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| By SUSAN EVANS, The TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT | May 05, 2002 |
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Posted on 05/05/2002 2:44:56 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
| Diocese too liberal, book says |
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| A controversial new book names the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese as one of many dioceses that turns away qualified candidates for the priesthood in favor of a “gay subculture” and threatens the Church with dangerous reforms. The book criticizes a State College psychologist who screens candidates for the diocese, saying his view of homosexuality is too liberal. In response, the diocese says the author never contacted the diocese to verify any facts, and that the author lacks credibility. The psychologist says the characterization is false, the author is a hate-monger, and his conservative critics are “the Catholic Taliban.” The book “Goodbye! Good Men” describes a predatory “gay subculture” in some seminaries, and psychological screening that eliminates orthodox heterosexual males from the priesthood. Written by conservative Cincinnati author Michael Rose and published by Regnery Publishing Inc. of Washington, the book contends “liberals are bringing corruption into the Catholic Church.” Although penned before the burgeoning sex scandals, the book now has become a battle cry for conservative Catholics in this region. And for one aspiring priest from Cambria County, it opens old wounds from his seminary experience, where he says he was sickened by the sexually decadent environment and criticized for being chaste. Much of the controversy within the diocese centers around Penn State University. Author Rose writes that David J. Brown, a clinical psychologist under contract with the Altoona-Johnstown diocese to screen candidates for the priesthood, has “gone out of his way to make the case that homosexuality is ‘perfectly normal’ and that ‘homosexuality is natural, not unnatural.’ ” He criticizes Brown for telling the school board in State College that they were wrong to exclude homosexual speakers from Penn State. “The fact that someone would pose such an argument is not news itself. But when such a man, whose views are publicly known, is contracted to screen applicants for the seminary, what is remarkable is the obvious incompatibility,” the book says. In a telephone interview form his State College office, Brown said he did testify in favor of non-discrimination and non-harassment of homosexuals. “I drew from the Bishop’s Pastoral Letter on the topic, and I expressed the opinion that Jesus would be appalled at such bigotry.” Rose is “trying to reconfigure the current sex scandal into an anti-homosexual crusade. It’s like anti-Semitism,” he said. “Part of Rose’s central thesis is that ultra-liberals and gays have taken over the process of becoming a priest, and that I only give liberals or gays a recommendation. That’s false and paranoid,” Brown said. “These people are pathologically homophobic, and the goal of local conservative Catholics is to have the bishop terminate my work. “They are the local Catholic Taliban. They insist on their point of view. They are relentless, mean-spirited and punitive,” he said. Catholic conservative George Foster strongly disagrees: “Dr. Brown’s attitude explains the current crisis in the Church today.” Critic of modernism Foster, an orthodox activist who grew up in Cambria County and is now an Altoona businessman, has been a vocal critic of the modernism movement in the Church. The State College controversy two years ago is still a serious issue with him, and so is Brown. Foster is conservative in the sense that he believes the Church must adhere literally to Vatican teachings. Brown’s and other Church leaders’ views on homosexuality differ from official Church doctrine. Foster cites the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” The Catechism refers to homosexuality as an “inclination which is objectively disordered.” Brown and others who say that homosexuality is natural go against Church teaching, Foster said. “The bishop has been notified that Dr. Brown is on record against the traditional teaching of the Church. He’s not one who supports all of the teachings of the Church, and that destroys the Vatican’s goal that all must promote the correct moral teachings.” Foster and conservative Catholics who were interviewed by The Tribune-Democrat say gays should not be priests. “What’s worried me the most is all the talk on how we address the current issue of pedophilia, but our talk has been too narrow. The bigger issue is of homosexuality, but it’s a political hot button that many try to avoid,” he said. Foster views the book “Goodbye! Good Men” as accurate in portraying the problems with homosexuality and with orthodox heterosexuals being screened out of the priesthood. Foster takes issue with Brown’s characterization of conservative Catholics as “The Catholic Taliban’’ or “homophobic.” “In the Catholic Church, the priesthood is a fraternity of men. The Church cannot condone men who have sexual inclinations toward each other sitting together. Numerous priests have come out and stated that the problems they’re seeing now revolve around homosexual priests,” he said. “Yes, people say that’s homophobic. But that’s laughable. My responsibilities as a Christian, as a Catholic, are to speak to people about the truth. You want to do it in a loving manner, but you don’t want to change the Church’s