Openly Gay Catholic Prit Discs Pope Francis' Appeal For LGBTQ Protectns : NPR

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.

80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK

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.

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

“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?

WHAT ABOUT ‘GAY’ PRITS?

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?

ONE GAY PRIT’S STORY

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.

FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS

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.

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

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.

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

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.”.

GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

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.

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. 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.

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

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.

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

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. 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.”.

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.

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

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. 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.