Men like me ...

Shouldn't be priests.

Dan Mattson says it better than I can, and he also happens to be a much more credible witness than myself.  (He's a published author and a public speaker-apologist on Catholic teaching regarding homosexuality.)  I will let his essay speak for itself, but I want to post just a couple of excerpts which explain why ssa-gay men shouldn't pursue ordained priesthood.

I am the sort of man the Catholic Church says shouldn’t be a priest. I experience what the Vatican calls “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” which, according to the Church, make me an unsuitable candidate for the priesthood. The 2005 Vatican instruction on the question of homosexuality and the priesthood states this clearly: “The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’” This teaching wasn’t new. In 1961, the Vatican declared that men with homosexual inclinations couldn’t be ordained. Seminarians who “sinned gravely against the sixth commandment with a person of the same or opposite sex” were to be “dismissed immediately.” 

I take no offense at this teaching. In fact, I agree with it. I’m convinced that if the Church had heeded its own counsel from 1961 and 2005, we wouldn’t be reeling from the shocking headlines of today.  

[...]

What unites all of these scandals is homosexuality in our seminaries and the priesthood: the result of the Church ignoring its own clear directives. If it is serious about ending the sex scandals, the Church needs to admit it has a homosexual priest problem and stop ordaining men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies. The first “Uncle Ted” scandal was “Uncle Ted” becoming a priest.

I broach the subject with trepidation. I am convinced that most homosexual priests are good and holy men. - Mattson

I wish I had Dan's gift for writing - his witness is so very important today.  Thank you Dan for explaining Catholic teaching so well and for your fidelity to Christ and His Church. 

Cry of the faithful.

Powerful stuff.

Fr. John Harvey wrote a great book, The Truth About Homosexuality, The Cry of the Faithful - the title comes to mind frequently as the McCarrick scandal unfolds - which is why I titled this post Cry of the faithful ...  The laity and select priests are all speaking out concerning the truth of homosexuality.  Many pundits online are stopping their ears and protesting that people are doing that, accusing those who do so as homophobic, and/or engaging in a witch hunt, and so on.  Most of us are only speaking out on the topic simply to help explain how and why a conspiracy of silence and complicity existed as long as it has among the bishops and select clergy.

Fr. Z has a very courageous post discussing why clergy, specifically priests, have often been blocked from reporting sexual abuse by fellow priests, and or sexual improprieties engaged in by homosexual clerics.  (This would also apply to heterosexual misconduct of course, but as I've tried to point out in my own posts, there is a different dynamic within homosexual culture.)

That said, Fr. Z offers just one tidbit I left out in my posts, especially as concerns secrecy in the Church and it is the dilemma of the seal of confession.  I thought of it while writing about secrecy in the Church earlier.  I recalled the time a confessor shared something about a religious brother in his community who engaged in sexual sins, saying he made frequent confessions, and probably would keep repeating the same sins until he died.  I don't allow myself to discuss any more details of that encounter, which happened decades ago, but I wasn't consoled - believe me.  Long story short, he would never have been able to say anything outside the confessional if the brother ever was arrested for indecency, nor would he ever be able to inform his superiors that he had some issues - since he was bound by the seal of the confessional. 

Fr. Z points out that sometimes malefactors deliberately use the confessional to buy silence and pretty much ensure protection. 

Also, as a priest, there are the truly sacrilegious ways that some of these agents of Hell will work to shut up priests who don’t and won’t putt from the ruff. They use the Seal of the confessional against the solid non-queer priest confessor. They go to confession to a good confessor to bind him by the Seal. Of course that is pretty underhanded, satanic even. It is a horrible sacrilege. A lot of good priests know that if they hear something in the confessional they must never ever talk about it. They don’t know what to do, and, in prudence, they clam up about their brethren. This is one reason why the Church’s law discourages a superior of hearing the confessions of those under his authority. - Fr. Z

So yeah, like I keep saying, it is a homosexual problem - but it is even more so a problem of corruption which festers and spreads easily in a homosexual culture of secrecy and deviancy.  Few are willing to admit that.

