The Good Catholic's Response to Bad Priests

Bucks County Courier Times ^ | 4/3/02 | Claudio R. Salvucci

[Antoninus]

The Good Catholic's Response to Bad Priests
Claudio R. Salvucci

April 3, 2002

Our sex-obsessed culture has deluded itself with the ridiculous Freudian error that every sexual thought or fantasy not acted upon is a repression.

So muddled with lust have we become, so enslaved to our own self-gratification, that too many of us can no longer even conceive of a life lived in virginal purity. We see no dignity in it, only a condition to be pitied.

So some are suggesting that the Catholic priesthood, in the face of all the recent scandals, accept those ideas and make a grudging concession to human lust.

And that is exactly wrong.

It was precisely by conceding to lust in the first place that the priesthood got into this awful mess.

One curiously omitted question emerges from all of these so-called pedophilia scandals: Why do an estimated 80-90 percent of the victims of these molestations happen to be teen-age boys? True pedophiles tend to prey on pre-pubescent members of the opposite sex - not same-sex adolescents, which characterizes a different disorder called ephebophilia.

Many of us obedient Catholics, so ready to grant priests and bishops the benefit of the doubt, are now slowly becoming aware of a vast gay network quietly tolerated in the seminaries, the priesthood and even in the highest levels of church hierarchy.

Two respected and highly acclaimed books: Fr. Donald Cozzens' "The Changing Face of the Priesthood" and Michael Rose's "Goodbye! Good Men" frankly admit that the priesthood is "becoming a gay profession." Our local Catholic radio station, WISP 1570, recently featured a hard-hitting show describing how seminarians encountered difficulties for being "too masculine." St. Sebastian's Angels, a networking Website for gay priests, was only recently shut down. An anonymous priest interviewed by the Boston Globe described the sexual propositioning, harassment and intimidation he faced at the hands of a gay subculture in the seminary - "and I know guys who left because of it."

So what is to be done about this problem?

Some American bishops have adopted this idea that having homosexual inclinations doesn't matter in the seminary, that as long as the candidate lives in celibacy, there's no sin in the orientation. That is of course theologically true, but is it psychologically wise?

Suppose, analogously, we were to take a priest with the normal male attractions, and drop him right smack into a convent of nuns: eating, working, bathing, and sleeping among the opposite sex, 24 hours a day. Well, that would be sheer madness, utter insanity. Of course, we hope he wouldn't do anything to violate his chastity, but meanwhile we've vastly multiplied his near occasions to sin - the opportunities for sexual temptation to be enflamed and acted upon.

That is exactly what we are doing when we ordain gay men.

Folks, the monasteries and rectories are barracks in the army of Jesus Christ; housing men with a divine mission for which they need to be focused, clear-headed, and free from distraction. Just as in the military, a community of strong men provides the best environment for that condition to be met.

When homosexuality enters this system, the whole thing becomes utter bedlam. Suddenly, the opportunities for sex are numerous and immediate. Perhaps that is why the priesthood is said to be sought by some homosexual men.

Certainly, not every homosexual priest will act upon his temptations, but what right do we have to put him in danger of doing so? Do we have no healthy respect for the weaknesses of human nature?

There is only one solution here, and it is this: the seminaries must refuse Holy Orders to those with same-sex attractions. Not just for the overall good of the priesthood, but for the good of their own souls. For it is no act of charity to let a man become a priest in this life, only to be tempted into damnation in the next.

Claudio Salvucci of Bristol reminds Catholics that the best thing to do for priests - good or bad - is to pray for them.

An archive of Salvucci's columns may be found at: The I, Claudio web site

[ThomasMore]

Thank you for your kind words. Your prayers are deeply appreciated.