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

Contents:

• THE GAY CHURCH
• ‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
• A BLACK GAY PRIT NEW YORK CY IS CHALLENGG THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OM WH
• THE VATIN’S GAY OVERLORDS
• GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
• OPENLY GAY CATHOLIC PRIT DISCS POPE FRANCIS' APPEAL FOR LGBTQ PROTECTNS
• THE CORPTN OF THE VATIN’S GAY ELE HAS BEEN EXPOSED

THE GAY CHURCH

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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. 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. 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.

THE VATIN’S GAY OVERLORDS

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.

But Viganò’s ttimony on the key qutn — that an actively abive homosexual rdal was knowgly tolerated by John Pl II and Benedict XVI and nsulted by Francis — had the rg of tth.

(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. ” 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.

GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

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.

“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. ”The Vatin holds that gay and lbian people should be treated wh digny and rpect, but that gay sex is “trsilly disorred” and his hoy on a recent Sunday, Father Massgale—who beme public about beg gay 2019—envisned a world “where the digny of every person is rpected and protected, where everyone is loved.

“I realized that no matter what the church said, God loved me and accepted me as a Black gay man, ” he ordatn 1983 me the early years of the HIV/AIDS epimic that disproportnately affected gay men and Black Amerins.

THE CORPTN OF THE VATIN’S GAY ELE HAS BEEN EXPOSED

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMany of New York Cy’s most outwardly gay-iendly parish are ncentrated Manhattan, a center of both gay culture and efforts to build a gay-iendly Watts for The New York TimThe pews fill up quickly each Sunday at the Church of St.

Mistri; anizg events like spirual retreats, hik and happy hours at lol gay bars; celebratg Mass and other events durg Pri Month; and by speakg up for the gay Watts for The New York TimWhen the Vatin issued a statement March that said prits uld not bls same-sex unns, which rid as a form of s, the parish and a handful of others Manhattan issued statements of dismay or ed hoi durg Mass as an opportuny to fort L.

Interviews wh more than two dozen gay Catholics New York revealed a powerful sire to rencile their sexual inty wh their fah both God and an stutn that has often approached them wh hostily. Lbian, gay and bisexual people are much ls likely than heterosexuals to attend relig servic, intify as a member of a relig group or believe that Scripture is the word of God, acrdg to Pew Rearch Center survey data om 80 percent of people surveyed that poll said they nsired the Catholic Church to be “uniendly” to the L.