At Fishwrap (National Sodomitic Reporter) a piece entitled:
Is now the time for LGBTQ priests and religious to come out?
Have we reached a moment when it’s time for the many LGBTQ bishops, priests, deacons, brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church to come out?
[…]
And then, later…
“For as some in the church may denounce us as a blight upon the purity of the church, in fact Catholicism depends on us, and has done so for a very long time. Gay, bisexual priests and deacons preside at the sacraments not just in big cities, but in significant numbers throughout the Catholic Church. LGBTQ religious teach, do research and write the papers that both leaders and the faithful depend on. We work for justice and serve the neediest and most forgotten. LGBTQ Catholic clergy and religious run institutions such as colleges and soup kitchens, refugee centers and the church’s own dioceses. And in what remains, despite Francis’ best efforts, as a pretty bleak time in the church, we help keep the faith alive, even as some of our fellow clergy and religious demean us or label us predators.”
First of all, I do not for a moment accept the premise that “Catholicism depends on us”. Absurd. The writer is delusional. Catholicism cannot depend on something that is a disorder. The acts are sinful. Catholicism is the corrective for disorder and for sins.
That said, I say, “Go for it!” Yup. Everybody out! Declare yourselves! Go ahead.
“For as some in the church may denounce us as a blight upon the purity of the church, in fact Catholicism depends on us, and has done so for a very long time. Gluttons and those of us prone to petty gossip and sloth come forth! And show those in the church that we INDEED make up a large portion of their number!”
Amen! That would actually be great! Think how that would organize the faithful! But they won’t do it. They know it would not turn out well for them.
From the article:
“To be clear, there are a lot of reasons why priests, deacons and religious don’t come out, most of which involve one form or other of duress. First and foremost, it’s an unspoken rule. As a public person in the church, you are not to talk about your sexuality, no matter what it is.”
“And, particularly for LGBTQ religious, that rule comes with an implicit layer of threat: If you do this, there will be consequences.”
I truly wish these gay priests would understand that healthy, mature adults don’t discuss sexuality, publicly or otherwise.
Our public lives do not revolve around sex or sexual identity. I have worked with people for literally years without discussing our sexual identity or dating lives.
This is entirely due to boundaries, not oppression. We keep that which is private in the realm of the private.
His claim of duress ring false. First, because there are few places where homosexuality is more frequently discussed than in seminary & religious life. To the point where it becomes monomania and the lens through which >everything< is viewed.
Most of us further understand that a person who feels compelled to talk about sex harms group dynamics. They demand affirmation from the world, and typically lack maturity & a sense of propriety.
Such adolescent behavior isn’t tolerated in the workplace, and can rapidly lead to a trip to HR. It certainly doesn’t belong in the seminary, much less the pulpit.
Indeed, a priest who feels the need to announce their sexuality, often to a captive audience of congregants, should be judged. Harshly.
Lastly, as a man married for 15 years with three children under ten, I can assure you that sex is not the focus of a marriage. It’s not even close.
So the “poor pitiful me” routine is absolutely tiresome.
LGBTQ = Narcissism.
Clearly evident by the author of the Fish wrap article. “You couldn’t live without us; we are that perfect.”
. Usually just talking to them for a moment and a simple handshake can out them immediately. Wet noodle shake, gay. Dances at youth groups, gay. Doesn’t socialize with the masculine men of the parish, if there are any at the parish, gay. Sings that corny but catchy Alleluia at a wedding and it went viral, gay. Wears a chasuble with kids painted handprints all over it, gay. Talks with a nasally accent and a soft enunciation, gay.
Clearly I’m joking although there is some truth in jest.
Sometimes, without judging someone’s soul, it’s rather telling I believe. In this day and age, if a man appears to have the classic gay qualities about him, there’s a good chance.
I’ve worked in the blue collar industry my entire adult life. There is an unwritten rule about the gays. If you are not gay, you don’t present anything publicly as gay. If you do, prepare to be ruthlessly thought of as gay. It’s very simple. Straight, virile men see it a mile away.
Sadly, I’ve met many in the clergy as well as sister grey pants who have very clearly presented themselves as gay.
And this is my number one reason as to why the Church is collapsing and dioceses are closing up shop.
