Regarding the recent survey of British priests, SHOULD WE SAY HOMOSEXUALS ARE "DISORDERED"?

Catholic Answers ^ | 2/3/04 | Karl Keathing

[Polycarp IV]

		REGARDING THE RECENT SURVEY OF BRITISH PRIESTS, SHOULD WE SAY HOMOSEXUALS ARE "DISORDERED"? 2/3/2004 9:04:00 PM By Karl Keathing - Catholic Answers Catholic Answers Karl Keating: All active homosexuals should be removed from the priesthood immediately I have been interviewed enough times to know that it is the rare reporter who will quote you accurately. That leads me to suspect that what I read in a news report was not really said by the man quoted. If it had been, he might make a good successor to Mrs. Malaprop. Gateway Computers is buying out eMachines, which has been more successful recently than has Gateway in making money from the sale of PCs. The news report quotes an industry analyst as saying, "This is at least a taciturn admission by Gateway that they haven't been able to transform themselves as they would like." What a delightful typo: "a taciturn admission." I'm sure the analyst said "tacit," which means implied, rather than "taciturn," which means disinclined to talk. But, in a way, "taciturn" seems to fit: When your business isn't doing very well, you aren't too inclined to want to talk about it. THINGS MAY BE WORSE ACROSS THE POND A survey of priests in England and Wales has caused an episcopal uproar. According to a story in the January issue of "The Catholic World Report," the bishops have focused more on alleged shortcomings of the survey's methodology than on the story told by the survey, and the story is not a pretty one. A third of the priests said they think women should be ordained. Half said that priests who left the ministry to marry should be readmitted. Most of the priests oppose the Church's teaching on the immorality of contraception, and a majority say that Catholics who are divorced and remarried should be able to receive Communion. Only a quarter of the priests say that a practicing homosexual should be banned from the priesthood. I am saddened to learn of such opinions, but I am not surprised--or in despair. As I repeatedly have said in the E-Letter, younger priests are much more solid, on the whole, than are priests ordained in the 1960s and 1970s. With new recruits entering at one end of the priestly spectrum and attrition handling the other end, things will improve. In twenty years such a survey will have markedly different (and encouraging) results. This is not to say that there will be no priests who hold wrong opinions, but things will look much brighter. Just be patient. ARE HOMOSEXUALS DISORDERED? I read the report on the survey about the time I read a letter in the "National Catholic Reporter." The letter was written by Fr. Ken Lohrmeyer, who lives in Kansas. He said that "gay priests have a burden heterosexual priests never even dream about--namely, the fact that the church they have devoted their lives to officially declares them to be 'objectively disordered' along with all other homosexual persons. The absurd implication is that God made a mistake in creating them gay (I believe it is not a freely chosen lifestyle)." There are at least two problems here: 1. The Church does not say that homosexual persons are "objectively disordered." It says that homosexual persons have a disorder, and it says that homosexual acts (not homosexual persons) are "intrinsically disordered" (CCC 2357). Consider an analogy. You may remember thalidomide. Four decades ago this then-new sedative was widely prescribed. Some pregnant women who used it gave birth to infants who were malformed, and thalidomide quickly fell out of use. A "thalidomide child" who was born with, say, only one arm has had, all his life, a physical disorder. Human beings are supposed to have two arms, and he does not. Does this mean that this now middle-aged person is "disordered"? No, because that uses the term in the wrong way. He has a disorder, but that does not mean he is wholly disordered. Or consider the case of the alcoholic. He has a psychological disorder that has a physical component to it. We do not say that the alcoholic is disordered so much as that he suffers from a disorder. To say the first would be to suggest that everything about him is wrong, and that is not the case. There are many kinds of disorders--physical, psychological, emotional, mental, social. Many of them have no moral consequences. The "thalidomide child" who has but one arm is not induced by that fact to engage in actions that are immoral. It is a different situation with the alcoholic. If he starts with a social drink, he will find himself falling into drunkenness. Social drinking is not a sin, but drunkenness is, so there is a moral component to the alcoholic's disorder. His disorder entices him to do something morally innocent (having a social drink) but greases the way for him to go beyond that into something morally improper (drunkenness). Homosexuality is a step beyond that. The homosexual's desire is for something that, in its nature, is immoral: sexual union with someone of the same sex. In his case, there is no analogue to the first social drink. 2. Fr. Lohrmeyer says that homosexuality is "not a freely chosen lifestyle." While one can say that the condition of homosexuality is not freely chosen (CCC 2358), one cannot say that about the homosexual lifestyle. When we talk about a lifestyle, we are talking about how someone acts, and acts are freely chosen. No homosexual is compelled to engage in homosexual acts. He may not have chosen to be a homosexual, but he has the freedom to choose not to perform homosexual acts. Fr. Lohrmeyer seems to have missed this simple distinction, and his misperception leads him to say that the homosexual priest wakes up "every day of his life knowing that his church really doesn't like him all that much and basically wishes he would just go away." ONE SCENARIO Frankly, I can think of a few homosexual priests who should "just go away." I mean men who persist in and who advocate immoral acts and who cause much scandal by doing so. I also know of homosexual priests who live chastely; they know they have a disorder, and they have succeeded in working around it, somewhat like the alcoholic who, through a support group, has been able to stay sober. No one, on any side of the theological divide, denies that we have a remarkably high proportion of homosexuals in the priesthood in this country, and many of those homosexual priests are "gays"--that is, they have chosen the homosexual lifestyle. Nearly all of the clerical sexual abuse problems we have been reading about have had their origin in homosexuality. This is almost universally known and, among bishops and clergy, almost universally not talked about (at least not publicly). Still, it's a fact. Even if the abuse scandal had not arisen, there still would have been a problem with "gay" priests--I refer to those homosexual priests who engage in homosexual acts with adults rather than with minors. Many people have wondered what can be done to solve the problem. Here is one possible scheme: 1. If a priest is "gay"--that is, living a homosexual lifestyle--he should be removed from ministry immediately and quietly. He should have no position of authority or responsibility in the Church and should seek secular employment instead. (Will some dioceses be understaffed? Yes, but too bad. Just squeeze more people into fewer pews until new priests are trained.) 2. If a priest is homosexual but not "gay"--that is, if he is living chastely--let him continue in ministry until normal retirement. 3. Exclude from seminary formation and ordination any homosexual, whether "gay" or chaste. The former brings with him too much baggage, and the latter should not sign up for "guy-only" work that will have him living with other men (thus putting him into near occasions of sin). Even if the chaste homosexual thinks he has a call to the priesthood, it would be uncharitable to him to admit him to ordination. He should be encouraged to serve the Church in other ways. This three-step process would solve the abuse scandal almost overnight, and it would heal the priesthood in America over the next two decades or so. It would cause inconvenience in those dioceses with a high proportion of "gay" priests, but that inconvenience will pass soon enough and, in any case, is more palatable than the existing situation.

