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
- CATHOLIC PRITS: IT'S 'EMPIRIL FACT' THAT MANY CLERGY ARE GAY
- GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
- 80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK
- WHY DID SO MANY GAY MEN ENTER THE PRITHOOD THE 20TH CENTURY?
- STUDY: NUMBER OF ‘GAY’ PRITS ‘PLUNG’
- THE GAY CHURCH
- ARE GAY PRITS THE PROBLEM?
- AS CATHOLIC SEX ABE CRISIS DEEPENS, CONSERVATIVE CIRCL BLAME GAY PRITS
- FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS
‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
Some Catholic clergy say most prits are gay. * what percentage of priests are gay *
” 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.
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. ”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.
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. “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.
CATHOLIC PRITS: IT'S 'EMPIRIL FACT' THAT MANY CLERGY ARE GAY
* what percentage of priests are gay *
Gay and straight prits alike are cheerg Pope Francis's ments about homosexualy the prithood, sayg gay prits make up a signifint segment of the Catholic clergy and serve papal regnn. Louis-based Catholic clergymen, says there's a wi range of statistics out there on gay prits, but jok that his experience, "30 percent are gay, 30 percent are straight, and 30 percent are nial. While Pope Francis famoly rpond "Who am I to judge" when asked about gay prits durg a papal prs nference, he has also said that anyone wh "ep seated" homosexual tennci shouldn't be a prit.
"Their place is not mistry or nsecrated life, " he Jam Mart, a Ju prit and thor, and the most high-profile advote for LGBTQ Catholics, said, "I thk that if you had sudnly all the gay prits the Uned Stat e out, I thk the Church would be forced to look at the qutn of homosexualy a very different light.
" "One of the thgs I lament is, if there were a se of, say, bullyg a parish or a school, would be wonrful for the gay prit to get up and say, 'Look, I was bullied as a boy, '" Father Mart said. ""It is a large, silent muny, a vast silent majory, " said Frédéric Martel, a French thor who spent four years rearchg his book, "In the Closet of the Vatin, " about the gay unrworld there. Father Greg Green, fahfully servg his parish Wisns, said secrecy is a surge the church, so the first step for him is beg open and asked, "You signed up to work for an stutn that thks beg gay, actg out on that, is a s.
GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
ABC rrponnt Father Edward Beck asks whether gay prits the Catholic Church are the problem? * what percentage of priests are gay *
Bernatte Catholic Parish, Milwkee, Jam Mart on Twter"In the Closet of the Vatin: Power, Homosexualy, Hypocrisy" by Frédéric Martel (Bloomsbury Contuum), Hardver, Tra Paperback, eBook and Aud formats, available via Amazon and Indiebound Story produced by Sari Aviv and Anna Matranga. 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.
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. This blog post is not about the full history of homosexuals the prithood, but rather the cultural factors and attacks on the Church the 20th century that created the perfect storm for many homosexuals to enter Catholic semari.
80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK
If you doubt that this terpretatn is a simply a stretch to clu homosexualy my blog post, look at which word the Apostle Pl to show how practicg homosexuals will not make to Heaven: "Or do you not know that the unrighteo will not her the kgdom of God? Do not be ceived: neher the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexualy (μαλακοὶ), nor thiev, nor the greedy, nor dnkards, nor revilers, nor swdlers will her the kgdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9–10).
Also remember that, although this blog post is not about the rapg of children, remember that nota bene number six at the begng of this blog post shows that 80 percent of the prits who harm children were intified as gay. The that followed Vatin II was not the genis of gay prits, but allowed them to live the open, and here's my gus as to why: All through semary, I was told that there was no change to lurgy or doctre. A man who do not believe any objective orr for his sexualy (homo-sex at bt, child abe at worst) is gog to be attracted to a Mass where he, the narcissist, is the only pot of reference for entertag the people.
Soclogist Pl Sulls recently timated that “about 17 percent of Catholic prits the Uned Stat are homosexual orientatn, a rate around 4 to 5 tim that discernible the wir populatn, ” Regnes wrote. Acrdg to the studi, “self-intified homosexual orientatn is notably more mon among ordatns that occurred before the year 2000—between 11 and 15 percent—than is after 2000 (2–3 percent), ” he wrote. The 2005 Instctn dited the Congregatn for Catholic Edutn, “ acrd wh the Congregatn for Dive Worship and the Disciple of the Sacraments, believ necsary to state clearly that 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’.
