Why Did So Many Gay Men Enter the Prithood the 20th Century?

Contents:

• ‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
• 80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK
• OPENLY GAY CATHOLIC PRIT DISCS POPE FRANCIS' APPEAL FOR LGBTQ PROTECTNS
• WHAT ABOUT ‘GAY’ PRITS?
• ONE GAY PRIT’S STORY
• FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS
• WHY DID SO MANY GAY MEN ENTER THE PRITHOOD THE 20TH CENTURY?
• GAY FORMER PRIT: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 'IS A SICK STUTN'
• GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
• A BLACK GAY PRIT NEW YORK CY IS CHALLENGG THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OM WH
• CATHOLIC PRITS: IT'S 'EMPIRIL FACT' THAT MANY CLERGY ARE GAY
• AS CATHOLIC SEX ABE CRISIS DEEPENS, CONSERVATIVE CIRCL BLAME GAY PRITS

‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT

” 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. 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 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.

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.

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 total of about 80 percent of the most revered clerics the Roman Catholic Church are homosexual spe the church’s opposn to gay rights, acrdg to the extensively rearched book by French journalist Frédéric Martel. The gay prits adhere to an unspoken lled “the closet, ” where is unrstood that, for stance, a rdal or bishop who nounc homosexualy is more likely to be gay, acrdg to the book “In the Closet of the Vatin.

And so this ll for the civil regnn and protectn of gay civil unns, 's really an affirmatn of the humany of gay and lbian persons - that he's sayg that bee gay and lbian persons are human begs, that society, that the state, that ernments have an obligatn and a duty to protect their basic human Do extendg the right to a civil unn and acknowledgg that LGBTQ people should be allowed to have a partner their life through a civil unn and a fay - do that mean children?

OPENLY GAY CATHOLIC PRIT DISCS POPE FRANCIS' APPEAL FOR LGBTQ PROTECTNS

Now, may seem to be a semantic difference, but I thk what the pope is sayg is that he is not opposed to the legal regnn of fay life and the right for gay and lbian persons to raise and have As a gay Catholic yourself, I mean, as a man of fah, as a Catholic, is somehow ls signifint, I would image, a civil unn than beg able to be married the church? I personally - and I know many others, gay and lbian persons and those who are alli and who love - would want the church to be able to one day regnize the lovg mments of LGBTQ persons the sacrament of marriage. And what the pope is dog wh this kd of claratn - he's clearly puttg the Catholic Church on the si of agast the crimalizatn of behavr and favor of protectg the human digny of gay and lbian But help me unrstand this bee 's my unrstandg that the Catholic Church still nsirs homosexualy to be a s, not somethg that should be enuraged a liftyle.

And I thk that this really giv a different lens for that kd of nversatn that go on the Catholic Church that we're basilly sayg that, no, gay and lbian persons n, you know, have a right to a fay.

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. 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.

WHAT ABOUT ‘GAY’ PRITS?

Here we enter to the mystery of the human beg.” 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]?” The sentiments won 62 percent of the vot of the synod bishops — jt shy of what was necsary to pass, but still evince of a sharp shift tone official Catholic teachg. 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. “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.”.

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. 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. The news environment is saturated wh stori about sex abe — and rightly so — yet there are hardly any public exampl of the overwhelmg number of gay prits who would never dream of preyg upon the powerls.

ONE GAY PRIT’S STORY

How do you live a healthy sexualy a ntext where your sexualy is stigmatized?” After the 2005 ban on gay prits, Father Mike beme attracted to nversn therapy and unrwent a year and a half of tryg to be cured of beg gay.

FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS

For example, as the late historian John Boswell monstrated his groundbreakg, ntroversial book Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, a fourth-century Christian wrer, John Chrysostom, attacked the lears of the church for beg too acceptg of same-sex love and even sex: “Those very people who have been nourished by godly doctre, who stct others what they ought and ought not to do … the do not nsort wh prostut as fearlsly as they do wh young men … None is ashamed, no one blh … the chaste seem to be the odd on, and the disapprovg the on error.” There was nsirable Christian ncern about sex general — followg the teachg of sats Pl and Augte — but no nsens that homosexualy, if kept to tense mutual love and celibate iendship, was specifilly problematic. “I ntamated the sprg of iendship wh the dirt of lt and darkened s brightns wh the blackns of sire.” Some have speculated that Augte’s starkly Manichaean divi between the spir and the body is rooted his disgt at his own homosexual tennci.

