Woof-Woof.
Seriously?
In one part of the investigation Panorama said that one priest, named as Carlo, willingly put on his cassock to have sex with the reporter's gay accomplice, adding 'all of which was filmed by the hidden camera'.
The magazine also described how they had attended a Mass which was celebrated by Carlo.
In its preview Panorama insisted that it had carried out through checks and established that all three priests were bona fide but would not reveal their real names or any other details.
Panorama editor Giorgio Mule said: 'This was a two week investigation and was not aimed at creating a scandal but showing that a certain section of the clergy behaves very differently.'
After lots of brainstorming on a strategy and pacing the floors in Rome, viola:
The Vicar of Rome today called on homosexual clergymen in the Catholic Church to “come out” and leave the priesthood.
The Vicar of Rome, one of the most important positions in the Vatican, was responding to a report today in Panorama Magazine that said Catholic priests were conducting a double life, citing secret video footage.
“No one is forcing them to stay in the priesthood to exploit the benefits,” the Diocese of Rome said in a statement posted on its Web Site. “If they are coherent, they should come out into the open.”
The benefits aren't even that good anymore.
Come out, come out wherever you are?
That's it?
I'm underwhelmed.
Here's my two cents on the PR:
1. Are they pretending they don't have the paper trails on problem priests? Open the mail and check the fax machines. Make a spreadsheet of the characters. Send them an excommunication bull, an eviction notice and the date of their last check.
2. I think it's unfair to characterize every homosexual priest as a liability that should come out and get out. There ARE celibate homosexual priests who are serving the Church faithfully. Why throw the baby out with the bath water?
3. Moreover, there are sexually active heterosexual priests. The invitation for sexually active priests to get out should include heterosexuals.
4. Have they watched a US Episcopal Conference in the last 20 years? Where's their invitation to pony up and get out of Dodge? Go through the alphabet, starting somewhere around Hubbard and ending somewhere around Lynch.
12 comments:
I can't agree with the notion of a "celibate homosexual" serving faithfully. A man who calls himself a homo has, to some degree, inwardly assented to unnatural and perverse inclinations. If he truly renounces the temptation and has reformed, then he cannot call himself a homo. Even then, in the tradition of the Church, such a man is not eligible for Holy Orders, which calls for the utmost purity.
Furthermore, applying the term celibate to the homo is an oxymoron. (I forgot where I read this, but it is not original with me.) One who consecrates himself to God in celibacy gives up something worthy, the taking of a spouse for the purpose of raising children. But the homo gives up something sinful which is necessary for him to renounce to be saved. It therefore is not a good which he offers up to God.
As long as we suffer under this false notion of tolerance, letting men afflicted with perversion hold the precious Body and Blood of Our Lord on the altar, we will suffer the punishment God sends. Such men will rape our sons and will drive the Church back into the catacombs.
Jerry,
I know the Holy See has set the bar at seminaries going forward about not ordaining homosexually attracted persons. I agree with their assessment that even with good intentions of living celibate, sending them forward into a vocation that is all men is foolish. It would be like putting a young heterosexual heading towards a vocation for priesthood into a nunery. The climate sets the best intentions up for temptations that can be too overwhelming.
I'm not sure I understand your paragraph about celibacy being an oxymoron for a homosexual priest who left his sexuality outside the doors of the seminary.
Let's say a prostitute gives up her sinful sexuality - even though her use of sex was disordered, her offering to God is every bit as pleasing to Him. Isn't that Mary Magdelene's role in the story of salvation?
I should clarify by saying the priests I'm speaking about have been ordained for a long time and they have never mentioned anything about sexuality and are quite asexual. Blips on my gaydar. I presumed they renounced their attractions many moons ago.
Hi Carol,
That's another good point regarding the occasion of sin of putting such a man in a seminary full of men.
If "they renounced their attractions" then they're not homos. The other side would say that, because they're born that way, they're always homo. But the good God cannot make someone that way, although He does allow temptations.
Celibacy is the offering of a one good thing for the sake of a greater good. Renouncing sin is not such an offering, but is rather a duty. A man who gives up marriage cannot be compared to a man who gives up sodomy. To call the latter celibacy is an abuse of the term.
While the tradition of banning homos and effeminates from the ministry are clear, vice in general is an impediment. From Pope St. Siricius in the 4th Century: "... a layman should never be allowed to ascend to clerical honor after penance and reconciliation. Because although they have been purified of the contagion of all sins, those who formerly indulged in a multitude of vices should not receive the instruments to administer the sacraments." For example, I think Mel Gibson is definitely out.
