Posted on 12/05/2009 2:33:26 PM PST by markomalley
Gay, Catholic and fed up with his church's efforts to quash the same-sex marriage movement, Phil Attey has come up with a controversial strategy: outing gay priests who speak out against homosexuality.
(snip)
He said he will out only gay priests and bishops who speak out against homosexuality. In the case of priests not publicly opposed to gay marriage but still in the closet, he said his goal is not to threaten them but to encourage them to "come out for the next generation and stand up against the anti-gay stance of the church."
Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates on behalf of gay male and lesbian Catholics, said he understands Attey's anger but condemns his approach. "Equal rights should be argued on the merits of the issue, not with vengeful personal attacks," he said. "Outing priests could cause more harm to a group of people who are already in a difficult situation."
The archdiocese called the Web site potentially harmful. "If anyone has a concern about whether a priest is violating their ministry in any way, we would encourage them to let the archdiocese know rather than some Web site . . .," spokeswoman Susan Gibbs said. "We will follow through and investigate. It's too easy on the Internet to gossip and violate someone's good name on rumors."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Phil Attey has come up with a controversial strategy: outing gay priests who speak out against homosexuality."
I'm perhaps too cynical to hope that they might all be. Mea culpa.
I am ambivalent. This is just mean spirited. On the other hand, as a Catholic who is tired of the pink mafia, I would welcome the outing of priests who violate their vows of celibacy. And I do not trust the Bishops to do it. Too many of them are Bernardin’s Boys.
It’s bad to judge hypocritically.
OTOH, we need regular people to speak out.
“He said he will out only gay priests and bishops who speak out against homosexuality.”
The question is: Are they homosexual if they have homosexual desires and don’t act upon them? (Is someone who wants to steal, a thief if he doesn’t actually steal anything?).
This shows you how deviant the sodomite left really is. Those that speak out against homosexuality are more of a threat than those (in this case, priests) who molest little boys.
I thought this was mean spirited too.
The best I can find on this Phil dude is he’s a Catholic gay guy who is NOT working with the church in this matter, but doing this for himself.
IMHO, it’s just not his problem. He appears to be some sort of liberal activist who happens to be Catholic and using that to satisfy his agenda. I could be wrong but that’s how it appears.
What a waste!
Hopefully his little website will be swamped with wild geese to keep him busy.
I think those who violate the vows should be dealt with by the congregation or group within the church, and not some pinko with a website.
Good deal! Give this guy a medal, they should be outed and then kicked out.
30. Those To Be Excluded; Practical Directives
1. A candidate who shows himself certainly unable to observe religious and priestly chastity, either because of frequent sins against chastity or because of a sexual bent of mind or excessive weakness of will, is not to be admitted to the minor seminary and, much less, to the novitiate or to profession. If he has already been accepted but is not yet perpetually professed, then he should be sent away immediately or advised to withdraw, according to individual cases, no matter what point in his formation he has already reached. Should he be perpetually professed, he is to be barred absolutely and permanently from tonsure and the reception of any Order, especially Sacred Orders. If circumstances should so demand, he shall be dismissed from the community, with due observance of the prescriptions of canon law.
2. Consequently, any candidate who has a habit of solitary sins and who has not given well-founded hope that he can break this habit within a period of time to be determined prudently, is not to be admitted to the novitiate. Nor can a candidate be admitted to first profession or to renewal of vows unless he has really amended his ways. But if a novice or a temporarily professed religious gives evidence of a firm purpose of amendment with good grounds for hope of success, his probation can be extended as provided for in canon law (canons 571, S2; 574, S2; 973, S 3; Stat. Gen., art. 34, S 2, 3 ).
Well-grounded hope of amendment can be provided by those youths who are physically and psychically normal or endowed with good bodily and mental health, who are noted for solid piety and the other virtues intimately connected with chastity, and who sincerely desire the religious and priestly life.
3. A much stricter policy must be followed in admission to perpetual profession and advancement to Sacred Orders. No one should be admitted to perpetual vows or promoted to Sacred Orders unless he has acquired a firm habit of continency and has given in every case consistent proof of habitual chastity over a period of at least one year. If within this year prior to perpetual profession or ordination to Sacred Orders doubt should arise because of new falls, the candidate is to be barred from perpetual profession or Sacred Orders (cf. above, no. 16) unless, as far as profession is concerned, time is available either by common law or by special indult to extend the period for testing chastity and there be question of a candidate who, as was stated above (no. 30, 2) affords good prospects of amendment.
