The Rome “summit”, “gay” priests, and #sodoclericalism – Wherein Fr. Z rants.

You’ve probably heard that a book is timed to be released simultaneously in several languages at the beginning of the Roman episcopal “sex summit”.  Bishops from around the world are to meet to discuss important problems that scandalize and wound the Church so that they don’t have to talk about the real problem, that apparently, can’t be by them named.

The French author of the book is a homosexualist activist.  According to Crux he claims some “4 years of research and interviews with over 1,500 individuals in 30 countries, including 41 cardinals, 52 bishops, and 45 apostolic nuncios.”  One priest interviewed  claimed that 80% of the clergy working in the Vatican are homosexual.

To which I respond B as in B, S as in S.

The number is, if you pardon the pun, preposterous.

To all these claims of a high percentage of queer clergy I say B as in B, S as in S.

What I will admit is that in chanceries, seminary faculties, academia, etc., the percentage is probably higher because of a kind of self-perpetuating nepotism.  Think about it.  Some homosexual bishop picks the pretty – or compliant – young guy to go to the NAC in Rome.  Since they got the Roman experience, the pretty – or compliant guy gets preferment.  And the cycle repeats.  That went on for a long time.  I think the cycle has been broken at the NAC, by the way.  I hope.

So, this book is coming out.  It is timed with the Roman summit as a kind of titillating bait for the gullible.  The lib MSM newsies and the usual catholic media grifters are sure to plump up its sales.  Cum canibus, after all.

Anyway, we are going to be inundated with all sort stories about homosexual clergy.  Some of these stories will be filled with pathos and laments about the poor “gay priest”, so misunderstood, so conflicted.

Right on schedule Hell’s Bible, the NY Times, has a pathetic item that set homosexualist activist Jesuit James Martin all a-flutter on Twitter:

It’s “wise”.

Of course no suggestion in the Hell’s Bible piece of the link between clerical sexual abuse and homosexuality.  Nope.  Not at all.   Just keep sweeping that 9/11 sized pile of rubble under the rug.  “Oh no!”, the homosexualists cry.  “There’s noooo connection!  Shut up or you’ll start witch hunts!”  The next thing they say is that connecting the two issues makes being “gay” more dangerous!

“The real problem is clericalism!”, they repeat. No one really believes that.  It becomes plausible only when another thing is factored in: sodomy.  The problem is #sodoclericalism.

Meanwhile, the “summit” in Rome isn’t going to talk about that.

The title of the NY Times piece was seriously irritating.

‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’

Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out

The crisis over sexuality in the Catholic Church goes beyond abuse. It goes to the heart of the priesthood, into a closet that is trapping thousands of men.

No. NO. NO!

The priesthood is not a cage.  It is not a trap.   The door is over there and it is open.   If it is so horrible, GET OUT.

But you can already hear the wails…

“Oooooo but I wanna staaaaay.  It’s so rewarding making people feel good and being touched by their lives!  (Because it’s all about me in the end, and how good I feel.)  I don’t want to leave the priesthood.  I want to stay and have everyone know that I’m ‘gay’!  (Because it’s all about me.)  Saying that I should leave makes me feel bad, and no one is supposed to feel bad.  We should all be affirmed just as we are! (Because … you know.)

Do I, Fr. Z, want you guys to get out?

Frankly, yes, if you are having sex with men, yes.  GET OUT.   If you are striving to live a holy life, and you are ordained, then get on with your priesthood and stop whining about it and stop rubbing it in people’s faces.

All you are really telling people is that you are not capable of having the proper nuptial relationship with the Church, which Christ Himself has and intends for His priests.   If you have a strong inclination to something that is the opposite of a nuptial relationship, then interiorly your priesthood is short-circuiting.

I just had the image from a re-imagined Star Trek movie.  The ship is going to crash if they can’t get the engines online.  But the huge super-radioactive thingummy is out of alignment.  No power.  Everyone will die.  Captain Kirk decides to try to re-align it by slamming his body into it again and again until it starts zapping correctly.  Of course he sacrificed himself to do it.  He dies.  Too bad.  But it isn’t that bad.  The franchise is really big, so they find a way to bring him back, and he’s all the better for it.

I know, I know.   It’s but a limping analogy.  But there is a point.  In that moment, it wasn’t about Kirk.  It was about everyone, including himself even though he would be dead.  He had to be who he was.  Agere sequitur esse.  In a way, that’s what we priests are doing: slamming our bodies into that thing in a highly toxic environment so that Holy Church has the essential life-force for our mission.  That means being priest and victim.

Speaking of movies, sometimes friends bring up some idiot thing that this pop singer or that athlete has been up to.  If I go to a movie, I don’t want to know about the moronic utterances of the actors on immigration or climate change or the 2nd Amendment.  I just want to enjoy the movie or the game.  When I see these celebrities moronically blurping in public, I want to say, like the book title tells it, “Shut up and sing!”

The same goes for a “gay” (how I hate that word) priest who bares his soul in public about his attraction to men.  Talk about selfish!   Why dump that on people and make them bear it?  I don’t want to hear about the inner struggles of an oppressed gay guy “trapped” in the priesthood.  Shut up and be a priest!  You’re a man, right?  Even if you have a disorder, be a man.  If you have be on the Cross 24/7, shut up and stay on the Cross.  That’s where priests are supposed to be.   When Christ spoke to the Father about allowing Him not to drink of the chalice, the Synoptics say He was sequestered in the Garden.  During His Passion, Our Lord didn’t whine in public about what His tormentors were doing to Him.   “I’m soooo conflicted!  I’m soooo misunderstood!”

