Posted on 04/03/2002 10:49:38 AM PST by 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
Everything is grace. Well said! But does the Church have no right to eliminate the wolves that have infiltrated the flock?
How many of you are raising your sons to consider going into the priesthood??? If we had more parents who thought of a son as a priest was TERRIFIC instead of the selfish thinking about "No Grandkids" from that son. Or the " No money" thing. Think about it....there is NO higher calling.
This may come as a surprise to you but married couples are bound by their vows of marriage to live chastely as well.
Thanks for the *ping* Oxford! Wonderful article.
And I agree with you. I personally know of several wonderful men that left the seminary because they were in the heterosexual minority, one of them described it "like being in a gay bar" - this was in the late 70s. Such a waste!
There are a great number of "feminist nuns" - they need to be taken to task and taken out of positions of power and I think they should go back to the practice of wearing habits.
I cannot stomach it when I hear malcontents calling for the Church to "modernize" - Truth doesn't change for societal whims.
But, I truly know that the gates of Hell will not prevail, and so I am not worried, it will work out the way it is supposed to work out.
This is the kernel of the question, isn't it? The major argument I hear from orthodox (Latin Rite) Catholics is that priests "have" to be celibate in order to be "the most" holy. Meanwhile, from Eastern Rite Catholics I hear about the holiness of their priests. From those who've had former Episcopal or Lutheran pastors who became Catholic priests, I hear nothing but stories of holiness as well.
So why the insistence that priests "must" be celibate? I personally think it's because so few American Latin Rite Catholics actually know any Eastern Rite Catholics and their married priests. That's not surprising, since there are very few of them in the US, largely because of an extremely boneheaded action on the part of some US bishops and the Vatican in the late 1920s. Many Eastern Catholics had migrated to the Midwest and the PA area, and worked in the mines. Their priests came over from Eastern Europe, and often were married. The Roman Catholic priests complained to some American bishops, who complained to the Vatican.
What you have to understand here is that the Eastern Catholic priests had *their own* bishops (mostly over in Eastern Europe, to be sure, but they were NOT under the authority of the Roman/Latin bishops, even though *both* were in union w/ the Pope in Rome.) The Latin bishops were trying to enforce a Latin discipline upon priests that were not even under their authority.
Pope Pius XI in the decree "Cum Data Fuerit" in 1929 ruled that the Eastern Rite Catholic bishops could NOT have married men serve as priests. Outrageous! Imagine the hysteria if the Eastern Catholics had been able to convince Rome to *make* the Latin bishops ordain married men. In any event, about 250,000 Eastern Catholics left the Catholic Church and joined the various Orthodox bodies. One can only wonder (given the large families of those days) how many Eastern Catholics there *would* have been in the US had this dreadful event not happened, and what kind of influence they would have had on American Catholic life.
As it stands now, there are relatively few Eastern Catholics in the US, and *ironically,* there are more married Latin Rite priests (former Anglicans and Lutherans) than there are married Eastern Rite priests. Only a few years ago did a Byzantine/Ruthenian bishop in the US ordain a married man, and it made the front page of the NYTimes (from which I remember this story.)
Personally, I'd like to see it dragged back to about 33 AD.
The problem is deep -- and you're right, they all know who's who -- but it's not so complex that I have a problem drawing the line at ousting active homosexuals. (Out of Christian charity, I will withhold my remarks on the ephebophiles.)
I believe that parents and good priests foster good vocations to the priesthood. But it is bad theology to say that the priesthood is a higher calling. This kind of thinking has lowered the sacred institution of marriage. There are some parishes I know that will pray for VOCATIONS to the priesthood, but refuse to call bans of marriage a VOCATION. Clericalism was born of this type of thinking. Sorry, but I don't buy it!
PS: I reverence the priesthood with all due respect and love. But I can't believe for one minute, knowing that vocations are gifts and individual callings from God, that He would short change any other vocation He called a person to.
Yes. But it must not done by people like myself or you or Sinkspur, the Boston Glod and the like. It must be done by those to whom God has entrusted the care of the Church i.e. the bishops with the Holy Father. It comes with priestly consecration. All this yelling and trying to come up with solutions and demanding this and that is not worthy of the Church Christ has founded. I repeat, should the bishops fail let God handled it. But it's the way he established His Church and it has withstood stronger attacks than this in Her magnificent history.
It should come as NO surprise to any Catholic. If they are given proper catechesis on the VOCATION of marriage, this is very apparent. But alas, (sigh), all too often marriage isn't seen as a VOCATION.
In 1980 the Pope allowed for a procedure for married Protestant ministers to convert to Catholicism and be ordained as priests. Do a google search on +married +priests +pastoral +provision and you will find many personal accounts & stories; you can also look at the official Pastoral Provision website.
I can't imagine any life of celibacy being more of a source of growth than the life of a spouse and parent. I don't really think the average parish priest has a "more" difficult life....difficult in a different way, but not tremendously difficult.
I appreciate what you are saying, but I recall several times in the Bible that God used all sorts of odd instruments - for example, pagan kings like Nebuchadnezzar and Darius of Persia - to act as His instruments when the Chosen People were not willing to listen to their prophets and purge themselves.
Fine, but in the meantime, bishops who knowingly allow pedophiles and molesters to continue need to see the inside of a jail cell. That goes for other priests who don't report what they know.
What if they had more kids than YOU thought they SHOULD have..on a priest's salary of course. What if she wasn't Catholic? What if SHE had an affair? What ifSHE said the wrong thing to someone. What if she became an invalid and needed him to be there most of the time?
They would need a house for every priest that was married...are you going to GIVE more every Sunday for this.....I doubt it.
This is bigger than a sound bite.."Let them Marry".
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