The Catholic Church, The Papacy and Homosexuality
One of my first posts on Women on the verge of Thinking discussed the issue of the sex abuse scandals and the catholic church. Since that time, my knowledge, awareness and audience of this issue, have gratefuly increased. As such, it seems time to revisit, and fine-tune this issue once again.
When the sexual abuse scandals surfaced inside the Catholic church, many people were stunned that men in such trusted positions as priests were taking advantage of young boys and in some instances girls inside their parishes. Rightly so, outrage and perplexity were the business at hand in an attempt to understand how men, who claimed to be servants of God, and were placed in such a trusted relationship with one's children, could in fact commit such horrible acts that amounted to sexual abuse.
This past year, a new Pope, Benedictt XVI was selected after the death of the beloved Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict made it clear to the public from the onset that the Catholic Church t he was completely against homosexuality, and considered these acts to be a sin. Not being Catholic, this is an issue that interests me. There a section in the Bible that specifically states that man shall not lay with a man. As a side note, there is a fascinating book by an orthodox Rabbi, Stephen Greenberg called, Wrestling With God & Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. I have not read this book so I will not comment on it, but do know that it received an award from the Jewish Book Council this year for anyone who is interested in reading it.
Here is the question of the day: How do you reconcile the stance taken by Pope Benedict regarding homosexuality with the growing number of cases of sexual abuse that have occurred inside the church, usually ones involving an act between a grown man and a young male? Why when discussing the sexual abuse scandals inside the Catholic church is the issue of homosexuality not acknowledged? Point of fact, to a large extent, it is swept under the carpet and treated as if it is not a non-issue in these scandals. Do you see this as a contradiction? What are your impressions and understanding of this issue?
Thank you for your minds.
When the sexual abuse scandals surfaced inside the Catholic church, many people were stunned that men in such trusted positions as priests were taking advantage of young boys and in some instances girls inside their parishes. Rightly so, outrage and perplexity were the business at hand in an attempt to understand how men, who claimed to be servants of God, and were placed in such a trusted relationship with one's children, could in fact commit such horrible acts that amounted to sexual abuse.
This past year, a new Pope, Benedictt XVI was selected after the death of the beloved Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict made it clear to the public from the onset that the Catholic Church t he was completely against homosexuality, and considered these acts to be a sin. Not being Catholic, this is an issue that interests me. There a section in the Bible that specifically states that man shall not lay with a man. As a side note, there is a fascinating book by an orthodox Rabbi, Stephen Greenberg called, Wrestling With God & Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. I have not read this book so I will not comment on it, but do know that it received an award from the Jewish Book Council this year for anyone who is interested in reading it.
Here is the question of the day: How do you reconcile the stance taken by Pope Benedict regarding homosexuality with the growing number of cases of sexual abuse that have occurred inside the church, usually ones involving an act between a grown man and a young male? Why when discussing the sexual abuse scandals inside the Catholic church is the issue of homosexuality not acknowledged? Point of fact, to a large extent, it is swept under the carpet and treated as if it is not a non-issue in these scandals. Do you see this as a contradiction? What are your impressions and understanding of this issue?
Thank you for your minds.
16 Comments:
Hey, Barbara!
I'm not Catholic either, but here are my thoughts:
Experts say that child molestation isn't tied to homosexuality. It's more of a method of convenience. Children are seen as less threatening and more obtainable. I think the real question is, if priests were allowed to date and marry, then would they end up sexually (and mentally) healthier than they are now?
Apparently abstinence doesn't work for priests, or the problem wouldn't be so rampant. I would suggest that the Catholic church begins to allow their priests something that every other denomination allows: the ability to marry.
I agree with you saurkraut about the being able to marry, but from what I understand part of the reasons against this have to do with property ownership and succession by heirs. The Church wants to keep the property free from claims by individuals.
But the issue of homosexuality, not sexuality, has not even been addressed by the Church. In some ways, it is disgarded or overlooked. This seems like a contradiction to me in a way.
Isn't the churchs view on sexuality simple? male and female, only for the purpose of childbirth, no contraception...
I have given this question thought. On one hand, the church teaches that everyone is equal in the eyes of the Lord.
On the other hand, the only way into heaven is to agree that Jesus was the Son Of God, and to accept him as your saviour.
So everyone is NOT equal in the eyes of the Lord after all. According to them.
As far as the issue of homosexuality goes, the church teaches that it is a deadly sin. But then they make the priesthood a boys only club. And they wear flowery dress like things. And they do not marry. And they live together in same-sex houses. Then, to add insult to injury, they tell married men and women how to act in bed (what position to use, no birth control, etc).