You must not commit scandal by blurting all this out in public and confusing the faithful about your ministry and about the Church’s God-affirmed teachings and authority!

The Cross is your path to salvation and a place in heaven, because of faithful suffering.

I sincerely believe that people with same-sex attraction, if they strive to be chaste and bear their subsequent suffering, will have a very high place in heaven.  The greater the burden and suffering, the greater the graces and reward.

Again and again over the years, this has been my position.  For example HERE. I have tremendous respect and admiration for people who strive – and therefore suffer – when overcoming their sinful inclinations, whatever they may be.

Support of homosexual persons is obligatory for true Catholics.  However, also obligatory is the whole truth, which necessarily includes the explicit and clear renunciation of same-sex acts, which violate human dignity and do great harm to individuals and society.  Charity seeks the true good of others, at the expense of self-sacrifice.

On the issue of homosexual priests,

  • No, I don’t think there are many as some claim.
  • No, I don’t think that men with homosexual inclinations should be admitted to seminaries.

However, if they are ordained, and they have taken on the frightening burden of responsibility that comes to those to whom much has been given, then, Yes, if they want to live a continent life and not commit public scandals, I think they should strive with courage and suffering to be the best priests they can be: as all the others must as well in their vocations.

Priests are human beings, after all.  I think the same about homosexual men who are husbands and fathers.

If for some reason you got to the altar through the laying on of hands and the prayer of the bishop, you are a priest forever.  You have to figure out what to do about that.   You will be a priest forever in Hell, too, if you misuse what God gave you.   “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I remember reading, decades ago, a chapter from the pen of a saint about men who determine after ordination that they made a mistake, or they connived to get ordained for less than proper reasons.  They didn’t have a true vocation.  It’s a conundrum: If they are ordained, they had a vocation… in a sense.  Could such men be saved?  Must they leave the priesthood?  Again it was decades ago, but I remember how the saint – maybe Joseph Cafasso? – essentially said, “Man up.  You’ve made your choice.  Conform yourself to the choice.  You have to conform yourself to priesthood.  Suffer and go forward and you can get to heaven.”

Getting to heaven is the overriding goal.   And, by comparison, life is really short.

Tick… Tick… Tick…

“But Father! But Father!”, the worldly weak-kneed moan, “All the talk about suffering and sacrifice is triggering me!  You are making me feel bad and that’s against Vatican II.   Priests – of every gender – are for people!  They are supposed to be affirming and nice, not mean like YOU.  You’re mean and you hate people because YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

The priest is a priest “for people”, yes.  We hear that so often today it has become like the meaningless bump of a needle stuck on a record… an image that dates me, for sure.  Yes, the priest is “for people”.  The priest is, however, even more fundamentally for himself.  A principle reason why a man says “Yes” is because He wants to do God’s will, without which he puts his own eternal salvation at risk.  Saying No! to God has produced bad results in the course of salvation history.  Read the Old Testament.  Every affliction of God’s people results from their saying No to God’s will.

The priest must conform himself to the altar to which he is inextricably bound.  Priesthood is for sacrifice.  Talking about priesthood without mentioning sacrifice is pointless, which is precisely what a lot of chatter about priesthood is today.  These days, priests are all about making people feel good about themselves.  NO.  Priesthood is – first and foremost – for offering sacrifice.  Priests of Jesus Christ, the true Priest, are simultaneously the one raising the offering and also the sacrificial offering himself.   His whole being is now guided by being priest and victim.

This is the sort of realism that lead Augustine of Hippo to rough up his congregations when they went wrong: because he wanted them to get to heaven. Whether they listened or not, he didn’t want to lose heaven for himself by neglecting to preach the hard stuff.  It was his vocation to preach whatever it took to get them to heaven.   Then Augustine, as priest/victim said, “Nolo salvus esse sine vobis… I don’t want to be saved without you.”  That is the work of the priest/victim.   He would do what it took to help them to heaven, even if that meant making them temporarily angry with him.   He put them before himself.

But…. whining about being a misunderstood gay.   ME ME ME!  It’s all about ME!

Fail.

So, men, shut up and sacrifice.  If you can’t, there’s the door.

Finally, you men out there who are in this “should I stay or should I go” situation.  Before anything else, review yourself.  I would ask: Do you have a devotion to Mary?  Do you include devotion to Mary, Queen of Priests in your life?  Should you, perhaps, before you do anything rash – like a) whine about the priesthood and your gay-ness or b) quit the priesthood because of your gay-ness – give Marian devotion a shot?

Ask Christ’s mother, your mother, to help you.

Thus the rant endeth.

UPDATE:

This is pretty good!

Dear Gay Catholic Priests,

So is this…

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in B as in B. S as in S., Clerical Sexual Abuse, Cri de Coeur, Liberals, Priests and Priesthood, Seminarians and Seminaries, Sin That Cries To Heaven, Wherein Fr. Z Rants and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

46 Comments

  1. JabbaPapa says:

    Father Z :

    To all these claims of a high percentage of queer clergy I say B as in B, S as in S

    I came to a pretty much identical conclusion earlier today, looking at some French secular articles about this book (with quotes & extracts), and it seemed quite clear to me that the author has grotesquely inflated the numbers — he has this quaint concept of “homophilia”, whereby (as far as I can tell) anyone not red-bloodedly straight must therefore be a homo.

