With the Catholic Church and its spiritual leader Pope Benedict XVI in the headlines amidst a growing global clerical sex abuse scandal, Bill Donohue, president of the US Catholic League, took out a full page ad in The New York Times and on CNN blamed homosexual clergy for the sexual abuse of children.
Titled "Going for the Vatican Jugular," the advertisement last Tuesday read in part: "The (New York) Times continues to editorialize about the 'pedophilia crisis,' when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay."
Left: Andrew Sullivan, Pope Benedict XVI
Prominent gay and Catholic political commentator Andrew Sullivan hit back on his The Daily Dish blog, which is regularly named one of the most influential in America, and explained why blaming the child sex abuse crisis on homosexuals is so wrong: The church teaches first of all that all gay men are "objectively disordered:" deeply sick in their deepest soul and longing for love and intimacy. A young Catholic who finds out he's gay therefore simultaneously finds out that his church regards him as sick and inherently evil, for something he doesn't experience as a choice. That's a distorting and deeply, deeply damaging psychic wound. Young Catholic gay boys, tormented by this seemingly ineradicable sinfulness, often seek religious authority as a way to cope with the despair and loneliness their sexual orientation can create. (Trust me on this; it was my life). So this self-loathing kid both abstracts himself from sexual relationships with peers, idolizes those "normal" peers he sees as he reaches post-pubescence, and is simultaneously terrified by these desires and so seeks both solace and cover for not getting married by entering the priesthood. None of this is conceivable without the shame and distortion of the closet, or the church's hideously misinformed and distorted view of homosexual orientation. And look at the age at which you are most likely to enter total sexual panic and arrest: exactly the age of the young teens these priests remain attracted to and abuse. That's the age when the shame deepens into despair; that's when sexuality is arrested; that's where the psyche gets stunted. In some ways, I suspect, these molesters feel as if they are playing with equals - because emotionally they remain in the early teens. I'm not excusing this in any way; just trying to understand how such evil can be committed. Ask yourself: how many openly gay and adjusted priests have been found to have abused minors? Or ask yourself another question: if straight men were forbidden to marry women, had their sexual and emotional development truncated at the age of 13, and were forced into institutions where they were treated by teenage girls as gods, an given untrammeled private access to them, how much sexual abuse do you think would occur there? Please. This is not that hard to understand. Sullivan also wrote a column titled "I believe you’ve killed the church, Holy Father" in The Sunday Times (UK) on Apr 4, 2010:
I can only speak for myself — a wayward Catholic sinner, a married homosexual who still clings to the truth of the Gospels and the sacredness of the church. I wouldn’t do any of those things. Full stop. If I knew I had any role — witting or unwitting — in allowing children to be raped by someone I could have stopped, by someone over whom I had authority, I would not be able to sleep at night. I would be haunted for the rest of my life. The thought of covering up for someone who forced sex on deaf children in closets at night is incomprehensible to me. Allowing someone who had raped three children to go elsewhere and rape many more, when you were explicitly warned that this man was a walking danger to children? I don’t want to sound self-righteous, but: no. Never. Under any circumstances; in any period of time; for whatever reason. Even if my failure were mere negligence, my conscience would be racked.
So, why, to ask the obvious question, isn’t the Pope’s? Even criminals in prison treat child molesters as the lowest of the low, the darkest manifestation of human evil. How can the Pope have any moral authority on any subject until and unless he has explained this series of events, held himself accountable and repented, if not resigned? Instead he carries on as if nothing has changed, as if nothing in these revelations about his life really matters.
It has to matter. A pope with no moral authority simply cannot function as a pope. Yes, he has ecclesiastical power. But ecclesiastical power without moral authority merely exposes the hollowness of an unaccountable, self-perpetuating clerisy. Does he think we don’t know? Does he understand that any parent of any child will be unable to imagine themselves in the same moral universe as this man?
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Reader's Comments
With pedophilia statistically more common among men than women, and a predominance of male clergy being placed in charge of boys, rather than girls, could it just be the climate that shapes this statistic for those with pedophile tendencies?
It seems a bit of a stretch to me that the Catholic church's decision to ask its priests to maintain a celibate lifestyle causes them to become pedophiles. Afterall, they are free to leave the church, if they find it too much of a labour. Given the choice of working at your dream job and having to behave straight, or quitting that job to gain that sexual freedom, what would you choose?