Fr. Z said it was the hardest post he has ever written.  It's more than helpful for many of us, I think.  It helps explain what he had to endure throughout seminary, and it also demonstrates how difficult this scandal is for good priests and good bishops to endure.  Fr. Z will remain in my prayers.  God bless him.

Sheep without a shepherd.

They keep smiling and laughing.

You know God has to act.

When it has gotten this bad.  He has to act - especially when faithful Catholics are dismissed as homophobes and blamed for getting the bishops they deserve.  Blaming the oppressed for the sins of the fathers.  These really and truly are sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.

Watch and pray.

Deflecting the homophobic attacks on the bishops after the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report.

Everyone seems to be protecting and or attacking everyone else over it.

I noticed on Facebook commentators already jumping on anyone who says 'it's a homosexual problem' and yelling back, 'how is paedophilia a homosexual problem?  That's like saying molesting little girls is a heterosexual problem.'  The point being of course, that paedophilia is paedophilia, a still damnable and jail able offense.  Their insistence distracts from the homosexual priest-brother-bishop-cardinal in the sacristy measuring altar boys pant lengths problem.  It's not only a distraction, it's a strategy to avoid offending LGBTQ supporters - a sort of reverse homophobia, if you will.

Believe it or not, homos and heteros really do know the difference between paedos and ephebos and homos.  Pederasts and ephebophiliacs who prefer male on male sex are definitely homosexuals, though they fit a new category of paraphilia called chronophilia.  They can be switch hitters as well as enjoy sexual relations with different ages, albeit preferring age before beauty, as it were.  I'm deliberately being confusing because this nitpicking of what choice of sexual deviancy one chooses doesn't really change anything - the clergy - the episcopacy is corrupt.  They lied, paid people off, molested and raped and wielded enough power to cover it all up.

Having said that, I'll share a story from my own life experience, involving secular persons - long before the workplace was protected from sexual harassment legislation, and so on.

The display manager who liked little boys.

One of my supervisors preferred sex with children, young boys.  Once I saw him carrying on about a boy as young as five years old.  We were doing windows and the boy and his mother were watching us.  I and the rest of the crew laughed, thinking he was just pretending to lust after him.  Later, one of the display guys, who was also his lover told me that he definitely liked very young boys.  I still couldn't believe a grown man could be turned on by a little boy.  (I had been molested, but I thought it was my fault back then.  I mention that to demonstrate the denial I was in.)

Long story short, the fellow had a reputation for his preference for little boys, although he had young men lovers, legal age - late teens to early twenties.  He was definitely gay, militant to some degree in the early 1970's, when I lost track of him.

The enablers.

Coworkers and management ignored his paedophilia, many in the display department as well as department store management were gay, in fact, one of the top management - the very top - was known to seduce high school boys in the Teen Dept. dressing rooms.  Others used the men's room, or more discreet hide away places such as the stairwells.  All gay men.  All seen in the gay bars every weekend.

Straight coworkers knew as well.  Some were disgusted, others refused to believe it, others just looked the other way.  Kind of like the bishops and superiors and brother priests in Pennsylvania.  They knew it was a gay problem, which was actually against the law at that time.

What I am saying here is that the men I worked with, gay men, some of them were attracted to very young boys, others were attracted to teens and young men, but most seemed to be in search of a lover their own age or older.  To split hairs in say, the McCarrick scandal and the bishops cover up scandal, and mince words about the priest scandal, is a strategy to deflect attention away from the homosexual problem of protection and cover-up and corruption.  If I had the time I could demonstrate how similar the clerical network-protection is to the department store system and HR covering-cooperating with the perpetrators.  They handled complaints very much the same as the bishops and chanceries did.

The cover up.