teachings to do it. “The Church has always taught that there should not be ‘unjust’ discrimination. But discrimination is not always a bad thing. In the matter of homosexuality, you would never advocate an alcoholic to be a bartender. Nor would I say a drug user should be a pharmacist. Where we’re dealing with a fraternity of men, you don’t place them into a situation where their weaknesses could be worked on.” Diocese spokeswoman Sister Mary Parks defends Brown. “When he asks candidates questions, he’s trying to see where they’re coming from. He may ask them from any ideological standpoint, to see what their reaction would be. A pastor must be flexible and open to all people who come to him,” she said. “Some of these people who have questioned Dr. Brown have also questioned our own bishop,” she said. One of those is Foster and fellow conservatives. They take issue with Bishop Joseph Adamec’s pastoral statement on homosexuality, in which he did not strictly quote the Catechism and said the Catechism term “objective disorder” may “sound harsh.” Foster says that’s not a tiny issue. “Our diocese is representative of the nation as a whole. In Florida, a bishop resigned because he was a practicing homosexual. In Philadelphia, homosexuals are banned from entering the priesthood. In our diocese, people with problems with homosexuality have been promoted,” he said. Foster and his conservative colleagues’ position mirrors the Vatican’s. The chief spokesman for the Vatican says the Church must respond to the pedophilia scandal by ceasing to ordain gay men. “People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained,” said Joaquin Navarro-Valls. The Vatican also is on record as wanting enforcement of a 1961 document from the Sacred Congregation for Religious that prohibits the admission of homosexuals to the diocesan priesthood and religious orders. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia rejects candidates for the priesthood who say they are gay and expels any seminarian found to be an active homosexual. The national debate hits home for one young man. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, because he still aspires to become a priest and fears retribution, this student finds the controversial book to be very credible. At the first seminary he attended, he said he was shocked to see openly gay activity. “It sickened me because certain men were known to be couples. I was ‘checked out’ by others and told to ‘make sure I wasn’t alone with so and so because he’d come on to me.’ ” The seminarian, from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, said the anecdotes in the book rang true. “I watched one guy get another guy drunk and take him back to his room. He was very predatory. I felt I was illegitimized by these people. “The problem is that they’re letting people into seminaries whose lifestyle defies Church teachings. The number of predators might be small, but they shouldn’t have been there at all. “The administration is afraid to do anything, because it will tick off the bishop. They can’t afford to lose students. It’s a numbers game,” he said. He said that his conservative views against women being ordained almost caused him to be screened out of the priesthood. He said Brown interviewed him and called him “rigid.” Brown says he does not remember any such interview, and cannot respond to an anonymous accusation. Penn State link Throughout interviews with both conservatives and diocese officials, the Penn State incidents crop up again and again. In October 2000, a ceremony titled “A Service of Affirmation of the Human Dignity of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People” was held in Eisenhower Chapel. The Rev. Joseph Hlubik, Penn State Catholic Community campus minister, said that although some Bible passages speak negatively of homosexuality, there are positive images as well. Later that month he wrote an essay saying, “Fortunately, with a few positive thought-provoking image of gays portrayed on television and movies and maybe even encounters with gays in our own lives, it is becoming common enough to be a topic of discussion.” Conservative Catholics, including a priest, were outraged and wrote a response, saying Hlubik’s statements were contrary to the faith. In an ad in a State College newspaper, they said, “If they assert their homosexuality, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when irrational and violent acts increase.” That ad elicited a response from diocese spokeswoman Parks, who said it was “highly inappropriate” for a priest to criticize another. Brown criticized the ad for its “homophobic negativity,” and the ad also was criticized by Mary McClanahan, a Penn State staff psychologist. She said, “The American Psychiatric Association has recognized for more than a quarter of a century that being lesbian, gay or bisexual indicates no disorder.” Foster and his conservative colleagues today point to new studies they say give Rose’s book credibility and discredit more liberal thinking. News reports last week described research by Judith Reisman, who used numbers from 1992 U.S. Statistic Abstracts. She found that the gay population has a large subset that “commits multiple, repeated sex offenses.” Mixed messages Another outspoken conservative in the diocese is a former employee. Brian Barcaro, who edits the Diocese Report Web site, says the issues are doctrinal. Barcaro and the diocese parted company on bad terms, with the diocese saying he was fired and Barcaro saying he left for personal reasons. His view is that the Church’s troubles today