[dsc]

"Where is the emperical data for your assertion?"

Some psychologists have also tried to deny that schizophrenia is a mental disorder.

One strong indication that SSAD is a mental disorder is that it can be cured, through outside intervention and with great difficulty, but it cannot with success just be sworn off, as, for instance, a normal person could swear off golf or aloha shirts.

Another strong indication is the commonality of etiology. Far and away most (I won't say "all," because you can never prove the absence of a single exception) cases of SSAD are triggered by molestation or seduction in the pre-adult years. As one indication of the efficacy of such in inducing SSAD, I would point to NAMBLA's motto: "Eight is too late." The experts in recruiting new victims know quite well that molestation of a child has a good chance of inducing SSAD.

Then, too, we can look at symptoms such as compulsive behavior, coprophilia, inability to form lasting attachments, self-loathing (and no, that doesn't result from social opprobrium), sadism (boning a person in the rectum is a sadistic act), masochism (inverse of the foregoing), poor impulse control, and a very high incidence of violence, drug abuse, and suicide.

Once you look at the whole clinical picture, it becomes not merely unreasonable but irrational to deny that SSAD is a mental disorder. This is why its deletion from the DSM was achieved not through persuasion, but through threats and intimidation.

"It is a sinful style of life"

It is indeed sinful, but I wouldn't call it a "style of life." A style of death, perhaps, as it generally takes decades off the sufferer's lifespan.

"and homosexual people need to be confronted with that reality."

Rebuking sinners is one of the seven spiritual acts of mercy, but that's not going to cure anyone of SSAD. If the confrontation is part of getting them into treatment, great. If there's no followup, I doubt that there will be any lasting change in behavior.

