Posted on 04/05/2002 12:32:54 PM PST by Notwithstanding
Homosexual Culture Undercuts Priesthood
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.comEditor's note: See part one of this series, Anti-Catholic 'Experts' Fuel Church's Scandals.
Friday, April 5, 2002
Father Andrew Greeley called it the "Lavender Mafia," a homosexual underground within the Catholic Church in America that has managed to dominate many of the seminaries and must bear the largest share of the blame for the sex scandals afflicting the church.
Like the gay underground in the British Foreign Office of the past where for scores of years the road to advancement was open only to homosexuals, the Lavender Mafia has been the gatekeeper determining who will be admitted to seminaries and ultimately to the Roman Catholic priesthood.
In Goodbye! Good Men: How Catholic Seminaries Turned Away Two Generations of Vocations From the Priesthood," author Michael S. Rose quotes a former Mundelein seminarian, Joseph Kellenyi, as saying: "The issue was never one of my suitability for ordination. Rather it was that the gay clique had been given veto power over who got ordained."
'Gay Profession'
In his book, "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," the rector of St. Mary's Seminary in Cleveland, Father Donald B. Cozzens, warned that the priesthood was becoming a "gay profession."
And in the seminaries it wasn't merely a preponderance of gay students, but also "a disproportionate number of homosexually-oriented persons," including faculty, he wrote.
That kind of atmosphere, Rose notes, "deters the heterosexual man from continuing to study and prepare for the priesthood."
Rose wonders how can "any healthy heterosexual seminarian expect to be properly formed and prepared for the priesthood when constantly subjected to that which is so clearly contrary to Church teaching and discipline?"
'Threatening Atmosphere'
He asks: "How many heterosexual seminarians, whether orthodox or not, have decided to leave the seminary and abandon their vocations because of the 'gay subculture' they were forced to endure, because they had been propositioned, harassed or even molested? We're not talking here about the presence of a few homosexually-oriented men who conduct themselves with perfect chastity. Rather there exists an intense and often threatening atmosphere."
Indeed, so horrific is the situation that "certain seminaries have earned nicknames such as Notre Flame (for Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans) and Theological Closet (for Theological College at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.); St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore has earned the nickname 'The Pink Palace.'"
Visiting the Gay Bars
At some of the seminaries, faculty and students would don their gay apparel and head for gay bars. In March 2000 the liberal Greeley, often called the church's resident pornographer for his racy novels, testified that seminary professors "Tell their students that they're gay and take some of them to gay bars, and gay students sleep with each other."
Greeley is not alone in exposing the homosexual behavior rampant in many of the nation's seminaries:
Rose cites numerous instances of gay domination at many of the nation's seminaries. One priest described the situation at Chicago's Mundelein seminary in the 1970s. Many of the younger students would be placed into situations where they compromised their sexual integrity," said Father Wayne H. Wurst during a radio broadcast.
"This would be used against them by older students for favors. And those older students actually had faculty members who would request from time to time a friend who would come and visit them because they were lonely. And these students would supply fresh meat.
"So there were madams, pimps and prostitutes all in a major seminary system that from outside, if you were to walk through, would look very holy."
Heterosexuals Driven Out
Heterosexual students at a number of seminaries were persecuted by the gay subculture. Reporting homosexual behavior by classmates could get them expelled, as could resisting homosexual advances. Rose cites scores of cases of heterosexuals driven out of seminaries because they refused to accept the gay culture.
In Cozzen's book, "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," he wrote that there has been "a heterosexual exodus from the priesthood" due, Rose notes, in part to the unrestrained gay subcultures in some seminaries, the resulting "overwhelming gay clergy culture will have an effect on how the laity views the priesthood and it will have an effect on incoming vocations. Potential candidates for the priesthood who are heterosexual will be intimidated from joining an institution where the ethos is primarily that of a gay culture."
Anyone wondering how the church could have got itself in the mess it is now experiencing need look no further than the pages of Rose's extraordinary book. What we are seeing today are the results of a gay priesthood being loosed upon parishes all across the nation, where they have abused impressionable young men they treated as "fresh meat" to satisfy their unnatural sexual urgings.
Next: Bashing orthodoxy: how false teaching demoralizes and discourages aspiring priests.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Are there any priests on FR or any experts on the Catholic church hierarchy who can answer these questions?
I know that in protestant churches abuse can happen too. It's usually male to female, however. And yes, there have been some cover-ups. But there is NO indication from any quarter that protestant seminaries have endured this kind of thing over the last 30 years. (Our seminaries are only accused of having left their first love and teaching liberal theologies - which is true of many of them.) But as to direct abuse, my sense is that in the last decade, Protestant churches are much more willing to discipline and out such offenders. In fact, it's usually done in an ugly way, blasted into the secular press, and rarely follows biblical church discipline standards. We have our own share of problems with "speaking the truth in love." But it seems the Catholic church is having a problem with just "speaking the truth" to begin with.
The Church seemingly accepted the ways of the world - don't ask, don't tell. But crimes by gays anywhere, get glossed over. There was a boy killed some time ago, I saw it posted here but not in my paper or the media news. Even the Priest problem is still cast by the media, falsely, as pedophilia. Wonder how much the legal profession raked in because of this - what was their 'advice' to the Church?
I don't know about all but I do know some seminaries have boards of directors composed of laymen and women, religious. priests and bishops.
"don't ask, don't tell" has been accepted by the military and public policy in general for homosexuals. But I imagine a few priests might drink too much sometimes. That is about all I know and don't mention.
I just find it interesting (since I belong to a non-denominational church) that people whine all the time about non-denominational and independent churches not have any accountability structure. This situation makes me wonder what would happen if we did.....
I guessing but I think the problem is that with any organization will attract bureaucrats. People who feel that the organization is the mission, that policy outweighs doctrine. It's possible that the Roman Catholic Church has too many bureaucrats, who would prefer to protect the organization, than undergo a humbling purification.
Suppost my friend has an affair with a 15 yr old high school girl. We all would consider him a horn bag and a dirty old man, but not a pedophile. When a priest has an affair with a 15 year old boy, he is not considered a horny homo, but is instead labeled a PEDOPHILE. In my state 14 years old is the age of constent for statutatory rape.
Listening to the news, all I hear is the press denying the fact that these guys are homosexuals, and insisting that pedophiles are not homosexuals; but the majority of the compliants involve young men, which is not pedophila (IMHO) The talk show hosts go on and saying pedophiles who molest 8 year old girls are not gay, therefore the priests (who happen to have had affairs with 14 year old boys) are not gay. The logic does not hold up.
Everyone is so afraid of offending the powerful gay special interests groups, they are throwing these homo priests to the wolves. Sure the priests used their positions to score, but most of the alleged "victims" were of a consenting age, and are going to get huge cash settlements. How many of this cases were molestations, and how many were consentual? With the millions of dollars involved we will never know ....
Granted IMHO homosexuality is a mental depravity brought on by our messed up society. It has no place in the church, but let's all be a little careful not to jump to conclusions and brand most of these homo horn bags as pedophiles (the scum of the Earth).
Good for him (liberal that he is).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.