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:
- THE GAY CHURCH
- 21 GAY POP, CARDALS, AND ASSORTED CATHOLIC LEARS
- 21 GAY POPES, CARDINALS AND ASSORTED CATHOLIC LEADERS.
THE GAY CHURCH
In the Uned Stat, however, where there are 37, 000 prits, no pennt study has found fewer than 15 percent to be gay, and some have found as many as 60 percent. 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. 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. “I replied wh another qutn: ‘Tell me, when God looks at a gay person, do he endorse the existence of this person wh love or reject and nmn this person?
21 GAY POP, CARDALS, AND ASSORTED CATHOLIC LEARS
” In the fal draft of the 2014 Synod on the Fay, Francis clud explic mentn of the “gifts and quali” of homosexuals, askg, “Are we pable of welg [them]? 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.
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. “It is time to adm that there is a homosexual subculture wh the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreakg great vastatn, ” he wrote.
“If you’ll perm me, what the church needs now is more hatred” of homosexual sexual behavr, “a s so grave that cri out to heaven for vengeance. ” 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.
21 GAY POPES, CARDINALS AND ASSORTED CATHOLIC LEADERS.
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. Many of the people I spoke to, Catholics and non-Catholics, about the subject of gay prits rolled their ey and asked about the abe of children.