    The author’s most vile and preposterous claim BTW is that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is somehow “gay”.

  2. rally1042 says:

    Not a rant Father, but a clear thoughtful, heartfelt explanation, with prayerful advise for your brother priests. Thank you. My innermost being is so easily enraged by this subject (homosexualization of so many aspects of our Roman Catholic Church), and has been for decades. I felt it but didn’t understand the root cause. You have helped me immensely Father (and many others I expect) with your honest, courageous informed explanation.

  3. Spinmamma says:

    Thank you, dear Father Z, for being proof in action of the truth of your words. A sobering rant, but inspiring to love more our fellows who struggle with their own burdens, and embrace our own suffering. And pray the Rosary all the more.

  4. Dear Fr. Z.,

    It’s interesting that CNN’s report on this basically says the book is “light on verifiable accounts and heavy on innuendo” and that is one of the kinder comments:

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/europe/vatican-book-analysis/index.html

  5. bibi1003 says:

    When I got to the end of your post, I wanted to jump up from my chair and cheer! Thank you Father Z!!

  6. John Grammaticus says:

    Being a pedant I would say that actually Kirk is doing some good ole fashioned engineering by hitting the warp core with a wrench until it starts working again, but the point is taken. The funny thing is that so many of the successful shows / movies these days are popular because there is so much natural virtue in them.

    Jon Snow and Eddard Stark from GoT, know self sacrifice, as does George Kirk in the first of the rebooted ST movies. Going back a few years Kara Thrace, Saul Tigh and Bill Adama from BSG are exemplars of virtue (albeit flawed), as are both Cpt America and Thor from the Avengers series.

    Don’t be nice Fathers, be virtuous.

  7. LeeGilbert says:

    “Support of homosexual persons is obligatory for true Catholics.”

    “Homosexual person” is a phrase I devoutly wish you would delete from your stylebook, Father, since it is very close in concept and rhetorical effect to the “homosexual gene.” [Keep wishing and, no, it isn’t. Also, HERE] If a young person in our benighted age trips across some transvestite or homosexual pornography, is obsessed by it, finds it coming often to mind, and especially if he yields to it, he is not likely to think he is merely having temptations to impurity, but rather that he is a homosexual, a homosexual person. And with this the door very likely opens on a lifetime of homosexual sin. “If this is what I am, then . . .”

    If, rather, he is taught that encountering temptations of all kinds is the lot of young people today, that they should not be especially worried about, or thought about, but simply fled while asking the help of the Blessed Virgin and invoking the Name of Jesus, an entirely different sort of life opens up before him.

    Somehow or another homosexual sin in particular attaches to personhood in a way that fornication, adultery, gluttony and gossip do not. Here in Portland, a town especially prone to excess of all kinds, there is an extraordinary number of obese people zipping around in their motorized wheel chairs, and whole businesses have sprung up to cart them to their various medical appointments, yet to speak of them or think of them as gluttons never occurs to anyone. Although St. Augustine committed fornication, he is not remembered as a recovered fornicator. We remember him as a repentant sinner, without attaching his particular sin to his person.

    In fact, I would guess that thinking of oneself as homosexual, a homosexual person, would make it so much more difficult to escape from the vaunted “lifestyle.” But no, my sin is one thing, my person is another. It is true that sexuality is linked to personhood very intimately, so that a person is male or female. In fact, besides existence, it is the very first thing known about anyone. And the link is so intimate that when males act as females, they may rightly be thought of as sexual suicides ( h/t George Gilder) and carrying this program out, often enough they become actual suicides. “Homosexual person” rhetorically legitimizes ongoing sexual suicide as ineluctable reality and contributes to the ongoing intellectual and moral mayhem of our times. At least imho.

  8. ex seaxe says:

    Thank you Father. Clarity, honesty and compassion – more power to your megaphone!

  9. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Jewish priests were not celibate, but they had to refrain from sex (or as it’s sometimes put, “remain continent”) during their yearly periods of Temple service. Even involuntary emissions during sleep could make one temporarily unable to serve.

    So since this was so important, the Talmud says that on the night before Yom Kippur, when the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and ask God to pardon Israel’s sins, the high priest had to stay awake all night. And he had twelve junior priests sitting up with him, representing all the tribes of Israel, all helping him pray and stay pure.

    Jesus did much the same thing on the night before His death, staying awake and praying. His disciples weren’t much help in praying and staying awake, and one of them was even off betraying Him; but He did His best to help them, instead.

    If Catholic priests are having trouble keeping pure, maybe they should spend more time praying and keeping vigil. If they fail, they should confess their sins and try again. With God’s help, you can do it.

  10. iamlucky13 says:

    My local paper reprinted the NYT article, so it appears to be making the rounds rapidly.

    My stomach knotted up when I read claims such as that 75% of priests are homosexual, knowing that it would be taken as a confirmed fact by many, who will repeat it as indisputable. It was in the NYT, after all. How can it be wrong?

    Also, Star Trek II – The Wraith of Khan has the same basic plot point, but without the level of over-the-top – I’d say “action,” but that would suggest more coherence than is present – “noise” that Abrams and Lindelof specialize in. In the earlier movie, it was Spock who sacrificed himself for the crew: “The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.”