By the 12th century, prits and monks were wrg love poems to one another what Boswell scrib as an “outburst of Christian gay lerature still whout parallel the Wtern world.” But perhaps rponse to this broad acceptance of gay spirualy, some began to mpaign for a crackdown. Around 1051, Sat Peter Damian published a treatise, The Book of Gomorrah, whose rhetoric is strikgly siar to the onle nunciatns of our time: “absolutely no other vice n be reasonably pared wh this one … [] is fact the ath of the body, the stctn of the soul … remov tth utterly om the md.” He acced the church of beg n by a gay bal who vered for each other and gave one another absolutn for their ss. The pope at the time, Leo IX, nohels refed to ban gay clergy and argued that the problem was those who had sex “as a long-standg practice or wh many men.” An ocsnal lapse uld be fiven, if nfsed.

WHY DID SO MANY GAY MEN ENTER THE PRITHOOD THE 20TH CENTURY?

The ti turned cisively the 13th century wh the theologil geni Thomas Aquas nouncg homosexual acts as “agast nature.” All sex — heterosexual and homosexual — was to be rerved only for married upl open to procreatn, and any other sexual activy was a grave s.

GAY FORMER PRIT: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 'IS A SICK STUTN'

Carl Jung intified the archetypal gifts of the homosexual: “a great pacy for iendship, which often creat ti of astonishg tenrns between men”; a talent for teachg, athetics, and tradn (“to be nservative the bt sense and cherish the valu of the past”); “a wealth of relig feelgs, which help to brg the ecclia spirualis to realy; and a spirual receptivy which mak him rponsive to revelatn.”.

GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

But some abe of male teens and young adults, as well as abe of other prits, is clearly related to homosexualy gone horribly astray — and around a quarter of the reported s volve 15- to 17-year-old victims. One of Europe’s senr rdals, Keh O’Brien of Stland, scribed homosexualy as a “moral gradatn” and marriage equaly as “madns.” Sure enough, he was eventually forced to rign and leave the untry after beg acced of abive sexual relatnships wh four other prits. The lear of Church Milant, which is obssed wh gay prits, is a self-scribed “ex-gay.” This is a good le: Those the hierarchy obssed wh the homosexual qutn often turn out to be gay; those who are lmer tend to be straight.

A BLACK GAY PRIT NEW YORK CY IS CHALLENGG THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OM WH

He was also the theologian who monstrated a manic sire to police the slightt viatn om orthodoxy, who scribed gay people as “objectively disorred” and cled toward an “trsic moral evil,” and who, after he banned gay prits, lled them “one of the miseri of the church.” Even to suggt some kd of nnectn between all the aspects of someone who is also holy, celibate, and sensive is to be acced of a disgtg suatn. Then he went further allowg for good gay prits the church: “The problem is not havg this tenncy, no; we mt be brothers and sisters to one another.” The problem, he said, was if gays were to form some kd of factn or lobby wh the church — but this, he explaed, applied to any lobby: “a lobby of misers, a lobby of policians, a lobby of Masons.”. One possible optn is the preference of the Catholic right: for all those implited the McCarrick ver-up to rign, cludg, one prum, Francis (and Pope Emer Benedict XVI?); for a massive vtigatn to be lnched to how gay prits, bishops, and rdals me to be so mon and powerful; and for strict enforcement of the 2005 ban on prits.

CATHOLIC PRITS: IT'S 'EMPIRIL FACT' THAT MANY CLERGY ARE GAY

(Whether celibacy is healthy for the church is s own qutn, one oddly distct om the current crisis; a relaxatn of the l wouldn’t self rolve the church’s posn on homosexualy, and an embrace of homosexualy is patible wh a celibate prithood.) Enuragg an end to the closet would unrle the distctn the church formally mak between homosexual inty and homosexual acts. “I was cryg my ey out … The srs that were left — they gave me PTSD for years.” He supprsed his sexualy and pursued what he saw as his llg to be a prit but suffered a breakdown over his gayns when he was 24.

