The existence of a fairly pervasive homosexual subculture in the seminaries and ranks of the Catholic Church has been in the news for almost a decade now, and the various Catholic Dioceses have paid many millions of dollars in judgements for past abuses.
Where does all this stand today? Has the Catholic Church fixed this issue to their satisfaction? Have gay priests left or just gone underground?
Are you talking about a homosexual subculture or a institutional cover up for pedophilia? The Catholic church has demonstrated both but they aren’t the same thing at all. Only the latter got them into real legal trouble.
I was looking at this article which prompted my question.
A Priest, a Reporter and His Boyfriend Walk Into a Gay Bar…
Looking at the stats online re abuse the Priest issues are with a lot more adolescent and teenage boys, not small kids, so I’m not sure if it’s really “pedophilia”.
I don’t think the semantics of pedophilia was the basis of Shagnasty’s question. I think he was politely trying to ask (the question in my mind, too) why you’re drawing a connection between a “homosexual subculture” and legal judgments.
While there’ve been legal judgments against the Church for sexual abuse of minors (of both genders), there’ve been no judgments against the Church for any culture of homosexuality.
Point taken. They are not synonyms and I should have been more clear about the differentiation.
Many in the Catholic Church see the extensive homosexual subculture with the church priesthood as being entwined with the small subset of priests who are sexual predators on young boys. In the US IIRC approx 70-80% of the sexual abuse reported occurred between Priests and adolescent and teenage boys. Assuming abuse of adolescents happens at the same rates in the gay and heterosexual populations it’s not a leap of logic to to conclude this sub-culture exists and has robust representation if these are the types of numbers being reported.
Beyond this, several years ago in the aftermath of these abuse cases being revealed the Catholic Church (at least in public statements) seemed dedicated to rooting out and excluding gays from serving in the church. I just wondering what came of all these assertions. Based on the article it appears the priesthood in the US is still overwhelming gay and a lot more casually “out” than you might think given the context of their vocation.
As a side note I’m not Catholic, and I’m all for people following their innate sexual identity. I ask the question because I can’t see a lot on non-gays in modern industrial nations choosing the Priesthood, so I’m kind of curious how the Catholic Church is going to handle purging their ranks of gay Priests and gay seminarians without decimating the ranks of the priesthood.
Thank you. You’re being gracious, and I don’t want to attack you because I’m interested in the answer to the question you’re asking (about homosexual subculture in the Church), too. However, I feel that I need to address this:
If many in the Church see it this way, then I think many in the Church are wrong. It’s been discussed here, and elsewhere, that there is no link between homosexuality and molestation. As you say, abuse of adolescents happens at the same rates in the gay and heterosexual populations – that’s why it is a leap of logic to conclude anything about a population’s sexuality based on its abuse rates.
Molestation, like rape, is about power more than it’s about sex. Molestors/rapists look for victims of opportunity rather than victims of a specific gender. Priests have had more access to boys, so have molested more boys – not because the priests are homosexual, but because the boys have been in their power. More speculatively, I wonder if a number of the priests in the article you linked (which is fascinating, and thought-provoking reading) pursued seminarians rather than other openly-gay priests because of the power dynamic.
And this part saddens me, because the rules for gay priests are the same as those for straight (and bisexual, and other) priests: be celibate. If any priests should be rooted out and defrocked, it’s those who are openly sexual, not those who are openly gay.*
*Note: I’m not saying that priests should be asexual or celibate – that’s a different debate – just that they’re currently required to be so.
Based on this article, it appears that the priesthood in Miami is a lot more casually out than I would have thought. I’m hesitant to conclude anything about the country based on one diocese.
I’m not Catholic either, but my understanding was that homosexual priests were allowed but only as long as they were celibate, just like heterosexual priests.
I think this has been their defacto policy for a long, long time and while religion and human nature are often at odds, denying a person’s innate sexual identity and expecting anything but the results they have gotten is magical thinking on an industrial scale.
I see your point, but (to be frank) I have a bit of a problem with the “it’s really more about power than innate sexuality” assertion in this specific context. While this dynamic may be true in certain circumstances like prison etc., I think preferentially going after young boys in your flock speaks more clearly about innate sexual preferences than it does some sort of non-gender specific power play by molesters. If boys are being preferentially molested at an 80/20 ratio, and gay people comprise approx 5% of the US population cohort I think it’s pretty clear there is a huge innate sexuality preference component reflected in the population of victims being groomed and chosen for molestation.
This relationship does assert that gays are innately molesters any more than hetero people, but it’s pretty clear than this population cohort of potential molesters is primarly gay in it’s makeup.
typo correction
I think you just defined religion.
Fair enough. I think opportunity is a large part of it, but I’m certainly wiling to concede that sexual preference probably plays a factor.
Okay, I see what you’re saying. I would agree if sexual preference were the only think at issue here, but, again, I think opportunity is a large part of it. Reporting may be a factor, too – are boys more likely to speak up about abuse than girls? I seem to remember this being posited elsewhere, and I could guess at some reasons, but I have no training/education in this area so I could likely be wrong.
I think it’s pretty clear that the population cohort of molesters primarily chose male victims. I don’t think we can draw inferences beyond that.
Out of curiosity, do we know if the rate of molestations reported in the Miami archdiocese was significantly higher than that of other dioceses?
I apologize, I never meant to hijack this thread – I was trying to separate two topics, but not to forestall discussion.