Perhaps we need to analyse the details of these pedophiles as people, rather than clergy members, instead of focusing on how the church has apparently corrupted them.
This tragedy has been handled badly by Vatican who should have nipped it in the bud, rather than by covering it up out of fear of it coming to light. I also feel sorry for those members of the Catholic Church who have had their reputations tarnished by those who they find as repulsive as the rest of us.
I'm glad to see this issue out in the open finally, and only hope it can be understood and rectified as far as possible, without undue bias, misinformation and hastily drawn conclusions.
Not directly related to this article but I found this on the Vatican website and thought it an interesting read. Written by the Pope himself while he was still just a cardinal.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html
Different than the stance I expected to read.
Why doesn't Sylvia Tan start her own World Religions 101 and Gay Life Channel? Yuck, its like gay men have more interests than this junk, get back to hot guys and exciting date life stuff
In the meantime, check our Racheal Maddow's nice house and sexy extra large lover in this week's People Magazine, a true lesbian with class and other interests than relgion, I really wanna share recipes and come over for dinner
thank God for lesbians that don't watch TV at home
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/rachel-maddow-susan-mikul_n_524941.html
Gives me hope that my own cooking skills will improve, and more importantly...my boyfriend's. I'm sick of cooking dinner for us every night.
I understand the desire to have more depth on a gay site than just reporting on where the next white party is taking place, but maybe there's been enough of the religion-oriented stories for awhile. Surely there are other stories to be told.
I don't think people care if there's a fine line to draw between a pedophile and a homosexual. If possible, people could blame homosexuals for global warming, their dogs died, their sons turn gay, etc... which they already did anyway, by calling it as a sign of wrath of God of homosexuals. People ain't rational when they hate.
Just a disclaimer... I've intended nothing against any religion... Just that there are people being unreasonable while hiding behind their faith as a shield.
Anyway, I am in a good mood today so nothing real bothers me, except too many articles on religion when I should be getting in great and excellent shape for that upcoming water splashing festival in Thailand and getting my Polo Game in better form
Better to know what your enemies are up to. And lets be clear, they are the enemy (mostly). Most of the discrimination against us is based on religious beliefs.
What's all this "anti-Jewish" stuff? The correct term, (if you were really American or Jewish, you'd know), is "anti-semitic". Another calculated (and defamatory) lie by your boring fictional GossipGirl extra.
If you follow the link I gave it's to a quite good article about the abuse by priests, and the cover-ups by the pope, likening the suffering of the thousands, maybe millions, of victims to a sort of spiritual/emotional holocaust. You have to scroll down as there are more equally good articles posted since.
Seems to me the papacy would rather keep as many children as possible in children's homes at the mercy of paedophile priests, than allow adoption to loving homes, fully checked-out, of gay couples.
Why follow the often brutal rantings of semi-nomadic sheep herders at all? (Particularly when filtered by two thousand years of politically driven intrigue). The pews are emptying, the seminaries shuttered, pretty much everyone ignore papal dictums on condoms and no one really believes in miracles anymore.
Religions come and go, and this one is well and truly past it’s used by date.
- not necessarily so, it depends which country you're in and how savvy the population are.
In the meantime any confidence trickster can set up as a "pastor" (read cult leader), and use modern methods of neuro-linguistic programming, theatre, and mass audience control, to persuade thousands of otherwise sensible, educated, well-off people to pay him a voluntary tax of 20% of their income ( a medieval practise called tithing, that was outlawed by the mainstream churches a long time ago ). A new mercedes? It's God's will! And a lot of these guys end up sexually abusing their followers, whatever the denomination, religion or sect.
FYI, no one article on Fridae paid tribute to Mcqueen when he passed, clearly the skull prints that some of you Fridae team have hidding in the closet has everything to do with Mcqueen, and the passing of YSL? Start from Gianni and there is plenty to write about.
It's fashion week all over the world, and here we are picturing ugly dressed priests doing young boys!!!!
Have you tried the Lifestyle section? There's loads there.
See article "Pope Directly Involved In Sex Abuse Coverup" at http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/04/13/2010-04-13_cardinal_tarcisio_bertone_vaticans_no_2_man_in_charge_defends_celibacy_attacks_h.html
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