Carol, To clarify... St. Augustine committed every grave sin he could think of... he did not live as a homosexual to my knowledge. Still he was a vowed and notorious sinner, saved through the grace of God and the heroic efforts of his mother, St. Monica.
M
Jerry,
Thanks. I see your point about giving up marriage vs. giving up temptation and sin. I never thought about it like that before.
I had a tendency to look at it from the perspective on a more basic level. Once priests go through the Sacrament of Ordination, they are as committed as a married man to be faithful to their spouse (or Spouse!) and any active sexuality is sinful.
I'm not talking about going forward in Ordination because I am on board with the Holy See.
We have what we have now and I loathe to put priests who have been faithful to the Magisterium and the Sacrament and the teachings of the Church into category with priests who are out selling sex and actively involved sexually themselves and telling them to mosey on down the road.
I'm struggling with this.
In thinking about what you're saying, I probably should clarify my thoughts that I realize heterosexual priests may struggle at some point in their vocation with celibacy and I do not think they should be thrown out with the bath water - so there is a difference to me. Heteros can survive in a boys club even if they are tempted or fall once in their career. I don't see how you could send a sexually active homosexual priest back into the boys club because there are right now, too many of them who are actively providing a network for sex under the radar. It's a pimp network that does not exist for heterosexuals.
I'm thinking about the poor priest on the 128 belt who was tossed out for one indiscretion but was a solid priest. They jumped all over his bones and threw his fanny out the door.
But yet in Boton we all know of several priests they actively protect who have gone through several relationships with homosexual lovers.
Some of them come and go at will. They give them a leave of absence to go off and shack up with their lovers. When the relationships busts up, they slip them in right back into a parish.
There is something really wrong going down in Boston. Really wrong.
n.b.
Saying the Cardinal and his staff doesn't know or did not know the homosexual priests who took a leave to shack up is dishonest.
They are completely in the know and they take them back. For instance, a 'secretary' to the Cardinal is off in New York with his lover and he is on the books as a leave of absence. They secured his position as an opening in case the relationship busts up.
Why are heterosexual priests out the door with one indiscretion they publicly repent for when their vocation was historically solid and yet homosexual priests can go off and live with their lovers and have their position held for them?
These are hard questions that many of us have asked all the way up to the Holy See and all we got in return were promotions for Cardinal O'Malley.
Something stinks.
pps - least something not be said - I know that the Cardinal and his staff knew the purpose of his secretary leaving. The Cardinal and his staff knew exactly what his secretary's departure was all about.
They actively lied about it to the seminarians at St. John's and to others. Yet, they list him as "on leave".
When it comes to a holy priest struggling with passions for a woman who was teaching orthodoxy, put in 24 hour adoration at his parish, he was tossed out on his fanny.
Give me a break.
Hi Carol,
It is terrible. The queer boys have been doing this for decades in many parts of the country, with full knowledge and sometimes participation of the bishops. Steve Brady in Illinois fought this: rcf.org.
As for falling for a woman, at least that's natural and not vice. Of course, the priest has to be removed from the situation for awhile, repent, have a retreat, etc. Returning to ministry has to be done carefully with safeguards in place. But he doesn't have to be axed.
Jerry,
Our sinful nature is what it is. The reason we need our priests is to help us combat it - to give us the tools to keep them at bay.
We have the roster we have. To me, that's where I'd like to draw the line - priests who have served God faithfully in their vocation, who have battled their desires and been victorious who are teaching us the path.
I really don't care what they were in their lives before conversion. They fought the good fight and they won and they want to show us the way.
It is absolutely upside down under Cardinal O'Malley and here with the Holy See advancing him - in spite of the paper trail.
We have the internet now to flush it out, expose it and make it impossible for everyone to pretend they didn't know. Faithful Catholics exposing it is a new shtick for all of us. The ancient dragon knows our every weakness and flaw to give righteousness just the right twist. Pray for us - our discernment, temperance, protection against the wiles of the enemy.
In my diocese, we have a few priests who suffer from this affliction and who (please God!!) are living celibate lives. However, they are obviously homosexual and it detracts from their priesthood.
I don't think that the priesthood is the place for them. They can't (or won't?) seem to suppress the flamboyant gay act.
This discussion was very helpful to me. Thanks.
The instinctive horror Christians had for this vice must be restored. Hear these Saints who were given the grace to think much more clearly than men do today:
St. John Chrysostom: "...but the worst of all passions is lust between men. ...not only are their passions satanic, but their lives are diabolic. ... So I say to you that these are even worse than murderers..."
St. Bernardine of Sienna: "No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God. ... This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything."
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