In my eyes, getting marriage advice from a man who wears a flowery robe and will never marry is like ME trying to tell an airline pilot how to land a 747.
The church also thinks that homosexuality is something learned, and that can be "cured". In that case, the flip side is also true - that hetrosexuality can be "cured" as well. Speaking for myself only, there is no way I can look at another man's cornhole and find love. If you can not turn straight people gay, where is the logic in thinking you can turn a gay man straight?
The church is an archaic boys only club that is in desperate need of serious reform. But this will never happen. The boys at the top of the power structure are too happy with the way things are now.
And to close this off, what kind of man is going to be attracted to a job where they have an excuse for not getting married? Maybe a man who does not like women to begin with?? And because they are ashamed of their inner feelings, they deamonize the act every chance they get.
Jonniker,
What I do not understand is why the issue of homosexuality has been ignored, when it comes to these priests who molest children, on the one hand, yet banner waived as sinful when dealing with adult males and females of the same sex. It seems somewhat hypocritical to me.
Child abuse, whether it be with someone of the same or different sex, is clearly in a different category, and not acceptable in any situation. What I find rather stunning is that on the one hand the church ignores the issue of homosexuality when dealing with one of their own priests, but waives the red flag to stop when dealing with everyone else.
I hope this has made my point clearer. Sorry for the confusion, if any existed.
The Pope is dope.
I'm still having trouble with the question, Barbara. Child molestation is neither homosexual or heterosexual.
People who want sex with children are pediphiles. In the general population, most male pediphiles prey on females. In the Catholic Church, most pediphiles have selected male children. These criminals should not be called homosexual. They are pediphiles.
To call them homosexual further fuels the fire and the myth that homosexual men are all after boys. That most certainly is not true.
Hi Barbara!
Another good topic here!
Although, I have to, in the first instance, agree with saurkraut, in that there is a strong dividing line between homosexuality, and paedophiles.
The priests who have preyed on young children, and there have been countless cases over many years in the UK, are paedophiles. In the UK, they have preyed on both boys and girls in their care.
Homosexuals are attracted to adults, paedophiles are attracted solely to children. There is a simple reason that there are so many in the priesthood.
Paedophiles are attracted to, and seek out, professions dealing with small children, and the veil of the priesthood gives them perfect cover.
If the celibacy law was to be changed, it would make a bit of a difference. Harder to hide.
In Scotland and Ireland, priests were generally sent off quietly to a retreat, or worse still, an out of the way parish, the Vatican knowing only too well what was going on, and covering it up.
You are quite right, Barbara, in the past, priests were allowed to marry, but this was changed due to property rights and inheritance. Wives and families have financial rights, and the Vaticans answer to the problem was to remove them from the equation.
The Vatican now has a growing problem of a lack of young men coming forward for the priesthood due to the laws of celibacy, and has just, rather bizarrely, launched a PR campaign to try to woo them, including putting messages on beer mats in pubs!
The celibacy law will be changed, but not, unfortunately, with this pope.
The Vatican is an archaic organisation, clinging on to a lot of rules which their own congregation, in a lot of cases, no longer hold to themselves.
The next Pope could well be African, and most of the African Cardinals want very definate change on celibacy, birth control, and the use of condoms. There are changes on the horizon.
As regards hypocracy, yes, there are lots there.
Their views on homosexuality are incredibly archaic, and fly in the face of science, (nothing new there),
still maintaining that people choose to be homosexual, whereas, we know, courtesy of genetic science, that it is indeed genetic.
Their stance on homosexuality has always been that it is wrong, and they demonise harmless homosexuals within the public, while protecting dangerous paedophiles within their own ranks.
The congretation figures within the Catholic Church are falling here, but growing in Africa.
Most of my friends here in Scotland who are Catholic do not practise their faith, and do not go to Chapel.
They feel that the Catholic faith is out of step with their lives and reality.
Thank you for all your comments.
I work in the field of child abuse. I know that sexual molestation of children is a horrible act of mistrust and misuse of one's power, resulting in the most cruel of offenses and abuse of power. And I am not nor would I ever suggest that all homosexuals are pedophiles, as this is simply not the case.
What is puzzling to me though is what appears to be a contradiction in the thinking of the Catholic Church. On the one hand, there is this prohibition against homosexuality, claiming it to be a sin between men and men and women and women. A seperate issue. When the sexual abuse scandals surfaced, there little mention that these trusted priests may have been pedophiles AND homosexuals as well. The homosexual issue was swept under the carpet, at least as far as I can see, because the Catholic church did not want to deal with it as a religious prohibition within their own religion. Does this make sense?