stem from too many dioceses that “refuse to follow the Church’s teachings. “At one point it was said to be OK for priests at Penn State to be involved with homosexual groups. I was told to shut up. I said that if I’m raising money for the diocese, I need to follow Church teachings. We did not separate on good terms. “There are problems in the Church, and there are problems in the diocese,” he said during an interview with The Tribune-Democrat. “There’s a lack of doctrinal enforcement.” Foster agrees. “What keeps me comfortable is that I know what’s right and wrong. It isn’t a problem with improper Church teachings. It’s a problem with the teaching not being passed on. The solution now is to handle the problem and not be embarrassed.” A neutral viewpoint comes from devout Catholic and Cambria County President Commissioner Fred Soisson. Once aspiring to be a priest, he began with what was then a high school program. “The problem was that this is too early a time to make that decision. A lot of young men went in, but then matured and recognized that maybe they made the wrong decisions. Celibacy is unnatural, and to lead a celibate life, you must have a vocation.” Soisson says his faith is not shaken by the sex scandals, and suspects that some complaints are false. “The problem today is that the Church overlooked bad situations. Now, because of the media coverage, they can’t hide it anymore. They can no longer afford to sweep it under the table.” |
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©Tribune Democrat 2002
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Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown |
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Diocese Supports Paid Pro-Homosexual Psychologist
Dr Brown: “They are the local Catholic Taliban..."
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Diocese Spokesman Supports Dr. Brown
Diocese spokeswoman Sister Mary Parks defends Brown. “When he asks candidates questions, he’s trying to see where they’re coming from. He may ask them from any ideological standpoint, to see what their reaction would be. A pastor must be flexible and open to all people who come to him,” she said.
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Dr. David Brown In His Own Words
Would you want your son or grandson screened for the priesthood by this man?
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"In a telephone interview form his State College office, Brown said he did testify in favor of non-discrimination and non-harassment of homosexuals. “I drew from the Bishop’s Pastoral Letter on the topic, and I expressed the opinion that Jesus would be appalled at such bigotry.”"
Rose is “trying to reconfigure the current sex scandal into an anti-homosexual crusade. It’s like anti-Semitism,” he said. “Part of Rose’s central thesis is that ultra-liberals and gays have taken over the process of becoming a priest, and that I only give liberals or gays a recommendation. That’s false and paranoid,” Brown said. “These people are pathologically homophobic, and the goal of local conservative Catholics is to have the bishop terminate my work. “They are the local Catholic Taliban. They insist on their point of view. They are relentless, mean-spirited and punitive,” he said.
"I am a Roman Catholic Christian, a psychologist, and so forth..."
"I know some people genuinely and honestly believe that the Bible and Christianity says that homosexuality is a sin, but I think that there are also many, many responsible Christian scholars and theologians, good Bible scholars, from all dimensions of Christianity who don't agree with that position, and, I think, would be appalled that this sort of justification is being offered in the name of Christianity.
It's not even, if you ever read St. Thomas Aquinas, and you read book two of the Summa Theologica, it's not even going to be surprising to say that the so-called natural law argument is more and more, I think, being challenged.St. Thomas himself, in the second book of the Summa Theologica, says that homosexuality is natural, not unnatural. And he also says homosexuality among animals is natural, not unnatural. So I think we need to be careful when we invoke such things, especially where we don't understand the original meaning in Greek, in Aramaic, in Hebrew, or Latin or whatever you want to call it, of what some of these people, the fathers of the church, or authors of the Bible said. I think we're on very dangerous ground."
Dr. David J. Brown, a psychologist in State College, cites several problems with the ex-gay movement. Brown says proponents of "conversion" therapy do not produce any scientific evidence to support their claims. In fact, there is a wealth of research that shows it does NOT work. Another problem is that conversion therapists are misleading in their use of the word "change." At best, "change" means abstinence, not true re-orientation. Even if it were possible to change one's sexual identity, Brown explains, there is no reason to do it. Often the desire to change stems from someone or something other than the patient, thereby making the therapy unethical. In these cases, the therapy is not in the best interests of the patient.
Both Brown and McClanahan agree that such people see the world in only black and white. They typically have no tolerance for diversity, because diversity introduces unfamiliarity into their lives. Through unfamiliarity, they experience uncertainty and discomfort. "There will always be a group of people who seek to soothe their own anxiety with dogma and certitude," Brown explains.
