Well, when you think about it, the conjecture by definition would only apply to a “very small number of high profile cases”, since there are a limited number of high profile leaders. I think you underestimate how homophobic the Church is, but I may be biased by living relatively near San Francisco.
Whatever the laypeople may have voted, the Church itself was a major player in the war against gay marriage; I recall complaints from liberal Catholics about all the money that was being wasted on it. < googles > ; here’s a mention.
I think there are some homosexuals who try to deny their sexual orientation by publically supporting anti-gay programs. My guess is that they feel if they can eliminate homosexuality out in the world they will no longer be tempted by it.
Who was the anti-gay leader a year ago who was essentially saying we need more anti-gay laws because everybody knows men are more attractive and anti-gay laws are the only way to keep boys from succumbing to their seductive wiles?
So, um, the Catholic Church is against both sex AND marriage. Nice…
Seriously, IIRC the official Catholic position is that if you are gay it is OK for you to be a member of the church in good standing because even though gay sex is a sin, everyone’s a sinner, and so long as you repent and don’t have gay sex you can be a good Catholic. Easy as pie.
Also, all denominations have had peddoes in thier preisthoods, because of course one of the chief attractions of the religious life for peddoes is gaining access to kids, and most religions tend to give access to kids to religious types, because they’re “safe” y’know. What made the Catholics particularly odious and a valid target of so many lawsuits is that the Catholic hierarchy in the US actively conspired to ship peddo preists around to unsuspecting congregations once their activities in a particular parish got noticed.
You’ve cited one article on a particular state with a very special difference.
The hierarchy mentioned in the article (which may or may not have its own spin on the matter) were reacting to a specific situation in Massachusetts 20 to 40 years after most of them started up their path to the hierarchy. My reaction was to your claim that they were using anti-gay rhetoric to increase their popularity. This hardly is consistent with your later cite that the opposition was mostly behind closed doors.
I doubt that you could find very many in the Catholic hierarchy who favored homosexuality, but you made one guess that has not been supported and have now tried to support it with a claim for its antithesis.
I was told by an ex-priest (current age about 65) that the reason he, and two other gay priests he’d know and discussed it with, had gone into the priesthood was in part that it was an acceptable to their families explanation for why they weren’t getting on in the dating-getting engaged-getting married-having children life progression that was expected of good Catholic boys.
He was deeply religious, too, I’m not saying he wasn’t. It’s just that it must be easier for someone who knows they aren’t heterosexual to give up the chance for wife and family, so that might well be a cause of the greater concentration of gay men in the Catholic clergy.
Correct if wrong, but isn’t that considered an acceptable state for priesthood? After all, isn’t it the celibacy itself, not what particular form of sex you’re abstaining from?
My point was that it was easier (especially 30-40 years ago) for a Catholic boy to tell his friends/family/social network that the reason he wasn’t going after women was because he wanted to be a priest than to tell them it was because he just wasn’t interested in women.
This reminded me of a recent NY Times Op-Ed with related information (although it specifically deals with Senator Craig’s recent tribulations). In particular, they mention research by Loyd Humphreys from the 1970s:
Just thought I’d throw that cite in here; tangential relation, at best, but with some pertinent information.
tomndebb, I think you are right when it comes to the Catholic Church’s view of homosexuality. Although it could be because I live in a large city, where many of the parishes are very liberal, I have not come across much homophobia coming from either the clergy or the laity. It doesn’t seem to be much of an issue at all, speaking from my experience.
My theory about why a lot of gay men become priests is that, in the Church, both homosexuality and the priesthood call for celibacy. A man who wants to remain celibate due to the teaching on homosexuality, or who does not believe that he will have a family (meaning a spouse and children), can give meaning to his life by also entering the priesthood.
Of course, there are many gay Catholics who do have relationships and also consider themselves to be in communion with the Church, and often they have priests who are their spiritual leaders who help them come to terms with it. But a very religious/devout man may not be able to reconcile that, and choose to remain celibate instead.
ETA: I’m sorry, I missed that **Starving but Strong ** touched on this point as well…I never thought of the angle that it’s something they can tell the family. That is a really good point.
I think that in the old days they tried to “weed out” homosexuals from the seminary, but I think that was more from bigotry than anything else (they do psychological testing to be sure that you know what you are getting into, and when homosexuality was considered deviant, medically speaking, you wouldn’t pass). These days, I think you are right…if you are going to be celibate, it’s really kind of irrelevant what your proclivity is. I think this is one of the reasons homosexuality hasn’t become a hot-button issue in the Catholic Church. In other denominations, having gay clergy actually means that there may be a gay partner/spouse of the minister in the parish. It kind of puts the subject right out there, you know?
No. There was a directive released in 2005 (after this big investigation of a seminary in Austria, in which they found, basically, a lot of gay porn and that the seminarians were sleeping with each other) saying that homosexuals, because they’re not emotionally mature and unable to put themselves in the proper relationship with men and women, gays shouldn’t be ordained or admitted to the seminary. The English translation of the text is here:
There had been an earlier document, from 1961, called “Careful Selection and Training of of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders”, which, while it goes into a lot of different topics regarding ordination, says, regarding homosecuality:
That’s interesting, and I was not aware of it, thank you. It’s strange to me, though, because I know men who have been in the seminary who say that it is commonly known who is gay and who is straight, and it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. Of course, if there was a lot of gay porn and sexual activity, it might have become an issue, I don’t know. Further evidence, I think, that the Church is not a monolith.