My personal thoughts on the matter? In the 40’s and 50’s there were many homos’ just like there are now only it was considered a bad thing by society.
Many of these men had to ask themselves, “Where can I hide what I am?” I can see some wanting to join an institution widely known for it’s vow of celibacy, thereby taking sex completely out of their lives BUT; homos’ are defined by who and what the screw. It’s in their nature to have deviant sex. When you try to stop someone or something from being it’s natural self, those urges are going to still come out and in even more destructive ways.
Add to that the institution not having a clue at first how to deal with the accusations, so they hush up the families and move the offenders around to different churches. Problem is, that is only going to work for so long because the urges on the part of the homo are still there, and his access to young, impressionable boys is still there.
In short, in my opinion (I am open to the idea that I am WAY offbase) the institution cared FAR more For it’s reputation than it did for some snot-nosed brats that clearly needed to place their church above their physical, mental and emotional health.
I DO NOT believe that is the case any longer. I believe that the church really does want to weed out the pedophiles and that they have tried very hard to address the problem of homos/pedos’ (same diff) in the seminaries, and I thank it for that. I further strongly believe that the church has stopped trying to hide/move pedos’/homos’ in order to protect their (the churchs) reputation. I mean, what would be the point now anyways, right?
You make far more sense than this study.
Your explanation also gains credibility because you didn’t take the opportunity to throw in a jab at Vatican II.
No, you are not off base at all.
I think your viewpoint on this situation sounds extremely reasonable. I also think homosexuals used the ministry as a convenient place to go in which to avoid questions of their sexuality, and once there some gave into even more deviant temptations which presented themselves. Bishops failed terribly in their response and showed a miserable understanding of the causes and their own duties to their flock. I wonder though whether there wasn’t, in some cases, more than mere institutional defensiveness in their machinations. I can think of one bishop that protected abusive priests who was himself involved in a pretty nasty homosexual scandal. Maybe some were protecting people they sympathized with themselves? But, I will also concede I may be way off-base with that myself.