Homosexuality, Priesthood and the Catholic church.

Amongs the vows that priests take when entering the monsatery is the vow of celibacy, which in theory is a good vow and the equivalent of that taken by Buddhist monks, the aim is free yourself from the ties of attachment. Being free of attachment its easier to love all sentient beings unconditionally.

Now, all of that seems like a struggle in its own right, we grow up in families nurtured by parents we depend on, we learn about romantic love and to expect to fall in love, marry and have kids. HOWEVER - life and nature is not that simple - we have the issues of (i) religion and the virtue of self sacrifice ( like Jesus), the need to improve our spirituality by being in service of God and his creation; and (ii) homosexuality - the whole nature/nurture debate is not of real relevance to this discussion, just the acceptance that 10% of society may be gay. BUT society scorns and ostracises homosexuality, laying the whole guilt trip on the "immoral perpetrators". "Homosexuality is bad and evil", "the Bible says so" "it is better to be celibate than to give into these immoral actions" etc etc. (iii) the difficulties of remaining celibate either in a monastery or general society. Priests aren't raised in monasteries they raised in a rather sexually oriented society, where boys are taught early about the need to prove sexual adequacy, not even mentioning the increase in testosterone in puberty.

So how does a homosexual person become acceptable to God? Perhaps he decides to go into a monastery and to dedicate his life to God. A very admirable quality being of service to the world. Maybe he is trying to run away from the person he really is. It is not really possible to run away from who you are though. And even more difficult if you are homosexual to surround yourself with other men running away from their sexuality. What do you call a hundred gay men in one "house"? Potentially a party.

It is obvious that the Catholic church has been aware of this crisis for centuries but they keep to the rules of celibacy and they keep hiding their sins. This is just the bare bones of the situation, but I would like to hear other takes on this issue from ATS members.


In an article from the History News Network the following was stated.

"The Catholic Church has always taught that people are human and that there will be many failures in achieving an impossible ideal, but the biggest failure of the Church has been in not giving any real sex education or warning of the potential lifetime struggle to preserve a celibate life to those in its seminaries. Those heterophilic priests who fail to observe celibacy have as much difficulty as their homophilic counterparts, but they probably have a more sympathetic response from the hierarchy and their congregation when they stray. The mass exodus of priests in the 1960s and 1970s who then married was not matched by an exodus of the homophilic oriented priests and thus increasing the percentage of them in the Church.

So panic-stricken has the Church been by this growing minority that when the late Boston Cardinal Humberto Medeiros tried to remove the Rev. Paul Shanley from his high profile Boston street ministry because of his repeated acts of pedophilia, he hesitated when Shanley, who dismissed the charges against him, said the real problem in the Church was not pedophilia but homosexuality and threatened to go to the media with allegations of homosexuality in the Archdiocesan seminary. Shanley allegedly said that if he went to the press the Cardinal would have to fire many of his top priests. It was perhaps fear that he and other bishops and archbishops had about the exposure of the widespread homophilic clergy that inhibited them from dealing with the more serious problem of those priests who had sexual relationships with children and adolescents and which they well might have felt was a minor public relations issue in comparison."

hnn.us...

"VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- A vast cache of child pornography and photos of young priests having sex has been discovered at a Roman Catholic seminary, officials said Monday, leading politicians and church leaders to demand a criminal probe and the resignation of the bishop in charge."

Bishop Kurt Krenn, who oversees the diocese, refused to step down, however, dismissing the images as a "childish prank."

Leaders of the Catholic diocese of St. Poelten where the seminary is located, about 50 miles west of Vienna, spent much of the day in an emergency meeting.

www.cnn.com...

The seminary's director, the Rev. Ulrich Kuechl, resigned along with his deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, the diocese said after the meeting. It did not elaborate.

As many as 40,000 photos and an undisclosed number of films, including child pornography, were found a year ago on computers at the seminary, the respected news magazine Profil reported. "