  11. EC says:

    Yes, it is Cafasso you have in mind… He gives a good treatment of the issue of “opportunistic” clergy. Actually, he gives a good treatment of pretty much everything. Well worth reading his priests’ retreat (The Priest, the Man of God: His Dignity and Duties). Very direct, practical, and difficult to argue with in almost every case. Would HIGHLY recommend the read (same with Don Bosco’s funeral orations for him, put in a little book with some of his devotional prayers he authored which are fantastic).

  12. Ellen says:

    Standing ovation, Father Z. Bravo!

  13. OrdinaryCatholic says:

    I don’t believe much will be done in the upcoming summit that will be substantial. The laicization of McCarrick is window dressing, a little something to appease the masses, the great unwashed. It puts the Pope in a better light as it were, like rolling up his cassock sleeves and getting down to business because he means it.

    As St. Paul reamed St. Peter over his cowardice and hypocrisy it was peer to peer. I am a layman. I do not have that authority to ‘ream’ anyone above my pay grade in the Church. I say let bishop judge bishop and let the chips fall where they will. The laity? We have to weapons at our disposal; pray and fasting. Powerful if we only apply them sincerely.

    Do not be fooled. It will not be bishops, priests or laity that will clean house but the Master of the house that will sweep the fetid stench that has infested the Church. The purge is on. The cleansing has begun and not at man’s doing but Christs’. This is not an easy time to be Catholic and the faith will be tested to its extreme. Remember, untested faith is a weak faith. Hang on people, we are in for a rough ride.

  14. Gaetano says:

    Fr. Martin’s claim that the majority of gay men in the priesthood are afraid to discuss their sexuality is simply untrue.
    When I was in Jesuit formation, men proclaiming their homosexuality were commonplace and actively supported my everyone in the formation program.
    They were a protected class. Indeed, during my interview the Novice Master directly asked me if “I had problems working with gay people.” Answer: Not if they’re living their vows faithfully.

    Indeed, the only people who had to fear exposure was anyone with conservative/traditional inclinations. We were hunted down and ostracized, especially by the same gay men demanding tolerance for themselves.

  15. Jennifer Roback Morse says:

    Dear Fr Z and friends,
    I recently wrote about the inflated numbers of “gay” priests. We at the Ruth Institute, use, you know, actual data. The last systematic survey of priests that asked about sexual orientation was conducted by the LA Times in 2002. Nothing systematic has been done since. Everyone else, including this French guy, the NYT and Andrew Sullivan, is blowing smoke. Here is my recent article: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/memo-to-andrew-sullivan-theres-no-anti-gay-purge
    For anyone who is interested, here is a link to the Ruth Institute’s study, conducted by Fr. Paul Sullins, showing the link between the incidence of clergy sex abuse, and the numbers of gays in the priesthood. http://www.ruthinstitute.org/clergy-sex-abuse-statistical-analysis
    Here is a link to the 2-page executive summary, which you can download in English, Spanish or Polish. Sheesh MSM-people. Get a clue. It is not like we are hiding this information. http://www.ruthinstitute.org/csa-background
    your friend,
    Dr J

    [Thanks for chiming in!]

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  16. tho says:

    Father, your the greatest. I come to you for clarity and you never disappoint me.

  17. Peter Stuart says:

    Thank you, Father. It gets wearisome for SSA Catholics like me who are struggling to be chaste and keep getting trolled by the men who want us to call them shepherds. My patience with these characters and the “good” men who say nothing (sometimes in a lot of words) ran out a long time ago.

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  18. Jerome Charles says:

    I agree. No need for a priest to address this–homosexual or not. The response from “Your Real Catholic Friends” was appropriate. Abstinence of some kind is part of being Catholic–for everyone.

    As for seminaries, I disagree that homosexuals cannot be good priests, and I think God’s calling needs to be weighed against fears of homosexuality. There are heterosexual priests who have failed at being chaste, and there are homosexual priests who have likewise failed. There is no evidence that being heterosexual makes one a better priest. That is simply your opinion, Fr. Z. Being chaste does make a difference, however, and both homosexual and heterosexual priests are capable of doing that. And, yes, if they cannot do that (if they did not receive that charism) they should leave the priesthood.

    The reason the bishops will probably not address the priest homosexuality issue at the summit is because most of them except scientific research that confirms that pedophilia is not linked to homosexuality any more than it is to heterosexuality, and they reject the propaganda that claims otherwise. The problem is far deeper and broader than sexual identity.

  19. JesusFreak84 says:

    Nonsense like that NYT article makes my heart hurt for celibate [“chaste” “continent” not “celibate”] SSA priests =-\ Their crosses must be heavy, and while these are men who are willing to carry it all the way to Calvary, they have “useful idiots” on the left trying to get them to drop it, to “come down from the cross,” as it were. I pray their sacrifices get their not-celibate SSA brethren to get their acts together >.> The fact that we have these diva priests acting like their struggles are sooooooo much more valid than a priest tempted to alcoholism or whatever else makes me sick. I think it’s the self-centered-ness that makes these priests spiritually dangerous, even the ones that would never sexually prey on another.

  20. Fallibilissimo says:

    Wooooowey! Now that’s what I call a rant, people! My screen is smokin’!!! Fr didn’t so much argue it, he just told everyone how it is, like a new sheriff layin’ down the law in one em’ busted up ol’ towns.

    Seriously, it was also compassionate and merciful; it gives the priest (true enough for all of us) living a broken life the way to a new and better life by embracing the cross and moving towards virtue…few victories are so sweet and so precious as victories of virtue of vice. Never has a man offered a greater path to glory than when He said: “go and sin no more”.

