But some of you raise important questions. Couldn't it also be true that there are indeed some cliques of gay priests in seminaries and elsewhere, and that celibacy is flouted by some of these people, if not many? Isn't it also true that some of these incidents are not classic pedophile cases, but more like pederast cases, where the victims are not children but under-age youths? I think the answer to both questions is, sadly, yes. The question is what do we make of it? We don't have clear data but it's a fair bet to say that disproportionate numbers of priests are gay. I think that proportion may have increased over the decades as fewer and fewer men become priests and those who get ordained may do so to avoid conflicts over sexual identity. But why should this matter? Celibacy is the rule - for gays and straights. If gays are flouting it, they should be called to account on exactly the same grounds as straights. It becomes a deeper practical and pastoral issue for gays, in my opinion, because the struggle for gay priests to remain celibate is not openly and frankly dealt with. The lingering stigma of homosexuality in the church means that the closet is still the rule rather than the exception, and so these priests are driven underground where they cannot get help and guidance. The closet forces people into further feelings of shame and guilt and secrecy, generating an unhealthy atmosphere in which cliques thrive, cover-ups multiply and scandals are inevitable. The solution? Not more secrecy and purges, but more openness and honesty. If every gay priest were out to his superiors, out to his parishioners, and out to the world, I think we'd be in a much healthier place. Since being gay is not sinful as such, there's no doctrinal problem with this. And such fresh air is not as conducive to psycho-sexual pathologies as the current stifling secrecy. But of course the Church would be embarrassed to announce that gay men are among its strongest pillars, because it still harbors in attitude if not doctrine a lingering loathing of homosexuality, and its own increasingly strained sexual doctrines would seem far less potent if gays were front and center in the church's public image. So the shame continues, the secrecy deepens, the pathologies worsen and the scandals multiply. The only way out is candor and serious pastoral care for gay and straight priests alike.

But Are They Pedophiles or Pederasts?

This question seems to me to be interesting but beside the point. Priests are supposed to be celibate. And if they're not celibate, they're breaking their vows, whether they're gay or straight. If they're not celibate with consenting adults, they're criminals, whether they're gay or straight. What more do we need to discuss? The sly point of raising this issue, of course, is to insinuate that homosexuality is somehow more likely to be expressed with children and under-age youths than heterosexuality. But there's no credible evidence for this. In fact, much evidence points in the other direction. Britney Spears, anyone? Anna Kournikova? You think straights are less attracted to youth than gays? When this slur fails to stick, the Church's spinmeisters try another one: that being gay is a form of sickness and that part of that sickness is an inability to control one's sexual desires. So gays should be purged from the church because they cannot help themselves, while straight pedophiles can. Here's a quote that addresses that precise point: the notion that homosexuals are sexually compulsive and cannot restrain their desires is an "unfounded and demeaning assumption." Moreover, the "human person, made in the likeness and image of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation." That's from the 1986 Vatican authoritative document called "The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons." This is the document that Navarro-Valls single-handedly threw out the window over the weekend to promote his own personal, heretical agenda. The authentic teaching of the Church unequivocally rebuts the hierarchy's current attempt to scape-goat its own gay priests to deflect attention from hierarchical malfeasance. That shows just how desperate and unprincipled they have become. Their arguments are not only expedient, cynical and self-serving. They are un-Catholic in every sense of the word.


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