"As long as it is called a "mental disorder," or something that is "genetic," there will be no reversal of lifestyle."

Those two things are lightyears apart. Some mental disorders are treatable, SSAD among them. The "genetic" thing is just an excuse for not seeking a cure.

Facing the fact that it is a mental disorder, a treatable mental disorder, is a first step toward (1) reducing the incidence of SSAD by denying sufferers access to the vulnerable; and (2) encouraging sufferers to get treatment that will actually change their behavior permanently.

"Yes, it will take time, but the journey of a 1000 miles begins with the first step."

I don't know how much truck you've had with people suffering from mental problems. Very little, I hope, because it's not a pleasant thing. There are two things about mental problems: (1) because it is the thinking itself that is disordered, the sufferer is usually unable to recognize that he has a problem; and (2) even if he does realize that he has a problem, he's unable to think his way out of it because his thinking *is* the problem.

The first step in dealing with a mental problem is to get help.

[NYer]

Fr. Francis' guest last night on EWTN's Life On The Rock, is a catholic psychologist (not a conundrum!). He spoke at length about homosexuality. It is treatable! One of the more successful programs he mentioned was Courage .

"Courage, an apostolate of the Roman Catholic Church, ministers to those with same-sex attractions and their loved ones. We have been endorsed by the Pontifical Council for the Family."

Courage Network

[sitetest]

Dear CathFam,

Actually, lots of folks here have roughly described this solution for some time.

I first read it by Fr. Neuhaus in "First Things".


sitetest

[RobbyS]

I would add to this that we do not know what "causes" this inclination. There are many things that might contribute. For instance a disorderly relation with one or both parents and sexual abuse, which seem more likely than an supposed "genetic" cause. Even the more likely genetic causes are suspect. If a boy is effeminate, he is more likely to be treated like a girl and to think like one than a "normal" boy.

[RobbyS]

Father Neuhaus said the solution is "Fidelity, fidelity, fidelity."

[sitetest]

Yes, he enunciated that as the first principle, but then he got a little more specific.

[Polycarp IV]

Thanks Sitetest. Some things are worth repeating.

[RobbyS]

One of the great disappointment of the past few years is my learning that so many priests have lost their faith. I wondered why the Cathyolic pols were so pro-choice. Evidently they were listening to unfaithful priests.

[dsc]

"I would add to this that we do not know what "causes" this inclination."

I think a great deal of the "we do not know" from those in the "helping" professions comes either from a conscious desire to obfuscate or an ideological or emotional unwillingness to face an ugly truth.

SSAD is a maladaptive response to the trauma of homosexual molestation or seduction. On the spiritual side, there is a Satanic or demonic component.

"For instance a disorderly relation with one or both parents ...If a boy is effeminate..."

Predators look for kids with bad relationships with their parents, and doesn't it make sense that an effeminate boy would look like a likelier prospect than the town jock? They don't develop SSAD in greater numbers because of these things; they are molested in greater numbers because of these things, and that induces SSAD.

[John O]

Catholic Answers Karl Keating: All active homosexuals should be removed from the priesthood immediately

Keating is wrong here in that he makes a distinction between active 'homosexuals' and inactive 'homosexuals'. There is no such distinction

Homosexuality is a behavior pattern (disease if you prefer) known only by its actions. There is no such thing as 'homosexual' orientation. Until a corpse of an unknown person can be reliably proved to have been 'homosexual' then 'orientation' remains merely a myth

[John O]

This perfectly explains why people may be born with homosexual inclinations, just like some people have a greater tendency towards all sorts of other crimes like alchoholism, kleptomania, pedophilia, pyromania, etc

No one is born with homosexual inclinations. Homosexuality is caused by mental trauma due to molestation, absent or insufficient relationship with one's father or by relentless teasing by ones peers during the formative years. The vast majority of cases are caused by molestation.

Of the other diseases you mention, only alcoholism has a genetic component. All the others are similarly caused by trauma of some sort.

The first law of Homosexuality:
"Homosexuals" don't reproduce, they recruit

[John O]

WELL SAID!

[John O]

Predators look for kids with bad relationships with their parents, and doesn't it make sense that an effeminate boy would look like a likelier prospect than the town jock? They don't develop SSAD in greater numbers because of these things; they are molested in greater numbers because of these things, and that induces SSAD.

Worth repeating. Excellent insight.