  21. Greg Hlatky says:

    *polite cough*

    Isn’t claiming a huge proportion of priests are homosexual a way of saying there’s nothing that can be done about it and we may as well accept it otherwise we won’t have a clergy?

  22. People continue to belittle the laicization of McCarrick. I don’t understand this. That he has been deposed from the clerical state is not an insignificant thing. It was necessary to protect the public, the Church and the priesthood.

  23. Kathleen10 says:

    It doesn’t seem to me that being a homosexual in the priesthood is an insignificant matter, and that it does not make a difference in terms of the vocation and life. It seems to make a great deal of difference.
    I’m no psychiatrist, but there seems to be ample evidence that being a homosexual has psychological effects or differences. All things are not equal, or the same, for heterosexual men and homosexual men. To take on spiritual fatherhood, are we saying it does not matter if one is heterosexual? It seems likely that men who are not heterosexual are going to have difficulty with that. There are reports that a type of narcissism also accompanies homosexual men, always the focus on the self. This does not sound like the kind of personality that will be easily able to take on the self-giving that is required of a priest. This matters.
    In addition, there is a kind of OCD that seems attached to homosexual activity. Men who commit pederasty for example, or pedophilia are notoriously resistant to any kind of treatment. For whatever reason, it is very difficult to stop that behavior. This may be because so often the perp does not think he is doing anything wrong. They believe this is “love” and the child or teen will be better for it. Or it may be that this type of disordered sex becomes a compulsion, it occupies the mind and thought processes more than sex does even for heterosexuals. Why else would we hear about wildly disordered sexual practices that are so degrading and debasing. Joseph Sciambra attests to this, courageous soul that he is.
    This is not insignificant.
    We need to be careful, I believe, if we are going to say it is acceptable to be a celibate or chaste homosexual priest. We have tried that. It has not worked. Thousands of boys and men can attest to it. I’m not saying we should drive out homosexual priests, although any priest who even once betrays his vocation and acts on it with a boy or seminarian or young man should not be a priest. But we are insane to keep ordaining men with any homosexual inclinations at all. If we keep doing the same thing over and, over, nothing will ever change. We’ll be right in the same place in 50 years, with just thousands and thousands of more victims.
    And does it not seem obvious that the homosexualists are also the dissenters in the church? The people who have no use for actual Catholic teaching or tradition? Is that a coincidence? How many of these guys can we afford. We’ve got too many now.
    For lots of very good reasons, we should take a zero tolerance approach at the seminary level and make it clear the priesthood is for heterosexual men only.

  24. Kathleen10 says:

    Fr. Z., I am in no way saying YOU said being a homosexual priest is acceptable or insignificant. I should have added that. I’m just making a point in general. Thank you for discussing this critical topic.

  25. Hb says:

    Amen, Father,
    Thx for your clarity and clear thinking.

  26. Amerikaner says:

    It’s all about justifying their sinful behavior. End stop.

  27. The Egyptian says:

    Per the letter from “your Real Catholic Friends”

    My feelings exactly, I am SOOOOO tired of victims by their own actions. If you understood the hell my wife and I have been through the last 35 years and we made our marriage work, you aren’t any different, get over your self, we really don’t want to know , we all have our crosses, soooo, suck it up buttercup, your a priest, act like one.

  28. TRW says:

    The 2005 document of the Holy See
    ” Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations
    with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies
    in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders” is a document that rightly avoids the use of the term “homosexual persons”. Clearly, those at the Congregation for Catholic Education or someone else reviewing the document went out of their way to avoid use of the phrase.

    Servant of God, Fr. John Hardon, when speaking about homosexuality as a tendency, made it clear that it is a tendency that each and every one of us has due to our fallen nature. Being a ” homosexual person” is not some separate ontological reality. Properly speaking, there is the tendency, the inclination, and lastly, engaging in homosexual activity. IMHO, it was not prudent that the CDF used the words “homosexual persons” in the 1986 document. The sin is as old as fallen human nature. The idea that there is some subset of the human race that are “homosexual persons “, however, isn’t one that can be easily reconciled with Catholic anthropology . Using the phrase in an offical document of the Holy See was, IMHO, a mistake(intentional or otherwise). Let’s not forget how the phrase ” LGBT youth” was smuggled into the Instrumentum laboris for the youth synod; it was subsequently enshrined in the final draft document. Gradualism is the modus operandi of Modernists.
    Below is the question and answer from Fr. Hardon:

    38. “What is homosexual tendency?
    Homosexual tendency in any person is within the normal range of human nature. Our fallen condition includes every kind of impulse, whether morally good or morally bad.”
    http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Chastity/Chastity_014.htm

  29. TRW says:

    The 2005 document of the Holy See
    ” Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations
    with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies
    in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders” is a document that rightly avoids the use of the term “homosexual persons”. Clearly, those at the Congregation for Catholic Education or someone else reviewing the document went out of their way to avoid use of the phrase.

