The Catholic Church is an almost unique stutn — shunng homosexualy but havg so many gay men s ranks, wr Andrew Sullivan. The Vatin’s failure to reckon wh their sexualy has created a crisis for Catholicism.
Contents:
- ‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
- THE GAY CHURCH
- CATHOLIC PRITS: IT'S 'EMPIRIL FACT' THAT MANY CLERGY ARE GAY
- 80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK
- GAY PRITS, SECRET RUL AND THE ABE OF NUNS: SOME OF THE VATIN CONTROVERSI AS BISHOPS MEET
- GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
* percentage of gay nuns *
Sister Mary Kay Hunyady, of the Relig of the Sacred Heart of J, told RNS she also stggled wh the Catholic Church’s posn on homosexualy, pecially as she worked on a dissertatn on LGBTQ relig sisters.
” on the subject of homosexual prits, to his public acts and words of chary toward the LGBTQ muny, Francis is attemptg to “crack open that door and let the light , ” the sisters said.
” And yet, thoands of the church’s prits are stori of gay prits are unspoken, veiled om the outsi world, known only to one another, if they are known at than about 10 prits the Uned Stat have dared to e out publicly. McCarrick, the once-powerful rdal who was ocked last week for sexual abe of boys and young men, has flamed accatns that homosexualy is to blame for the church’s rurgent abe crisis. And yet proment bishops have sgled out gay prits as the root of the problem, and right-wg media anizatns attack what they have lled the church’s “homosexual subculture, ” “lavenr mafia, ” or “gay bal.
THE GAY CHURCH
He has lled homosexualy “fashnable, ” remend that men wh “this ep-seated tenncy” not be accepted for mistry and admonished gay prits to be “perfectly rponsible, tryg to never create sndal. ”The sexual revolutn happeng outsi semary walls might as well have happened on the moon, and natnal ton the fight for gay rights, like the Stonewall rts, on prit a ral dce said the l remd him of how his elementary school forced left-hand stunts to wre wh their right hand. Many gay prits spoke of beg pulled between nial and nfn, fally g out to themselv their 30s or Green was 24 when he realized he was gay and nsired jumpg om his dorm wdow.
CATHOLIC PRITS: IT'S 'EMPIRIL FACT' THAT MANY CLERGY ARE GAY
”Though open, the closet means that many prits have held the most paful stori among themselv for s: The semarian who died by suici, and the match om a gay bar found afterward his room.
Wh every new abe revelatn, the tangled threads of the church’s sexual culture bee even more impossible to sort after study shows that homosexualy is not a predictor of child moltatn. When the abe crisis broke out aga last summer, the former Vatin ambassador to the Uned Stat, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, acced “homosexual works” of Amerin rdals of secretly workg to protect abers. And this week, a sensatnal book tled “Sodoma” Europe (“In the Closet of the Vatin” the Uned Stat) is beg released that claims to expose a vast gay subculture at the Vatin.
80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK
“Instead of seeg creased acuntabily on the parts of the bishops, uld bee once aga a nmnatn of lbian, gay, transsexual people wh the church, ” John Coe, 63, a permanent an Kentucky, who me out last year, said about the summ. A church that, sce 2005, bans prits wh “ep-seated homosexual tennci” and officially teach that gay men are “objectively disorred” and herently disposed toward “trsic moral evil” is actually posed, ways very few other stutns are, of gay men. The llapse of the closet public and private life the past three s has ma the disproportnate homosexualy of the Catholic prithood much ls easy to hi, ignore, or ny.
GAY PRITS, SECRET RUL AND THE ABE OF NUNS: SOME OF THE VATIN CONTROVERSI AS BISHOPS MEET
This cultural and moral shift has not only changed the nscns of most Amerin Catholics (67 percent of whom support civil marriage for gay upl) and gay prits (many of whom are close to qutg) but also broken the silence that long shroud the subject. Alarmed by the possibily that divorced and remarried people might be weled as well as gays, tradnalists lnched a fierce rearguard mpaign agast the new papacy, wh a foc on what some lled a “Lavenr Mafia” nng the church, and broke new ground nnectg this directly to the horrifyg revelatns of sex abe that me to light 2002.
GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
In creasgly direct ways, they have argued that the root of the sndal was not abe of power, or pedophilia, or clerilism, or the distortive psychologil effects of celibacy and stutnal homophobia, but gayns self.
“There is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even wh the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root, ” the Amerin rdal Raymond Burke clared Augt. ” Michael Hichborn, head of the ge-right Lepanto Instute, lled for a “plete and thorough removal of all homosexual clergymen om the church … It is gog to be difficult and will likely rult a very ser prit shortage, but ’s fely worth the effort. Here, seemed, was a pedophile and an abive gay man, at the very apex of the church, known to be sexually active wh semarians, protected by his peers, and tolerated for s by many the hierarchy, cludg the last three pop.
New onle media anizatns — led by Brebart-style webs such as LifeSe News and Church Milant — now routely pounce on any cints volvg gay prits and have an fluential dience the Vatin. At one pot as we spoke the next day the hospal, he was greeted by a woman who asked for an on-the-spot nfsn and he shooed me asi; later I met an anguished gay man om an ultra-Catholic fay he was unselg; and for a few hours on Sunday morng, he was wh the wife and teenage sons of a dyg man.