Straight, masculine men who want to be Dads, marry women, and raise God fearing children don’t want to be around them, just like they don’t in the trucking yard or welding shop or mechanics bay. No man likes the idea that this other dude may “like” me. Just a fact, not hating these people, but it’s a simple fact.
Gay music, gay vestments, gay voice, gay homily, gay banners and the Dudes are gone.
I encourage all Dads out there to make sure their sons and daughters have strong male influences in their children’s lives. If you think you’re parish is kinda gay, it’s already too gay and that will have an affect on the life of you’re children.
Our Latin Mass Priest when I was a child founded a religious order of nuns and was a Boxer. A man’s man. My brothers and I have said this numerous times, without him, we would have all left the faith. Someone asked my brother, why do you think you would have left the Church if you grew up at the local parish level, his response; because I’m not gay.
Religious take vows of poverty, obedience, and … chastity. So, on the one hand should you publicly admit that you’re chaste, but you’re inclined to do things with body parts other than that for which they were intended? Well, I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that. On the other hand if what you want to say is that you took a vow of chastity, and have been enjoying the prestige afforded by the lay faithful out of respect to those who embrace that discipline, but you lied to us and all the while you’ve been engaging in sexual activity of the most selfish and damaging variety … the only thing really to say in that case is, “I’m sorry,” and then commit to a secular life of penance and reparation. However, if what you want is to admit that you lied to us, and then expect to stay in the Church, keep your full priveleges, and have us support you in your deviancy? **Sigh** People don’t actually believe that, do they?
Father posted about all this fairly recently, concerning the great Fr. Paul Mankowski S.J.
https://wdtprs.com/
Buy the book, and the others linked.
Ooops, sorry
https://wdtprs.com/2024/05/two-items-concerning-jesuits-one-grim-and-real-the-other-a-tribute/
I don’t want to know the sexual preference of my Publix cashier, and yet today it was announced to me by the pins he was wearing. Why do people think I care?
I absolutely don’t want to know the sexual preference of my priest. As long as they are chaste and celibate they could really like koalas for all it matters.
Not everything has to be discussed.
What do you guys think? My belief is that any priest who does not believe the full faith is probably lustful. I don’t see how a non-elderly man in this sexual culture can refrain from sexual impurity if they don’t believe it is a mortal sin.
Some of this reads as though even those with a SSA, who strive to live in the state of grace and shun the pleasures and sins of the world, are still “not good enough” to be in the Church, let alone a trad parish…
A important aspect of the sacrificial nature of the priesthood is a man’s surrender of his desire to have a beautiful wife and children.
Men with same sex attraction make no such sacrifice.
I struggle with sloth.
There. I’ve said it. I identified as a slothful American and a slothful priest.
When’s our month? When’s our parade – oh forget it, we’d rather take a nap on a comfy couch.
Too much information!
I came of age in the “hippy years”. I heard about those things, but had no idea what they meant . I knew they were wrong and that was enough.
I didn’t need look to see if St. Augustine wrote a thesis on the subject.
Too true OzReader
Fr. Tim come on, nobody struggles with sloth, they are so easygoing and peaceful. You can just boss them around like crazy.
Regarding the topic, the John Jay College Study commissioned by the church to examine the sexual abuse crisis in the church found that 81% of the sexual abuse victims were post-adolescent males, over decades. Boys roughly between 11 and 17 or so were the victims 81% of the time. All priests are male, so if 81% of the victims of sexual abuse over decades are young males, connect dots here. With all the giving and whatnot mentioned, why is that fact ignored. The consequences of that alone, to the boys, who too often committed suicide or fell into drug or alcohol abuse to try to blunt the pain, and then the damage to the faith of millions, the people who left the church or never came in. Incalculable. Only God knows the true impact but we can guess.
It has not been a benefit to those individuals or their families, nor the church, nor society.
Fr. Tim, ;)
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I did not realize that our Church depended on writing papers, administration of church institutions, and running soup kitchens and refugee centers. I thought the Church depended on the salvation of souls and spreading the Gospel, and to this our homosexual brethren don’t admit to. They are at least quite honest: since they write the papers, therefore they are responsible for all the heresies written in the past 60 years and mainly for writing loads of pointless USCCB and diocesan documents that only kill trees as no one in their right mind reads them. Since they administer the Church institutions: they are not only guilty of bankrupting the dioceses because of the pederasty lawsuits they caused, but also for the closure of all the many parishes and parochial schools since it is their policies that caused millions of Catholics to abandon or just ignore their Catholic Faith. Since they run the colleges, they are the ones responsible for basically almost all the Catholic colleges loosing their identity. And since they run all the refugee centers, they are the ones responsible for all those foreign priests having to go back to their home countries because their visas were taken by adolescent illegal immigrants. Thank you LGBTQ Catholics for frankly admitting in Fishwrap that you have ruined American Catholicism by taking full responsiblity for running the Church in the U.S.