    Servant of God, Fr. John Hardon, when speaking about homosexuality as a tendency, made it clear that it is a tendency that each and every one of us has due to our fallen nature. Being a ” homosexual person” is not some separate ontological reality. Properly speaking, there is the tendency, the inclination, and lastly, engaging in homosexual activity. IMHO, it was not prudent that the CDF used the words “homosexual persons” in the 1986 document. The sin is as old as fallen human nature. The idea that there is some subset of the human race that are “homosexual persons “, however, isn’t one that can be easily reconciled with Catholic anthropology . Using the phrase in an offical document of the Holy See was, IMHO, a mistake(intentional or otherwise). Let’s not forget how the phrase ” LGBT youth” was smuggled into the Instrumentum laboris for the youth synod; it was subsequently enshrined in the final draft document. Gradualism is the modus operandi of Modernists.
    Below is the question and answer from Fr. Hardon:

    38. “What is homosexual tendency?
    Homosexual tendency in any person is within the normal range of human nature. Our fallen condition includes every kind of impulse, whether morally good or morally bad.”
    http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Chastity/Chastity_014.htm

  30. MrsAnchor says:

    @Jerome Charles ..

    Somethings tricky about this and perhaps a few on here would be willing to elaborate? Or this could be Fr Z’a next post along with The Disciplines we can do outside of Lent?

    It isn’t prudent to place someone that has suffered with Alcoholism in a shop that strictly sells Alcohol….. right?

    A Diabetic at a Pastry Shop?

    A person with a Nut allergy in a Peanut Butter manufacturing Plant?!

    A person who has struggled with pornography working at a Strip Club/Sex Shop?

    A Jewelry Thief in Tiffany & Co?

    If one has a proclivity to a certain Vice it is best to never be around the “Candy Shop” The Saints one in particular jumped in a Thorn Bush to save himself the burden of sin.

    We should discern well to stay away from our personal vices and that which would lead us more into them. Or is that outdated? It’s an audacity to toy with any Vocation “play a game” all the while in self denial. Again it brings to my mind Lucifer coaxing Eve, God didn’t Really say that did He?

  31. teomatteo says:

    My mother and father had 9 kids. Dad was a barber who worked 6 days a week. A cage?

  32. un-ionized says:

    Kathleen10, Your comment here is very good. I have extensive experience dealing with priests with homosexual tendencies. The main problem is their narcissism which so often is malignant narcissism. This is also where the mafia-like behavior comes from. The misogyny is also a problem. I was subjected to slander, shunning, and abusive threatening letters by some priests. Unfortunately the congregation supported this because of the cache of supposed orthodoxy that the priests wore on the outside. The difference between the public and private personas was jarring.

  33. Thank you Father for a smokin’ hot post, tellin’ it like it is

    Writing an opinion on a book that I haven’t read ain’t right. However seeing that Fr. Martin supports the book raises my suspicions. Also the ‘everybody is gay’ theme of the book is often the way practicing homosexuals look at the world. “If you aren’t gay, you wish you were, you are suppressing your true self”. and “If you are virulently supportive of being straight, then you must be gay”.

    Too, as Greg Hlatky commented, presenting the overwhelming number of homosexual clerics may be to convince us that we can’t do anything about the way the Church is now.
    Also this message may be to further discourage our good clerics, hierarchy from attempting any kind of fight.

    So the book apparently paints the homosexual clergy as victims? Gaetano comments that the conservative/traditional are the ones hunted down and ostracized, especially by the same gay men demanding tolerance for themselves. I’d say this is far more accurate, heck, for all of us! “They” are trying to convince us that we are the minority and have no rights. And of course, rather than being victims, these men should strive to overcome sins, like everyone must to achieve salvation. Yea, heck, we are all victims to sin! But we are given graces to overcome that disadvantage. Quit whining.

    Not having read the book, I wonder that it does serve another purpose however. Because of Michael Voris/Church Militant report awhile ago reporting the high number of gay clerics in Rome; and also because of Viganò’s reports, we still should be alarmed at the powerful cabal of this demonic clerical sect. Remember the story of Pope Benedict anguishing over the report of the homosexual network in the Church? Some theorizing that he resigned in favor of a Pope who had the energy to fight this? Maybe the number in Rome really is high? There is a reason fighting this homosexual movement in the Church is so difficult, as Joseph Sciambra repeatedly reports as he continues to beg clergy for support in turning away others from the sinful lifestyle. If these evil men are all in positions of power, well no wonder the fight fails. Perhaps we should take the purported numbers and be REALLY alarmed – this demonic grip is real, and we need to stop ignoring it. We are beyond the ‘threat’ stage of the 40s and 50s and in full-blown takeover. Maybe we really need to get militant about this and demand the total eradication of any sign of this evil. After all, St. Peter Damian, Father of the Church, [The Book of Gomorrah] did recommend the death penalty for the worst. Severe and public punishment serves as reparation to God, and is a charitable act for all the victims.

  34. Can homosexuals serve as clerics in the Church?
    From the many reports, studies and stories I have read, the weakness for this sin is most often rooted in in the now-common societal ‘father wound’ that homosexuals, both male and female suffer. [Not everyone who suffers the father wound is homosexual. This ‘father wound’ presents various symptoms in many different ways for all of us, but what I mean to say is that the homosexual tendency is almost always is rooted in the ‘father wound’. ]
    This kind of wound does not make the best of clerics. These are people that had very bad father relationships: absent, abusive, weak, discredited, even fathers discredited by mothers their whole life, men who had no real father-figure in their lives anywhere. Generally these are people who identify more with their mothers, where effeminacy rules their identities, preferences, prayer lives, etc. Fatherlessness is a big indicator of the risk that such will not be a fatherly priest, manly fatherliness being crucial to the priesthood. Thus men from broken families or the illegitimate have been viewed as a high risk to success in the history of how men are selected as vocational material.

