Gay prits: Breakg the silence - CBS News

Contents:

• ‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
• OPENLY GAY CATHOLIC PRIT DISCS POPE FRANCIS' APPEAL FOR LGBTQ PROTECTNS
• 80 PERCENT OF PRITS THE VATIN ARE GAY: NEW BOOK
• GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
• WHAT ABOUT ‘GAY’ PRITS?
• GAY FORMER PRIT: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 'IS A SICK STUTN'
• A GAY PRIT RIGNED OVER GRDR USE. HE WAS OUTED BY HIS CELL PHONE DATA
• THE GAY CHURCH
• ‘I WAS A GAY PRIT FOR 25 YEARS’
• WHY DID SO MANY GAY MEN ENTER THE PRITHOOD THE 20TH CENTURY?
• TAXI-DRIVG GAY CATHOLIC PRIT SUBJECTED TO VILE HOMOPHOBIC ABE
• FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS

‘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. 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.

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.

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.

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

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. 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?

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.

GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

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 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.

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.

WHAT ABOUT ‘GAY’ PRITS?

""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.

A five-year study by New York's John Jay College, missned by bishops, found "the data do not support a fdg that homosexual inty is a risk factor for the sexual abe of mors.

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. 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.

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

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:.

A GAY PRIT RIGNED OVER GRDR USE. HE WAS OUTED BY HIS CELL PHONE DATA

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? He and his partner plan to soon enter to a civil Wolf never had any problems leadg Nashville area church until he was quoted a 2019 New York Tim article about gay nsirable blowback, Wolf rigned and retired a few months after that story published.

THE GAY CHURCH

The Pillar, a Catholic newsletter on Substack, approached the USCCB wh data they claimed proved that Burrill had vised gay bars and actively ed Grdr for gay hookups, which vlat both the vow of celibacy mandated for Catholic prits and the church’s stance on print Archbishop José Gomez said that Burrill chose to rign to avoid beg “a distractn, ” acrdg to the Washgton a statement to the Post, a spokperson for Grdr lled The Pillar’s story “homophobic” and ially nied was possible for the pany’s data to have been ed this way. ”The Pillar’s origal story argued that Burrill’s work on child protectn issu was nflict wh his e of the gay datg app, playg to the persistent, damagg, and false stereotype lkg gay men to pedophilia. A group of 122 people which clus current and former prits, teachers, admistrators and volunteers intified themselv as gay or queer to prsure the Roman Catholic Church Germany to do away wh s “outdated statements of church doctre, ” Dtsche Welle reports.

‘I WAS A GAY PRIT FOR 25 YEARS’

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. 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.

” 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.

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

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.

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. “But how do you e to a posive unrstandg of your sexualy when the church won’t say you even have a sexual orientatn, jt ‘same-sex attractn’ or ‘ep-seated homosexual tennci’?

TAXI-DRIVG GAY CATHOLIC PRIT SUBJECTED TO VILE HOMOPHOBIC ABE

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. The historil rerd, however, reveals that for all Augte’s fluence, the practice of tense homoerotic iendship among the clergy was mon over the followg centuri, pecially monasteri.

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. Damian was a leadg reformer of the church his day, far beyond the gay-prit issue, and a synod 1059 rpond to all of his many proposals — except the one agast gay clergy.

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.

FOUR FIVE VATIN PRITS ARE GAY, BOOK CLAIMS

In many ways, the old, elaborate High Mass, wh s cense and procsns, lor-d vtments, lurgil plexy, mil precisn, choirs, ans, and sheer drama, is obvly, part, a creatn of the gay prithood.

To nflate sexual abe wh the gay prithood, as many now reflexively do, is a grotque libel on the vast majory who have never ntemplated such crim and are ed appalled by them. 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. 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.

Some of the gay prits I spoke wh acknowledged laps but sisted that, nsultatn wh their spirual directors and superrs, they chose celibacy when the choice beme impossible to ignore or avoid. ” 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.