WHY DID SO MANY GAY MEN ENTER THE PRITHOOD THE 20TH CENTURY?
When we make projectns of this qutn out 20 years om now (not shown here), we timate that by 2041 the share of Catholic prits who would self-intify as eher entirely or mostly heterosexual should amount to over 92 percent, while those who would self-intify as eher entirely or mostly homosexual would amount to 7 percent.
Though fewer than 10 prits the Uned Stat have e out publicly as queer, gay men prise anywhere om 30 to 40 percent of the Amerin Catholic clergy, acrdg to timat om gay prits and rearchers, the New York Tim reported an article explorg the realy of beg a closeted clergy member. Some prits claim the percentage to be much higher, at 75 percent, while one Florida prit told the Tim that, when to prits, "A third are gay, a third are straight and a third don't know what the hell they are. Almost all the prits who spoke to the Tim did so anonymoly, sayg that their beg intified as gay, even if they have kept their vow of celibacy, uld lead them to lose their livelihood, as the Church ntrols their hog, health surance, and retirement prit scribed livg the closet as an "open closet, " sayg that, though gay prits don't speak about their sexualy, many know about other gay prits.
STUDY: NUMBER OF ‘GAY’ PRITS ‘PLUNG’
While the average g out age is 15, acrdg to the Tim, many prits do not e out to themselv until their 30s or prit who spoke to the Tim, Father Gregory Green, said he realized he was gay when he was 24 and nsired suici. " A 2002 John Jay College of Crimal Jtice study, missned by the church after the revelatns of sexual abe first me to light, found that same-sex experience didn't make a prit more likely to abe prits claimed they had sex wh other men or watched gay porn to explore their sexualy, but the Tim noted they "ultimately found more anguish than pleasure. " Gay prits have found ways to support each other, whether through fightg agast church-sponsored nversn therapy, gog on secret retreats, or even takg off their llar to unofficially bls a same-sex marriage.
(I e the term “homosexualy” here part bee Church documents tend to privilege the word, but mostly bee paratively few clergy would e terms like “gay” to scribe themselv or their fellows who experience nsistent same-sex attractns.
Most recently, soclogist Pl Sulls timated that about 17 percent of Catholic prits the Uned Stat are homosexual orientatn, a rate around 4 to 5 tim that discernible the wir populatn. The guidance regardg semarians regniz this: prev experience wh “homosexual tennci” is permissible, so long as they were “only the exprsn of a transory problem” and have been “clearly overe at least three years before ordatn to the dianate. Pope Emer Benedict XVI offered rare post-retirement remarks 2019 on the subject of semary culture the 1960s and ’70s, observg that “var semari homosexual cliqu were tablished, which acted more or ls openly and signifintly changed the climate the semari.
THE GAY CHURCH
Figure 1 dit that a self-intified homosexual orientatn is notably more mon among ordatns that occurred before the year 2000—between 11 and 15 percent—than is after 2000 (2–3 percent).
Simply put, self-intified homosexual prits—together wh those who intify wh gradatns close to homosexualy (or bisexualy)—are notably ls apt to report that celibacy is not a problem and that they do not waver the vow, regardls of when they were ordaed. Jt unr 35 percent of pre-1981 ordands asserted that homosexual behavr is “seldom” or “never” a s, whereas only 6 percent of 2001–2010 ordands and 4 percent of post-2010 ordands chose the answers.
ARE GAY PRITS THE PROBLEM?
Namely, exhibs a distct disfort potg fgers at homosexualy — the same disfort exhibed large part by the Church hierarchy, which, spe of tough measur implemented after the sex abe crisis, fails to look at the root e: homosexual prits, and the gay-iendly bishops who protect them. In 2004, clared that "80 percent of the abe at issue was of a homosexual nature" and went on to affirm that "an unrstandg of the crisis is not possible" whout referrg to "the prence of homosexually oriented prits.
It was gay-iendly, dissint Dearn who beme the first print of the Natnal Conference of Catholic Bishops, now the USCCB — which to this day remas vted matag the narrative that the sex abe crisis had ltle to do wh gay clergy and everythg to do wh a handful of viant, child-moltg perverts unnnected to homosexualy. 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.
AS CATHOLIC SEX ABE CRISIS DEEPENS, CONSERVATIVE CIRCL BLAME GAY PRITS
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. ” 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.
FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS
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.
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. Homosexuals, the new theology, were part of nature — many had noticed homosexual behavr the animal kgdom, particularly among har and hyenas — but they were also somehow ntrary to nature. 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.