    Traveling in the Church’s Wayback Machine, in old spiritual works, you will come across advice to “avoid all effeminacy in prayer”. That the Church saw this rooted anywhere as a risk to salvation should tell us something.

  35. Bellarmino Vianney says:

    2 Timothy 3:13 discusses these people: “while evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived.”

    What is interesting is the lack of discussion of the possibility that a large number of the “gay” clergy never intended to be priests but instead were secular anti-Catholics infiltrating the Church (as impostors) and intending to make the Church “gay” or harm or weaken the Church in other ways.

    Remember, up until the election of President Trump, the U.S. was essentially controlled by anti-Catholics and pseudo-Catholics. President Trump has done some good, but ultimately there still remain millions of anti-Catholics and false catholics within the U.S. government.

    And, remember, a main tactic used by anti-Catholic “Alinskey-ites” to destroy an organization/entity is to first infiltrate that organization/entity with their own people. Impostors.

    So, could there have been (or could there currently be) a coordinated Alinskey-ite effort to infiltrate and then harm the Catholic Church? Would false catholics collude with a government entity and pretend to be Catholics while in the meantime they harm the Church in one way or another?

    Then ask this: are there identifiable false Catholics in the blogosphere, academia, and the clergy? One need not be a mystic to identify these phonies. There was at least one priest in the blogosphere that suggested not going to Mass and only receiving the Eucharist once a year. Phony. Some lay phonies can be identified in their videos in which they are very clearly acting. More than a few of them, even the ones that pretend to be “conservative”, show their true colors with a few of the heresies that they propagate.

    What is clear is that there are “conservative” false catholic impostors “in” the Church as well.

    In the end, God will reveal these duplicitous phonies for what they are – frauds. And in the end, God shows no partiality – even if some of these duplicitous persons have “good intentions”. There may very well be some priests that think it is o.k. to lie or deceive in order to do what they have wrongly convinced themselves to be “good”.

    It is mortal sin to deceive, particularly during the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and even in the Confessional. Luke 13:23-28 discusses these people – people that think (assume, presume) they are going to heaven but are so blinded by their arrogance and lies that in the end God sends them to hell.

  36. (X)MCCLXIII says:

    Dear Mrs Anchor,

    Might I suggest that it would not be prudent for anyone at all to take employment in a strip club or sex shop? ;-)

    Still, I’m sure we all see what you mean.

  37. Imrahil says:

    Though,

    A principle reason why a man says “Yes” is because He wants to do God’s will, without which he puts his own eternal salvation at risk.

    for this issue we have learnt that rumours to the contrary notwithstanding, and while a man of course does put his salvation at risk if he says No to God absolutely, at least until he is ordained and unless he has a (somewhat unlikely) private revelation to the contrary, he does not by merely saying No to ordination.

    [And now in English, please?]

  38. Imrahil says:

    Wasn’t that English?

    Anyway:

    This sentence you wrote, rev’d Father, taken in isolation could be implied to mean that some people become priests because they fear that otherwise they’d be saying No to God, thus putting their salvation at risk.

    Which is indeed a somewhat common misconception; and I don’t even doubt some priests may entered seminary for just this reason. And maybe they are fine priests. God can write straight on a crooked line. But if they did think so, they were mistaken.

    If God calls a man to priesthood, it is with the option to say No without sinning – which I thought worth underlining; in this Internet there’s no chance of setting aside things aside with the hope that they will remain aside.

    Of course, to be precise, one has to except the case of a man who is already priest – he is generally, at least very arguably, obliged to act upon it. One also has to except the case of a man directly ordered by God, under sin, to strive for ordination via private revelation. But though we do read about Jeremiah being such a prophet malgré lui (again… not English; sorry), this manner of calling priests will, for some reasons or the other, not be expected in great amounts today.

  39. MrsAnchor says:

    (X)MCCLXIII of course. There are Non Catholics, phony Catholics (@Bellarmini Vianney) and everything else in between. Gee, Milo Yiannopoulos ? That might be reading these Combox’s
    One will never know, but we must always be open to the possibility that the Bertoli Longos, Betty Brennan’s and Bella Dodd’s of the future lurk?

    @Bellarmino Vianney don’t forget Bella Dodd testified to Government about 1,000 Semenarians that were Anti-Church were sent in to infiltrate Alinsky style… This happened in the 30’s so it should be no surprise the Spirit of Vatican II had its strongest supporters in very high spots by then. Yes, they’ve also allowed the ladder system via Arch-Spellman, McCarricks and one day hopefully we’ll know All their names.
    It is said that the reason Arch Dolan is fighting tooth and nail for Arch Sheen is the NY Cabal don’t want his memoirs loose to the public!!!
    It’s disgusting what they’ve been allowed to do to ArchBishop Sheen and Peoria …. A shame.

    @Kathleen10 & @Tina in Ashburn ?? Really great points I hope some lukewarm Catholics will try to chew on in thought

  40. Jerome Charles says:

    MrsAnchor, Your analogies suggest, then, that there should be no male teachers, administrators, or coaches in a female Catholic high school, including priests? If they are heterosexual, that is? Or priests serving a women’s religious order? Is it dangerous for a heterosexual priest to work in a parish with a parish staff and volunteer base that are predominantly women? Homosexuality isn’t an addiction or a disease. Pedophilia is. It is a psychosexual disease that that claims both hetero- and homosexuals.

  41. MrsAnchor says:

    @ hahaha that gave me a good chuckle. In a perfect world more or less? Yes.
    Oh, you forgot Woman in the Military, Law Enforcement etc..

