Well, it isn’t too often that you hear about Catholic priest scandals involving sex with adults. Ever since the Italian magazine “Panorama” published an expose revealing the numerous homosexual activities within the Priesthood of Rome, the Vatican and its allies have had no choice but to push back hard-yet again. One of them is Bill Donohue, the president of the so-called “Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.” He has been defending the Church during this year’s wave sex scandals and his explanation of the underlying cause is broad indeed: homosexuality. Yet his analysis is as ignorant as it is broad. The underlying problem is homophobia within Catholicism, not homosexuality itself.
He claims that there is a statistically “overwhelming” link between “homosexuality and the sexual abuse of minors." He further commented, “As I have said many times, most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesters have been gay." His conclusion is that the root of the problem with the abuse scandals is caused by homosexuality within the priesthood.
However absurd his claim is, he backs it up with sound evidence. It is true that many studies have found that the overwhelming majority of priestly abuses involved the same sex. However, to blame the gays is an incorrect analysis of the available data. After putting aside the cases that are genuinely pedophiliac (that is a completely different issue) this situation just begs the next logical question: why are homosexuals becoming Catholic priests only to covertly act on their desires?
The answer to me is clearly homophobia, the true cause of this crisis. For a homosexual to join the Roman Catholic Priesthood and then clandestinely have affairs with men belies a deep-rooted conflict within the priest regarding his homosexuality. If a man cannot and will not accept his own sexuality, then it is probable that such actions become logical consequences of his denial. The “Panorama” expose describes the guilt and shame the priests would experience during and immediately after their encounters. Things would be different if the priests didn’t belong to an organization that forces them to consider themselves disordered and their sexual behavior loathsome. The organization and its attitude towards homosexuality is really to blame, the behavior of the gay priests are simply tragic symptoms of the larger problem.
It is not homosexuality that drives these priests to act dishonorably, but rather it is the denial, hatred and fear of their homosexuality that causes them to act in such ways.
The issue is not the status of homosexuality within the Church, but the status of homophobia in the Church. If the church was not so homophobic, perhaps its priests would act better than they do today.
Still, the Vatican did get something right for once when it urged that these people should no longer be priests.
You can read the “Panorama” expose here (If you know Italian).
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