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sex scandals involving Roman Catholic clergy and boys come in every
morning with the regularity of terrorist activity in the Mideast.
The stories engender heuristic discussion of problems if not cognate,
at least tangential. What is happening to the Catholic clergy? Is
what is happening conceivably welcome? What are we learning about
the homosexual subculture in the clergy? What is it teaching us
about such public questions as homosexual scoutmasters?
— There
is a new book called Goodbye!
Good Men, in which the author (Michael Rose) contends that
individual Catholic seminaries are seedbeds for the perversions
we are reading about. In the words of one reviewer, "Rose presents
evidence that the leadership in some seminaries often discharged
men [in the recent past] who were unabashed in their heterosexuality,
while at the same time simply denying that an actual sacramental
priesthood exists."
— The
prominent scholar, Garry Wills, writing in The New York Review
of Books under the heading "Jesuits in Disarray,"
speaks of the near dissolution of the religious order in which he
once served as a novice. His tone about developments is that of
the statistician, recording events without any sense of personal
involvement in them. If Mr. Wills had been writing about a lesion
of interest in civil liberties, or racial integration, or women's
rights, there'd have been a poignant throb of concern; no such thing
here. He is as detached in talking about the Jesuit disarray as
a researcher would be about an atrophied body part. In the past,
Jesuit novices "offered stirring models" for students
who wanted to join them in their "high calling." But now
we have the outward flood, and other exercise-grounds for idealistic
energy. "Many nuns discovered this while participating in,
or watching other women participate in, the civil-rights demonstrations
of the Sixties."
Mr. Wills quotes
the authors of a book who note "the gaying and the graying
of the Jesuits." Notwithstanding, the remnant Jesuit leadership
is relatively in high regard: "I think the Church is being
governed by thugs," Mr. Wills quotes one Jesuit administrator,
who would however not say this about the present leadership of his
own order. And there is this "social bond" that is "the
Catholic version of the gay movement." In some Jesuit quarters
you have the beginning of a new form of social discrimination: "Some
of those [straight] Jesuits interviewed express resentment at being
excluded by the gays." What to do about it? Tough. There is
a little band there of "restorationists." But if the order's
general in Rome "should try to enforce the papal ban on any
homosexual activity, the already thin ranks could be considerably
reduced — gays might leave in droves, as heterosexuals already
have."
— Author
Stanley Kurtz, writing on National Review Online, addresses the
problem of a gay subculture in the priesthood by analogy. Suppose,
he says, that gays were welcomed as Boy Scout leaders and proceeded
to form bonds. Inevitably, some would engage in sex with some boys,
and scandal would follow. Never mind that this would be so only
of a small minority of the gay scoutmasters. "Hasn't the fear
always been that only a minority would do so, but that this minority
would be sufficient to do irreparable harm, not only to many young
boys, but to the Boy Scouts as an organization?
"All of
this has already happened in the Church. Clearly, the acceptance
of celibate homosexuals into the priesthood has had important positive
consequences for these men, and for the people they serve. Yet the
dangers to the Church in such a policy are also, clearly, profound.
There is a difficult balancing of goods here. But what seem to me
to be the entirely sensible concerns of those who resist the notion
of homosexual priests or Boy Scout leaders cannot be dismissed as
hysteria or prejudice, simply because not every homosexual Boy Scout
leader or priest would end up abusing boys or young men."
— And
Rod Dreher, a Catholic who has written about the Church scandals,
engages Andrew Sullivan, the prominent writer, Catholic, homosexual.
Dreher excuses his mention of Sullivan's problems intending "no
disrespect." "If I made a habit of holding myself out
as a Catholic in good standing, but wrote publicly about sleeping
around outside of marriage . . . why shouldn't people question me
about it? Andrew [Sullivan] confesses today to being a Catholic
dissenter. . . . That's between [dissenters] and their confessors,
but what really bothers me is that many of them, including priests,
teach this dissent as authentic Catholicism. I do not believe that
homosexuality mandates child abuse. I do not believe many, or even
most gay men abuse minors. I am unpersuaded, though, that the culture
of homosexuality in the priesthood has nothing to do with the numerous
scandals, which almost always involve boys. If Tailhook were a widespread
phenomenon, then we would be right to question whether an abusive
culture of heterosexuals in the Navy contributed to the problem."
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