    We once had BOUNDERIES for a reason … Blurred lines only serve to confuse.

  42. The Masked Chicken says:

    Dear Jerome Charles,

    You wrote:

    “MrsAnchor, Your analogies suggest, then, that there should be no male teachers, administrators, or coaches in a female Catholic high school, including priests?”

    No, it doesn’t. Her analogies are restrictive. You have over-generalized them.

    She wrote:

    “It isn’t prudent to place someone that has suffered with Alcoholism in a shop that strictly sells Alcohol…
    A Diabetic at a Pastry Shop?
    A person with a Nut allergy in a Peanut Butter manufacturing Plant?!
    A person who has struggled with pornography working at a Strip Club/Sex Shop?
    A Jewelry Thief in Tiffany & Co?

    If one has a proclivity to a certain Vice it is best to never be around the “Candy Shop” The Saints one in particular jumped in a Thorn Bush to save himself the burden of sin.
    We should discern well to stay away from our personal vices and that which would lead us more into them.”

    The correct analogy would be allowing a male teacher, administrator, or coach to work at a female Catholic high school who has inadequate impulse control around young women. You are ignoring her qualification -“if one has a proclivity to a certain Vice…”. She never said normally adjusted (i. e. genetically non-allergic) people should not work in a Peanut Butter manufacturing plant.

    The problem is not that there is or is not a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. The problem is that the abuse of minors in the period from 1960-1990 was, largely, on older, post-pubescent boys. This is a different problem than pedophilia.

    As Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse pointed out, above, the data necessary to do a good analysis of the situation just does not exist. I have spent since last September modeling the spread of the abuse crisis, mathematically, and I think I can replicate the data from the John Jay Study very closely (the combox will not allow me to post pictures), but I used a fairly gross compartment model, which does not allow for fine-tuning, even though to get these results, the model is fairly complicated, involving Seminary professors, seminarians, priests, and minors. Still, to get such accuracy with even this type of model is amazing and points to a specific chain of cause and effect and, hint, it ain’t clericalism.

    Anyone who has studied the data should have noticed certain anomolies, like the sudden spike in 1960, the fact that the male-female ratio is about 50/50 at 1960, but becomes anomalously disproportionate at 80/20 between 1960-1990, and just as suddenly goes back to about 50/50. Yes, I think there are good explanations for this and the model gives a plausible indication why that might have happened.

    What we lack, more than anything else, is the connections between priests and seminaries, between priests and assignments, between priests and priests. If we had that, we could develop a much more accurate network model of the spread of the abuse. If any masters or doctoral sociology student out there wants to spend the two or three years to collect this data, he or she will have done more to understand and stop the spread of abuse of minors and seminarians than anything that will likely come out of Rome, thus week.

    I hate the idea of having a Vatican meeting of this sort where the participants have no more data about what they are talking about than a shoe shine boy has of the periodicity a pulsar.

    All they have at this summit is speculation, blind speculation. They can’t even answer simple questions like are there any statistical patterns within the abuse population. One can yell across the table about whether or not abuse of young children has a strong homosexual component (hint, it probably does not), but miss the point that the majority of abuses in the John Jay Study are of boys from 14-17 years old (hint, if Sullins is right, this abuse is linked to homosexuality).

    They aren’t being specific enough in their analysis. They are going over well-trodden ground. Let the Americans lead. The American bishops are the only group who have actually commissioned a study of the problem, as inadequate as it is. America had most of the data. Use the American model, for now, until they can do the actual work to actually know what they are talking about.
    I know it may sound elitist, but let data collection specialists do the work instead of letting theologians speculate and plan on a scaffold of smoke and put into effect strategies that satisfy instead of strategies that are based on the truth.

    The Chicken

  43. This is all about the Sin of Onan. Splitting hairs is silly when the crimes are this monstrous.
    This Sin of Onan consists of perverting the pleasure of the sex act into only pleasure while frustrating the end result of the procreative act.
    There are all sorts of variations of this, little evil acts in private to horrendously violent evil acts with others. Even those in marriage can succumb to this evil. When those leverage their power and authority and control over others to satiate their wicked appetite, the sin is compounded evil.

    We are an unchaste generation, having opened the door to acceptance of contraception, teaching all that we can pursue any appetite whatsoever without eternal retribution or societal destruction.

    Chicken – good comment, thank you.

  44. Jerome Charles says:

    Most men–homo or hetero, have a proclivity to sex. That’s why celibacy is so difficult–and is a charism. Most men don’t have the charism, and it cannot be forced upon them. The Holy Spirit doesn’t actually work that way. Both heterosexual men and homosexual men could be gifted with this charism. Or not. Can someone without this charism still minister and remain chaste? Yes, and it might be a mighty struggle for them at times.

    Let me say it another way. There are four kinds of seminarians and priests relative to this topic: 1) homosexual seminarians and priests who are being unchaste; 2) homosexual seminarians and priests who are being chaste; 3) heterosexual seminarians and priests who are being unchaste; and, 4) heterosexual seminarians and priests who are being chaste.

  45. aiello01 says:

    The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, which comes from the Holy Spirit, is the only thing in Christianity that contains the solution for lack of control. It contains peace and strength. This would be a good place to start looking for the solution to lust issues. There is nothing else.

  46. dcntodd says:

    Nice rant, Fr.! You must’ve had an inspiring cup of Mystic Monk Dark Roast Brazil coffee before hand.

Comments are closed.