If I am off base, enlighten me. And I do not intent to imply in any shape, way or form that homsexuality is akin to pedophilia.
If this is what has appeared within my argument, I sincerely apologize.
Barbara,
You are right about the property rights issue, but I'm not sure if you understand it completely. The historical reason for the priests/monks/nuns to be kept celibate is due to medieval times.
Back then, many families who couldn't provide for their children would give them to monasteries or nunneries to raise. The kids would be fed and taken care of, and go on to work for the church. But wealthy families also had an arrangement with the church. Back then, all property went to the first born son. This became awkward when you had a couple sons and it looked like the second born might challenge or kill the first born for the estates.
So, to avoid these awkward family feuds, the wealthy families would arrange with the church to take their other son(s) into the priesthood. If those sons were discouraged from reproducing, then there would be no further challenges to the first born's estates. So, they found an obscure reference in the Bible about a personal preference to remain celibate, and they used that to justify their forcing everyone to remain celibate.
My apologies to the many Catholics out there. You may not fully know your church's history, and I don't want to be unkind or throw cold water on you. But I also believe in never shielding people from the truth.
Just, please, take it as being kindly truthful and not antagonistic.
And Lazy Iguana, I'm with you.
Most of the abuse/child molestation cases that are coming to light here in the US were committed in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The reason for more male victims than female victims has less to do with gender (and homosexuality) and more to do with the availablity of victims.
Altergirls are new--they have only been around since the 80s. For centuries girls/womyn were not allowed to participate in any part of the cermony, be it getting Communion ready, reading a Psalm, or being an altergirl. The chuches (individual churces, not the organization as a whole) changed their stance on altergirls during the late 70s and 80s. The middle class communities first pushed for the changes (and therefore had the changes implimented) before it hit the more consersavtive urban and rurual parishes.
I was raised Catholic until I was eight (long story, if you want to hear it, let me know) and then I was raised Protestant (in a slacker manner) during the late 70s early 80s. I *so* wanted to be an alterboy, but I wasn't allowed because I was a girl (the word "altergirl didn't exist). I do not follow Christianity anymore (again, let me know if you want to hear the story) but the times I've had to go to Mass--funerals, christianings, weddings, etc--I've seen a gender balancing from womyn passing Communion to altergirls galore. And I'm from the suburbs of Boston--not poor towns by any means.
I can remember when the change was happening and all the uproar my area was in. Girls *wanted* to be altergirls and were pushing their parents to be allowed to, who in turn, pushed the priests.
Barbara, thanks for this topic. All great comments, but I have to agree most with Iguana.
Oh yeah, Happy Gay Pride weekend!
I'm with Tan Lucy on this one, "People who want sex with children are pediphiles.".
As a person who was born, and raised a Catholic, I found the faith, in practice, to be a series of contradictions. Even while still in grammer school.
The stance is simple, it's a protective stance. It's wrong, and it's been wrong for hundreds of years. The problem has existed for generations, and it's been kept quite for generations.
Now that it's out, and in the light, it's my sincere hope that it's never allowed to slip into darkness again.
Research on erectile responses to pictures of naked adults and children shows that convicted rapists (of adults) get aroused in response to adults but not children. Not surprising. Convicted rapists of children (a.k.a. child molesters), in contrast, get aroused in response to children. Also no surprise. What's surprising and chilling is that the molesters do NOT get aroused in response to adults. So it's not that they're attracted to adults AND kids, it's that they're ONLY aroused by kids. They're incapable of getting aroused by individuals who display signs of sexual maturity -- the exact opposite of what's supposed to happen when we mature sexually, whether we end up heterosexual or homosexual.
In other words, these people are f***ed up bigtime.
I can't imagine that religious doctrine could create such a fundamental imbalance. And I don't see what it has to do with homosexuality or heterosexuality. I don't know the stats, but I'd expect that the priesthood would attract more homosexual men than there are in the general population, simply because they're cool with not marrying a woman. But I'd be very surprised if molesters, regardless of their sexual orientation, were overrepresented in the priesthood. When priests molest young boys, I think the primary issue is pedophilia and molestation; the apparent homosexuality of the priest is completely secondary (and uncorrelated with his propensity toward pedophelia).
On that note, check this out: Yesterday I unearthed a Rolling Stone I'd kept from 1984. Michael Jackson is on the cover, next to the headline "Trouble in Paradise?" The more things change, the more they stay the same...
I strongly agree with Jonna in that I don't believe there is a tie between pedophelia and homosexuality and to say so further fuels misconceptions.
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