People wouldn't complain for fear of their jobs or getting promoted and getting raises.  Management was gay or gay friendly and to complain to them would signal a sort of lack of loyalty.  If you went to HR, they contacted your supervisor and manager to verify your complaint.  If you reported to security, the offender's manager was able to get the accusation dismissed.  Almost sounds like a 'gay network' doesn't it?

Yeah.  So it really is a homosexual problem from the top down - the corruption is systemic.

Call it by its name.

Gay people in the world and workplace are one thing - and everyone knows today these things must be reported under penalty of law.  Gay people in positions of power in the Church, whose leaders - bishops and priests - are consecrated and solemnly promise chaste celibacy, is quite a different situation all together.  They really are held to a higher standard and an old boys club of old queens covering up all sorts of sexual abuse and pay-outs can not be tolerated.

Lay people and clergy can rant all they want, but a closeted gay hierarchy is the seedbed of corruption, and they will even protect those few hetero-paedophiles who slip through the cracks.  They'll do anything to maintain their position, power, and the titles and honors they receive.

Just saying.

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Anselmo Lopez

St. Maximilian Kolbe

"St. Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr of Charity", Neilson Carlin

As a child, Maximilian had a vision of Our Lady, who offered him two crowns, one for chastity, the other for martyrdom.  He explained:

"... the Blessed Mother appeared to me holding in her hands two crowns: one white the other red. She looked at me with tenderness and asked me if I wanted these two crowns. The white one signified that I would preserve my purity and the red that I would be a martyr."
[...]
In 1973 Paul VI beatified him and in 1982 John Paul II canonized him as a Martyr of Charity. - Source

St. Maximilian offered his life in exchange for a prisoner who was to be executed.  he died by lethal injection, after many days of starvation.  Kolbe's death was truly a heroic act of the most perfect charity by which he won his martyr's crown.  Since his canonization, the Saint's intercession is often sought for people addicted to drugs because of the manner in which he died.  However, I see his death foreshadowing the growing practice of euthanasia we hear about in our times: withholding nutrition and hydration, as well as lethal injection.  That is exactly how Kolbe was put to death - although much more cruelly, no clinical pretensions to comfort.  On account of this, Kolbe must be considered a major patron of the pro-life movement, especially for the abolition of the death penalty and to stop the trend towards euthanasia.  

Pope Francis said “If we do not oppose evil, we feed it with our silence.”

I agree.

Once I asked Mark Shea what an ordinary person could do to stop an evil he was writing about on his FB page.  He said to keep blogging or posting about it, in order to keep it in the public eye - the more people who are aware of it, the more likely something can be done to stop it.  I liken it to the importunate widow who nagged the Judge to rule in her favor - the Judge relented because she wore him out.  That's what we do when we post about the sexual abuse crisis, the homosexual connections, and the cover up by those who are supposed to be responsible for the souls in their care, and those affected by the scandal.

Ampleforth and Downside.

The scandal emerging from the abbeys in the UK remind me of the scandals surrounding St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.  Years ago when I was with the Trappists it had the reputation of being a hot-bed of homosexuality.  Monks were seen regularly at the gay bars in Minneapolis on the weekends, when those who were priests were in town to help out with local Masses.  (Some of these guys eventually leave monastic life to serve as diocesan priests - which is one reason I'm against admitting formerly active homosexuals to monastic life, BTW.)

A friend sent me a Tweet posted by Fr. Ray Blake of St. Mary Magdalene Blog:

raymond blake In the UK today fresh revelations about abuse at Downside and Ampleforth schools I have taken part in the Requiems of boys from these schools who killed themselves.

Voris is right, any toleration of abuse leaves blood on our hands and the Church.

Infinitely sad.

How many victims of abuse have committed suicide?  How many murdered?  My friend asked me that, pointing out that these deaths are not simply a statistic but affect family and friends and others, so scandalized they may have lost the faith, turned to some sort of addiction, or simply ended in lifelong depression.

Sometimes it angers me, but mostly it just makes me sad.  I'm always surprised when over the years I have heard priests and vocation directors say that a monastery seems to be the traditional home for men who have repented and left the homosexual life behind.  At one time perhaps that was the assumption, that penitent could do so safely?  Many think they can do that, or they think religious life is the only means they have of salvation.