When early Christian mentators such as John Chrysostom, one of the most prolific biblil wrers of the fourth century, cricized homosexual acts, was typilly part of an ascetic nmnatn of all sexual experienc. Regardg ndidat for the prithood, December 2016 the Congregatn for the Clergy, wh Pope Francis’s approval, reaffirmed that men who live a homosexual liftyle, have “ep-seated homosexual tennci, ” or support the “so-lled ‘gay culture’” nnot be admted to the misterial prithood:. In relatn to persons wh homosexual tennci who seek admissn to semary, or disver such a suatn the urse of formatn, nsistent wh her own Magisterium, “the Church, while profoundly rpectg the persons  qutn, nnot adm to the semary or to holy orrs those who practise homosexualy, prent ep-seated homosexual tennci or support the so-lled ‘gay culture.

This document reaffirms that, ntrary to some reports, the Church don’t view the term gay favorably, given s associatn wh livg and promotg a liftyle that is irrencilable wh J Christ and his teachg (see John 8:31-32) you like this ntent? And I cid I would no longer ignore fellow prits' ments about "uk" or "fags" or the dce's efforts to block passage of antidiscrimatn laws that would guarantee hog and job protectn for gays and lbians.

AS CATHOLIC SEX ABE CRISIS DEEPENS, CONSERVATIVE CIRCL BLAME GAY PRITS

Some of the most senr clerics the Roman Catholic church who have vociferoly attacked homosexualy are themselv gay, acrdg to a book to be published next per cent of prits workg at the Vatin are gay, although not necsarily sexually active, is claimed the book, In the Closet of the 570-page book, which the French journalist and thor Frédéric Martel spent four years rearchg, is a “startlg acunt of rptn and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatin”, acrdg to s Brish publisher is beg published eight languag across 20 untri next Wednday, cidg wh the openg day of a nference at the Vatin on sexual abe, to which bishops om all over the world have been, a former adviser to the French ernment, nducted 1, 500 terviews while rearchg the book, cludg wh 41 rdals, 52 bishops and monsignors, 45 papal ambassadors or diplomatic officials, 11 Swiss guards and more than 200 prits and semarians, acrdg to a report on the Catholic webse the spoke of an unspoken of the “closet”, wh one le of thumb beg that the more homophobic a cleric was, the more likely he was to be alleg that one Colombian rdal, the late Alfonso López Tjillo, who held a senr Vatin posn, was an arch-fenr of church teachg on homosexualy and ntraceptn while g male prostut, the Tablet thor found that some gay prits accepted their sexualy and a few mataed discreet relatnships, but others sought high-risk sual enunters.

Although the book do not nflate homosexualy wh the sexual abe of children, Martel scrib a secretive culture among prits that creat ndns which abe is not nonted, say people faiar wh the book’s ntents. ”But a Polish prit who was sacked om his Vatin job and ocked after announcg he was gay has acced the church of makg the liv of lns of gay Catholics “a hell” a letter to Francis 2015, Krzysztof Charamsa cricised what he lled the Vatin’s hypocrisy banng gay prits and said the clergy was “full of homosexuals” December, Francis was quoted a book about votns as sayg homosexualy was a “fashn” to which the clergy was sceptible. In our societi even seems that homosexualy is fashnable and that mentaly, some way, also fluenc the life of the church, ” he timg of Insi the Closet’s publitn, at the start of a tone summ on sexual abe, will raise ncerns that some people may seek to nflate the two the book’s allegatns are likely to be pored over by senr bishops flyg to Rome om more than 100 untri for the four-day summ.

Official Catholic teachg nsirs any sexual act outsi of marriage between a man and a woman of the gatherg, known as a synod, there was an unprecented nvassg of Catholics worldwi, which found that the fahful want to see ncrete steps to promote women to cisn-makg posts as well as a “radil cln” of the LGBTQ+ muny the the pope,  an terview wh The Associated Prs  January, cried as “unjt” laws that crimalize homosexualy and clared that “beg homosexual is not a crime, ’’ Mart, who is a Ju like Francis, asked him for clarifitn, given the church’s teachg on the subject. In fact, the fact that we have only one sat repeatedly quoted on this topic om 19 centuri before our own prov to me that we have never had an epimic of so many homosexuals the prithood as today.