime?
patent
I see providence at work here:
1) Geoghan case is publicized.
2) Media launches a frenzied attack against the Church, disseminating all allegations of sexual misconduct (and cover-ups) as widely as possible.
3) Most cases of "pedophilia" turn out to be homosexuals corrupting teenage boys.
---------- How might this play out?-----------
4) Vatican calls for a halt to ordinations of homosexuals.
5) Media report Vatican position while giving the microphone to liberal clerics denouncing the reactionary, homophobic "older priests."
6) All reporting of homosexual misconduct stops.
Hopefully most people will be able to make the connections before the media blacks out the story. And hopefully the media will do what the hierarchy has been either unwilling or unable to do: remove homosexuals from seminaries.
Or more:
Predator priests: Link explored between gay clergy and ephebolphilia
"Unlike other Catholic priests convicted of sexual abuse, John J. Geoghan, Boston's defrocked priest linked to 136 molestations, targeted both pre-pubescent and sexually mature teen-age boys.
"He knew no bounds. His victims ranged in age from 6 to 15," said Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, attorney for many of Geoghan's victims..."
"... Within days, the police investigation blossomed into what prosecutors say is the state's largest ever child-molestation case. Reardon, 29, has pleaded innocent to 130 charges – including rape, molestation and disseminating pornography – involving 29 boys."
Two homosexuals - 165 boys sexually abused.
Hmmm. I wonder what they mean by "intrinsically disordered". You don't think they mean that this might actually be something that's undesirable or (heaven forbid!) bad, do you?
patent
I don't know, do you?
The issue at hand is that 90% of these sexual molestation cases involve teenage boys. Just about 100% of the accused are male priests.
What does this data tell you?
Otherwise, they are hiding behind a criminal veil.
We are not talking "jobs" here; we are talking about a "calling" in one's life of sacrifice (even perhaps with one's own life for justice), prayer, holiness and poverty. To accept the serious 'calling' and then betray it with scandal is a slap in the face of the church and it's true adherents.
If someone keeps his/her homosexuality tendencies entirely to him/herself, and does not indulge in action, what's there to worry about?
Maybe some guilty parties are trying to head off any possibility of they themselves being caught in the rectory in an embarrassing situation--since they know they cannot control themselves and fear of being 'busted'. And they accordingly are afraid of losing their "jobs?" Tough luck. Time to clean house.
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