Honest question:
If you take a vow of celibacy, what importance is your sexuality? Can you be celibate and “gay”?
I don’t think so
Delusional is exactly right.
Why is it necessary for *any* priest to discuss his sexual preferences, since he is supposed to be celibate? And that includes the Eastern Rites, who are expected to be faithful to their wives. If a priest is obedient and celibate, this is not an issue. If he is not obedient nor celibate, he has no business being a priest. And *that* is a real issue that needs discussed.
Why on earth has it become necessary for anyone to discuss their sexuality in public?!!! Really, I can think of nothing I care to discuss less.
In my experience, the desire to publicly declare one’s sexual orientation & demand community affirmation stems directly from the misguided model of “church as therapeutic community.”
Some of this reads as though even those with a SSA, who strive to live in the state of grace and shun the pleasures and sins of the world, are still “not good enough” to be in the Church, let alone a trad parish…
Not so. Nothing here is saying that those who suffer from SSA and who strive to live in chastity are “not good enough” for the Church. Nothing.
But a man who suffers from SSA should avoid certain problem areas of life that will make his life harder and make chastity harder. The priesthood is such.
And a man who suffers from SSA is not well fit for the priesthood, just as a man who suffers from gluten allergy is not well fit for being a Carthusian monk, and a woman who is stuck to a wheelchair is not well fit to be a hiking guide, and a person with severe myopia is not well fit for being an Air Force pilot. The role entails being a close fit to model Christ’s humanity, (which is one of the several reasons why women cannot be priests), and one aspect of that is Christ’s willing, voluntarily giving up of marriage and family life for a higher good, to serve the Kingdom. Mary the Mother of God was better than every one of us, but she was not well fit to be a priest – not because her soul wasn’t good enough, but because as a woman she had a different calling than to closely image Christ in his (male) humanity. It isn’t goodness, it’s other criteria involved.
Dear TonyO,
which is all very fair, but it requires a bit of understanding on the part of orthodox, traditional Catholics that the rôle of Catholic lay male single parishioner is not among those problem areas of life.
Part of which is expressed in the
dear BeatifyStickler
‘s comment (to which I’d have responded anyway). I don’t deny this may quite well be not for from the truth as a matter of observation. It is also true that such a state of affairs is wrong, period.
There’s something sympathetic, and something rather peculiarly manly, in the the breaking out of an increasingly rigid fences of “normed existence”, with a don’t and occasionally a do everywhere. It in fact makes me understand the gays a bit: There really is something liberating in being able to read (and even read love-storys) at will, in being allowed to dance at will, in being allowed to dress dandyish (masculine-dandyish, of course) if you should so choose, in liking ballet if you should so choose, and in being befriended by fascinating and beautiful women who don’t avoid you for fearing to send off signals (or worse of being assaulted)[*], and a lot of other quite morally decent pastimes the dear BeatifyStickler would probably describe as gay-ish and best to be avoided. It’s not that that is wrong. What is wrong is the ugly things they do sexually.
And of course, if we lived in a world that had the right opinion, what is actually sinful about homosexuality, viz. its homosexuality, those naturally-oriented wouldn’t feel the need at all to add all these barriers against innocent things. I am told that Arab men friends go hand-in-hand (not that I would like that, I too am influenced by the atmosphere); if so, the clear ban of (actual) homosexuality in Islam is probably the reason.
[* The Catholic of natural orientation of course does have that, especially with Catholic married women, but even with others.
Again: It’s precisely the strong barrier against actual immorality that assures the liberty for the wide area of morally decent things. One can hug a married female friend if all the involved, including the husband, know adultery is out of the question. The Catholic Middle-Ages produced the troubadours.]
Slothful people don’t need a month. Nor do alcoholics, drug addicts, the vain, the profane, etc. None of them are barred from holy orders. And yet, even sexually inactive gay people are. Hmm.