4. If a student in a minor seminary has sinned gravely against the sixth commandment with a person of the same or the other sex, or has been the occasion of grave scandal in the matter of chastity, he is to be dismissed immediately as stipulated in canon 1371, except if prudent consideration of the act and of the situation of the student by the superiors or confessors should counsel a different policy in an individual case, sc., in the case of a boy who has been seduced and who is gifted with excellent qualities and is truly penitent, or when the sin was an objectively imperfect act.
If a novice or a professed religious who has not yet made perpetual vows should be guilty of the same offense, he is to be sent away from the community or, should the circumstances so demand, he is to be dismissed with due observance of canon 647, S 2, 1 . If a perpetually professed religious is found guilty of any such sin, he is to be perpetually excluded from tonsure and the reception of any further Order. If the case belongs to the external forum, he is to receive a canonical warning unless, as provided for in canons 653 and 668, there be grounds for sending him back to the world (cf. Stat. Gen., art. 34, S 2, 4 ).
Lastly, should he be a subdeacon or deacon, then, without prejudice to the above-mentioned directives and if the case should so demand, the superiors should take up with the Holy See the question of his reduction to the lay state.
For these reasons, clerics who in their diocese or religious who in another community have sinned gravely against chastity with another person are not to be admitted with a view to the priesthood, even on a trial basis, unless there be clear evidence of excusing causes or of circumstances which can at least notably diminish responsibility in conscience (Circular Letter of S. C. of the Sacraments, n. 16; Canon Law Digest, 4, p. 314).
Advantage to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.
5. Very special investigation is needed for those students who, although they have hitherto been free of formal sins against chastity, nevertheless suffer from morbid or abnormal sexuality, especially sexual hyperesthesia or an erotic bent of nature, to whom religious celibacy would be a continual act of heroism and a trying martyrdom. For chastity, in so far as it implies abstinence from sexual pleasure, not only becomes very difficult for many people but the very state of celibacy and the consequent loneliness and separation from one's family becomes so difficult for certain individuals gifted with excessive sensitivity and tenderness, that they are not fit subjects for the religious life. This question should perhaps receive more careful attention from novice masters and superiors of scholasticates than from confessors since such natural tendencies do not come out so clearly in confession as in the common life and daily contact.
Sacred Congregation For Religious, Religiosorum institutio (Instruction on the Careful Selection And Training Of Candidates For The States Of Perfection And Sacred Orders), February 2, 1961
Nothing has really changed since that time. Those who have already been ordained, though, cannot be disposed of as easily as being prevented from entering the seminary in the first place.
Who amongst us is without flaw?
There are homosexuals in the priesthood. Many became priests so that they could hide their homosexuality from obvious notice. They would not have to explain why they were unmarried because more than 99% of Roman Rite priests are unmarried. Some of the homosexual priests apparently have a great conflict going on inside their hearts. They want to do the right thing now that they are priests, but occasionally fall and indulge in homosexual sins. These are the people who the scumbag in question wants to expose. They shouldn’t be priests in the first place, but this guy is a particularly meanspirited scumbag for wanted to destroy their lives and reputations.
This isn’t about the hypocrisy of some gay priests. It’s about how meanspirited some “out” homosexuals are.
It is not “hypocritical” to have homosexual desires, or even to have committed homosexual acts, and at the same time to oppose homosexual “marriage.” One is a personal feeling, or a personal sin, and the other is a question of public policy.
It is not hypocritical to want to kill someone, but at the same time to believe murder should be illegal.
It’s still actually amazing to me that the local media speaks about this in objective tones, as if the debate is over whether it’s fair to out a closeted homosexual. There’s no mention made about the issue of extortion.
That was never official church policy; it was the disobedience of the near unanimity of the American bishops who were warned in 1961 that the ordination of homophilic (homosexuality is by classicial definition not celibate) priests, even those sincerely expecting to remain celibate, would likely cause grave scandal, since the rigors of celibacy (not merely abstinence, but celibacy) require great sexual and emotional health.
That said, those priests who had homophilic leanings but remain chaste received their ordinations obediently, regardless of the disobedience and foolishness of their bishops. If they have managed to remain chaste, their virtue is all the more heroic, since their chastity is probably a far greater burden than it might be to a healthy person. (This is sorta like admiring the guy who showed up for his marathon training 50 pounds overweight, but still finishes.)
However, I would sincerely wonder how you could out a chaste priest.
I think this nut job might be shooting himself in the foot. He’s casting a suspicion on any of the priests who might be soft on gay issues. And if he actually outs anyone for violating his celibacy, he’s only going to make it easier for the church to marginalize that priest.
I’m not Catholic either -not by any stretch. But I see this as blood sport by Al Gayda and a witch hunt in which many priests will be named without proof or factual foundation in their insane frenzy to bash all Catholics.
I would hate to be that guy at particular judgement.
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