A few years ago a reader told me he was investigating religious life and one of the groups he looked into would not accept ssa/gay men.  To my surprise he said he would look for a group that would.  I know that happens.  It's too bad.  It is not fair to the candidate to give such bad direction or false hope concerning vocation.  I know this from my own experience.  Not everyone is like me, to be sure, but many seem like a re-run I've seen before in my experience of fellow novices, and fundamentally, it's too similar for comfort.  In my case, at least four of us had 'same-sex-attraction' (gay) along with the novice master - in a class of seven men.  (One normal man persevered - and died a saintly death as well.)  For the most part I had no idea about the others until years after I left.

The way gay monks and gay priests have been transferred around to other dioceses or monasteries, and sometimes given desk jobs or chaplaincies, is a huge part of the scandal - to this day.  To. This. Day.

We either believe what the Church teaches - or we don't. 

Homosexuality is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil...

And don't be fooled,

it really is a problem of homosexuality, McCarrick.

The Benedict Option of Ampleforth and Downside Abbeys ...

One monk, Fr Piers Grant-Ferris was convicted of 20 counts 

of indecent assault against 15 boys 

from Ampleforth’s junior school, in 2005.  

Source

"Appalling"

Two leading Roman Catholic schools "prioritised monks and their own reputations over the protection of children", a report says. 

"Appalling" abuse was inflicted on pupils at Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset over 40 years, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said. - BBC

"Isaac from the Thebaid said to his brothers, 'Do not bring boys here. Boys are the reason why four monasteries in Scetis were deserted.'"

Thinking with St. Francis of Assisi

I think I will observe the Lent of St Michael again this year.

Information for the Lent of St. Michael here.

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.

‘The Church is opposed, and the priests are despised because of the bad ones who give scandal. Help Me, by suffering, to repair for so many offenses, and thus save AT LEAST IN PART, humanity precipitated in a slough of corruption and death’. - Our Lord to Blessed Elena Aiello (1954)

Infinitely sad ...

Imagine how many souls are led astray ...

Sometimes I get really, really scared. 

Gotta give it up ...

This is good - from Bishop Barron.

I have to let my participation in any discussion fade away.  I hurt too many feelings with my commentary.  I'm so sorry.

The McCarrick Mess | Word on Fire

So what should be done? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has no juridical or canonical authority to discipline bishops. And even if it tried to launch an investigation, it has, at the moment, very little credibility. Only the Pope has juridical and disciplinary powers in regard to bishops. Hence, I would suggest (as a lowly back-bencher auxiliary) that the bishops of the United States—all of us—petition the Holy Father to form a team, made up mostly of faithful lay Catholics skilled in forensic investigation, and to empower them to have access to all of the relevant documentation and financial records. Their task should be to determine how Archbishop McCarrick managed, despite his widespread reputation for iniquity, to rise through the ranks of the hierarchy and to continue, in his retirement years, to function as a roving ambassador for the Church and to have a disproportionate influence on the appointment of bishops. They should ask the ecclesial version of Sen. Howard Baker’s famous questions: “What did the responsible parties know and when did they know it?” Only after these matters are settled will we know what the next steps ought to be. - Read more here

Eradicating Networks ... and Lobbies

What's a Network?

I was thinking of Janet Smith's comments to LifeSite on getting rid of gay networks in diocesan culture.  “Eradicating the homosexual networks from the Church would do a lot to purging the Church of immoral priests,” said Smith, “and doing so should help us get at the other problems.” - Source

There is a lot of knee jerk responses to the current crisis, as Catholics online know and discuss in the com boxes of many popular sites, as well as on Twitter and FB and other social media sites.  Social media is a network.  Many groups network through social media.  Conspiracy theorists, every category of LGBTQ person, clergy and laity, Catholics and Protestants, and so on.  How do you stop that?  I'm exaggerating somewhat, but you get my point. 