The paid advertisement in a recent CDT, "The Catholic Response," is disturbing. It is pretentious to call itself the Catholic response. Most of the statements in the ad are actually those of Joseph Ratzinger -- albeit a prominent administrator of a Vatican bureaucracy (the same that once condemned Galileo), but hardly the univocal articulator of Catholi-cism. The Catholic Church is more comprehensive than Ratzinger (and his local devotees). In its theology, Catholi-cism embraces diversity and is better defined in the majestic language of the Vatican II Council: "The Church is the People of God," not just the so-called magisterium that too often is identified with an individual like Cardinal Ratzinger, as if they are the same.
But most disturbing is the ad's insidious implication that it is good moral theology to justly discriminate against homosexuals -- "Their rights can be legitimately limited ... and if they assert their homosexuality .... neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when ... irrational and violent acts increase." This "theology" of homophobic negativity evokes a frightening reminiscence of another era in this century when it became legitimate to marginalize and sub-human another group of people as a threat to "normal" values.
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BTW, in regard to women priestesses, I've noticed a preponderence of lesbian advocates and gay male advocates for this. Makes me wonder.
I have the Summa, but it would take me forever to find the passage referred to. I did specialize in medieval English in graduate school, however, and I know that the medieval view of "natural" was not the modern "natural = good."
I do remember one graduate seminar in which we explored the various meanings of "natural" by answering the question "What is the opposite of 'natural'?" Many of you may be able to suggest more, but those I recall are "unnatural," "artificial" and "supernatural."
Love sinner--hate the sin, why do the pro-perversion supporters get this part wrong?
Jesus would be appalled at such bigotry.
Bigotry can’t be against behavior, why don’t they get this one right either?
tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered
The practice of perversion is a disordered practice, David Brown and the self-serving perversionists at the APA know it should still be a pathology registered in the DSM.
Why are they treating seminary like a frat party?
A whole 25 years, eh?
I'll defer to the democracy of the dead and the teaching of the Oldest Institution on the planet, I guess, on this one.
Hmmmmmm. You know, quite aside from seminary screening, there are valid uses of psychological and psychiatric categories. HOWEVER, these are very hypothetical and contested disciplines with a great deal of quackery and psychobabble. To get some idea of the changes of paradigm and controversies, just check out Out of Its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis, A Call for Reform by Harvard's J. Allan Hobson and Jonathan A. Leonard. The degree of subjective distortion and imprecision are recognized at the professional level. You could have ten of these guys and each one would come up with a different diagnosis or personality profile. The notion that a psychological test or interview would be sufficient for approving a vocation is a little ridiculous. Where are the checks and balances in DIOCESAN PSYCHOLOGY??? Who guards the guardians? (to quote the old adage).
If it were not for the regular stop at Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Texas in the early 70s, when we were the only seminary in the country still requiring students to wear cassock and collar while on the University of Dallas campus, the Ben E. Keith distributorship for Budweiser would have gone out of business.
The ability to hook up a keg to a tap was a requirement for ordination there.
By the way, I initiated this article by contacting the paper and obtaining their pledge to protect the identity of the seminarians (and priests, if we could find anyone who would talk.) I then put the author in contact with the two "conservative Catholics" quoted, George Foster and Brian Barcaro (who runs The Diocese Report). They are close friends and at one time we all attended the same rosary cenacle together. We've been fighting the homosexual rot in State College PA (as well as the rest of this diocese) for years, and I have had a guest editorial published in the State College paper dealing with this issue, as well as several letters to the ed there. But this is the first real break we've had in the mainstream media within our diocese.
A whole 25 years, eh?
I'll defer to the democracy of the dead and the teaching of the Oldest Institution on the planet, I guess, on this one.
If only Chesterton were alive today to comment on such nonsense. Modernism - - what a joke.
If there are still any lingering doubts as to just how extensive this problem is in the (American) church, you may want to turn your browser here. The www.rcf.org (Roman Catholic Faithful) have been monitoring chat rooms where gay priests meet. The following is from their web site:
"In light of recent ongoing scandals being brought to light, many visitors to our site have asked that we make this information about an internet-based homosexual priest ring available once again. It is graphic and offensive. Prayerful discretion is advised."
We need a Welcome to the "FRee" Republic Catholic Ghetto. Please leave your rights of FRee Speech at the Log In button" logo.
Anybody good with graphics?
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