Doing my Vatican rag, Pt 2
The Roman Catholic Church continues to scapegoat gay priests. Five years ago, its response to child molestations by priests was to ban men 鈥榳ith deep-rooted homosexual tendencies鈥� from studying for the priesthood, and to begin a gay witchhunt through the world鈥檚 seminaries.
Now the Church is at it again, claiming that because most victims were boys who had reached puberty 鈥� but not the age of consent 鈥� the issue is not pedophilia but homosexuality.
Pardon me, your holiness, but a grown man in a position of respect and authority forcing himself on a boy 鈥� whether not he can yet grow hairs on his balls 鈥� is still child-molesting, regardless of the technical definition. And covering it up to protect your own arse 鈥� you, who claim to be God鈥檚 representative on earth 鈥� is worse.
These men did not molest boys because they were gay 鈥� they molested boys because of the warped religion in which you raised them, teaching them that the only good woman is a virgin, and that the answer to their homosexual inclinations is to fall in love with an imaginary perfect dead bloke in his early 30s (usually depicted almost naked and nailed helplessly to a cross, I might add). And never, ever masturbate, or have sex.
In other words, your holiness, your church creates abusers, and has been doing so for centuries. 鈥淐lergy sexual abuse did not begin suddenly in 1984. It has been a recognized problem throughout the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church鈥� (Doyle and Rubino, Fordham Urban Law Journal).
The wonder is not that there are so many Roman Catholic clerical abusers, but that there are so few.
More importantly, your holiness, you and your minions covered up the abuse to protect your business and reputation, denied the victims justice, protected the wrongdoers, and effectively聽 ensured a supply of further victims. Your attacks on gay priests conveniently deflect attentions from these crimes of your own.
The Pope鈥檚 response is to say the Church should do penance. Traditionally, penance means 鈥渁 rigorous course of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, during which the penitent is聽 excluded from the Mass鈥� (Wikipedia). Penance also involves making redress to any victims.
Is this feeble self-administered 鈥榩unishment鈥� meant to be an adequate response to the physical and sexual abuse of up to half a million children over the last 50 years, and your facilitation and concealment of the same?
The Pope personifies the Church. But the Pope is personally implicated in the cover-up. Who is going to deny him Mass, and decide when he has repented enough? What 鈥榓lmsgiving鈥� would be appropriate? Flogging off the Vatican for a luxury housing development and giving the money to the victims?
Which reminds me. The Inquisition used to publicly flog penitents. Why not revive the tradition? A cardinal being whipped the length of Oxford St. I鈥檇 like to see that in next year鈥檚 Mardi Gras.
I forgot to say Doug – great read and in my opinion your analysis is spot on.
Jon Schuster – it is well published that many gay men seek a life in the priesthood – I do doubt your claim that they hold the balance of power.
What we do know is that their has been a massive cover up by those right up to the highest levels. They say they hid it to save face for the church, I don鈥檛 fully buy this. It has to be asked how many paedophiles and ephebophilies are bishops and cardinals or have positions of influence ? We do certainly know that the abuser Fr. Marcial Maciel enjoyed the favor of Pope John Paul II and wielded great influence over the cardinals because of his access to cash.
If you ever work with groups of child sex offenders you generally find they hate adults that have adult sexual attraction of teh same sex. In some kind of weird morality these child sexual offenders often regards gays as perverts. Certainly this is the line the Catholic clerics take about same sex adult relationships so it also has to be asked whether maybe the child abusing priests actually hold the balance of power in the Vatican ?
John Shuster, It seems you are insinuating that the priesthood is full of gay men, Im sorry but I simply don’t believe you. A pedofile can be heterosexual or homosexual, its not just found in one type of sexuality. Now because we gays are a minority, common sense suggests that there is more heterosexual pedofiles than gay pedofiles and the same theory applies in the priesthood.
I have had gay priests brag to me that they rule the priesthood with 70 to 80% majority. While that might be an exaggeration, the attitude expressed is not. The atmosphere of secrecy surrounding the clerical lifestyle and inner church workings contributes to the difficulty of gathering an accurate census. Researcher and psychotherapist Richard Sipe has been writing about the priesthood for over 40 years. He addresses this issue on his web site:
The Roman Catholic priesthood has become a gay profession. While gay and straight priests have both abused children and vulnerable adults, there is a deeper issue to be addressed. The sexual politics of the priesthood that exists with a predominantly gay hierarchy and priesthood have created an atmosphere of secrecy and sexual license. Mandatory celibacy maintains a thin veil of “purity” that attracts gay men because they don’t have to publicly marry a woman and they get to live in close with only men. This has driven out many of the straight priests who have been scandalized by this hidden culture and left the institutional priesthood out of a sense of integrity. It has also put clergy with furtive sex lives into a situation where they are easily extorted by sex abusers. For example, when the perp priest is being pursued by the police and the family of the abused child, the priest runs to the bishop and demands protection or he will out him and tell the world how the bishop and his friend went on the gay cruise out of Miami last summer. Sexually active gay priests are so easily blackmailed. As long as this continues, children will be vulnerable and the secrecy will continue. I was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1979. If I were a gay man I would likely still be in. More at my web site
This is so nasty Doug. I have worked with the lead sex offender agency ACSO, that is Catholic. They have gay people employed and non Catholics, and have the latest research on child sex offenders and run treatment programs with courts and governments. They do a great job based on research and facts. The facts are it is not a homosexual or hetrosexual act to have sex with children, it is an act of pedophilia. It is vilification to call it homosexual abuse.
The Cardinal just spun some hate to take the heat off the Popes own cover up of child sexual abuse. I mean he was told by Catholic Officials of an abusing priest, and did nothing for a long time, and sent thank you letters to those that covered things up for the Church.
Many Catholics are outraged by this, and now they are further outraged by the Nazi Pope attacking gay people once again.
You see to many Catholics, The Pope changed his Nazi uniform and not his views. He is not the first Evil Pope, but hopefully will be the last.