Social media has been the main vein for gossip, rumor, and so on.  It's the main vein for sharing and caring, as well as character assassination and shaming ones enemies.  I've always thought Pope Francis has been pointing this out every time he speaks about the destructive evils of gossip and slander.  When he speaks of corruption, I think he sees a connection there.

What about eradicating lobbies?

The Pope recognized there are 'lobbies' - lobbies are comprised of groups who network.  Get rid of the lobbies and you get rid of the networks then, huh?  (He also noted there are other 'lobbies' or groups.)  Lobbies are networks - both lead to corruption, sometimes even spring from corruption.

Yet when Italians say there’s a “gay lobby” in the Vatican, they don’t mean an organized faction with the aim of changing Church teaching on homosexuality or same-sex marriage.

Instead, what they have in mind is an informal, loosely organized network of clergy who support one another, keep one another’s secrets, and help one another move up the ladder. The group is perceived to have a vested interest in thwarting attempts at reform, since they benefit from secrecy and old-guard ways.

It’s called “gay” because, the theory goes, a Vatican official’s homosexuality can be a very powerful secret, especially if he’s sexually active, and threatening to expose him can be an effective way of keeping him in line. It’s hardly the only such possibility, however, and, in any event, the emphasis is not on sex but secrecy, as well as the related impression of people getting promoted or decisions being made on the basis of personal quid pro quos. - Crux

There are visible gay networks around the country.  In a sense, Courage is one - which is approved.  Spiritual Friendship movement supports gay-chaste-celibate Catholics, then there is Dignity, New Ways Ministry, and others I know little to nothing about.  (Fr. James Martin and his supporters pretty much comprise a very visible 'gay lobby'.)  These are technically support groups, but it is also sort of a network - right?.

Members - friends, communicate with one another.

Nothing wrong with that, although they can also be rather secretive and act more like an 'underground network' when they do so.  They too support one another with hopes to enter religious life or seminary, or find acceptance and approval in their communities, frequently supported by clergy.  Should they be eliminated too?  Some yes?  Some no?  So how do you do that? 

The Church and especially the bishops need to focus on the corruption in the clergy, in the hierarchy.

Reform is the way to clean up corruption.  Eradicating networks, chipping away at lobbies only works in and through exposure to scrutiny.  That's what seems to be happening with the McCarrick scandal, a painful process indeed.  Painful and shameful.  It is precisely why people reject those who bring it to their attention - because it burst their little Catholic bubble. 

Secrecy is how and why networks and lobbies thrive.  The Church exists in 'mystery' as it were, and secrecy is part of that.  The seal of the confessional, the 'secret prayer' in the EF, and so on.  Our Lady always seems to impart secrets at every apparition.  Secrecy is very Catholic.

Corruption perverts our notion of secrecy - it seeps into clandestine movements and private exchanges.  Corruption operates in secrecy.  Corruption is the problem.  It's up to the Pope to 'break up any power group' bent upon changing Catholic teaching - or seeking to corrupt Catholic doctrine.  So far the job seems insurmountable.  Maybe it has gotten worse?  Or maybe what we are going through is the cure?  Exposing the corruption is the first step.

"For they have eyes always on the lookout ... for someone to seduce."

Two Gay Catholic Factions

Lost Boys, John Kirby

I read the following today and it rang true.

N., an exceptionally well-informed lay Catholic, tells me that there are two basic tribes of gay bishops and priests. 

The first tribe is the Progressives — some sexually active, others not — who believe homosexuality should be normalized by the Catholic Church, and are pushing openly for the Church to change its teachings to reflect that. 

The second tribe are Conservatives who live a double life. Outwardly they advocate for traditional Catholic teaching on homosexuality, but they also live homosocially (in the sense of socializing with other gay conservative priests), and some have gay sex. They therefore live in a state of cognitive dissonance. - Source

But ...

Janet Smith recently did an interview wherein she says:

“Eradicating the homosexual networks from the Church would do a lot to purging the Church of immoral priests,” said Smith, “and doing so should help us get at the other problems.” - Source

So it's the old gay-lobby again.

I seriously no longer know what to think, what to do.  The homosexual network?  I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.  Yes it exists, no it doesn't,  Yes it does.  No it doesn't.  Well it's not monolithic.  Well it's not tightly organized.  It's not there.  This yes and no crap is a major, major distraction.  It exists!  Damnit!

Homosexuals are called to chastity.

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. - CCC

What more do people want from those who live with a condition which 'constitutes for most of them a trial? These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.'

Most are doing the best they can at great sacrifice, now with the double life of McCarrick and other devils exposed, there is a sort of witch hunt.  Churchmen and Church ladies want to dictate to ordinary people how to live their lives, who to live with, and what self-help organizations they need to be on board with, in order to be admitted to the Church, and/or Communion in some circumstances.

Stick to what the Church teaches, stop anticipating possible changes to the wording of the catechism.  Stop placing heavy burdens on people too heavy to carry.  Follow the rules - your rules - you don't want gay priests?  Quit admitting them to seminary- that's the rule you always and everywhere break.  Laicize the abusers.  Reform the clergy.  Get rid of gay cardinals and bishops who keep writing letters to recommend admitting the cute ones to seminary.

Remember, active homosexual priests are predatory.  They use people.  They use ordinary lay people and gay Catholics.  Sometimes for sex, sometimes for social advancement, and so on.  The problem of homosexual clergy is a problem of corruption.  The existence of a so-called homosexual network is a product of a corrupt clericalism.  It is only a symptom of a more profound corruption. The more hidden and closeted, the more it is denied, the creepier things become. 

Omoeresia

Since the problem is clearly within the the clergy and their efforts to change Catholic teaching on homosexuality - concentrate on the reform of the clergy and the hierarchy.  Pope Francis recently said 'if you have doubts about a candidate to seminary - it's better not to admit them.'  Just because someone belongs to a Courage group is no guarantee he will remain chaste.  Just stop admitting gay people to religious life and seminary life.   Govern the canonical structures that exist, reform the clergy.  Priest who do not accept Catholic teaching - give them chaplain jobs or make them Simplex priests.  

There are different ways in which this operates: from the theology that is taught in seminaries and in pontifical universities that calls into question "the truth about the human person" - as Ratzinger says, to the increasing pressures to bless homosexual unions; from the pastoral care for homosexual persons which legitimises their sexual activity, to the request for civil recognition of gay unions. Let's also cite just a few more recent cases: the multiplication of vigils last May against homophobia in Italian dioceses; the pastoral care for homosexual persons entrusted in large part to associations and groups that pursue the recognition of a homosexual lifestyle; the preparatory document for the Synod of Youth, which for the first time adopted LGBT terminology; the open alignment of the Italian Episcopal Conference in favour of the recognition of civil unions (albeit in a more moderate form than the law actually approved); the important role that the Italian bishops daily newspaper Avvenire has been playing for many years in trying to change the mentality of Catholics regarding homosexuality; the appointment of the Jesuit Father James Martin, a well-known activist who promotes the LGBT agenda, as a consultant to the Secretariat for Communication; and we could go on and on adding to this list. - Source

Anyway - I'm very frustrated and I think this has turned into a gay panic fest.  Focus people.  Screw the dubia and all your other excuses for perpetuating a decadent culture in the clergy and the Church at large, and reform yourselves.  Quit using WYD and gatherings such as World Meeting of Families for ideological colonization purposes - to promote acceptance of homosexual activity into family life.  

NB:  I'm not sure what to make of the following article from our CatholiSpirit, but I will link to it to fill out my own commentary here.  I don't think I'm quite on the same page as Tushnet and Belgau - but their POV is curious and an interesting contrast to a couple of the articles I link to in my post today.  Celibate gay Catholics fear backlash.

That's all for today.