Active Homosexuality ...

Mass Appeal, 1984 film, Jack Lemmon as Father Tim and Zeljko Ivanek as Mark.

HELPED ...

See, everyone is bending over backwards to insist the McCarrick news which preceded the clergy abuse report from Pennsylvania are either not connected, and/or - for sure it ain't a homosexual problem.  I get tired of that, because it is usually gay people or those who embrace LGBTQ culture as equal and normal (in opposition to Catholic teaching), and/or those who have no experience of gay-culture in the workplace, who voice the opposition

Monsignor Pope, for whom I have great respect wrote an article entitled, Active Homosexuality in the Priesthood Helped Cause this Crisis.  I think he may have originally titled it, 'at the root of the crisis' and then it was edited to 'helped cause this crisis'.  Both are good, the latter is less likely to cause a firestorm.  The point here is that it facilitated an atmosphere, a culture of 'sleaze'.  What do I mean by that?  Within a hidden, closeted culture of homosexuality, pretty much anything goes.  So if you have an adulterer on staff, or even a child-lover, you tolerate it, look the other way, and do the 'I won't tell if you don't' shtick.  Although, since there is no honor among thieves, sometime the ambitious, or just those who have become disgruntled, do in fact tell.

As I said on my Facebook page, unless you experienced it or worked in a similar environment - those who insist that it is not a gay thing do not know what they are talking about. I worked in a gay profession, marketing - store design-display - closely related to the fashion industry and advertising. It's a gay profession with similarities to how the priesthood attracts gay men and sometimes is likewise referred to as a gay profession. Store design/fashion fits into a larger field - now days, if they exist at all, department stores and most retail is contained within a corporate structure.

There is a hierarchy of management in big stores and corporations, just as in the Church.  Many gay people who work within that structure have middle to senior management positions, most happen to be straight, normal people - hence - esp. in the 1960's, early '70's, the workplace atmosphere was much more closeted. Gay men, like women were promoted, not as often as straight men however.  That said, if the gay men were married to women and had a family - they were promoted.  No one discussed sexual preference back then, BTW.  The married-to-a-woman gay man, like a Cardinal or a Bishop, promoted some of the more favored (and sometimes talented), gay men beneath them.  Up the ladder they went, and hiring pretty much focused upon young, cute males, preferably gay.

Long story short, there did exist a sub-culture which included abuse and exploitation of others. To resist and or protest about a gay milieu could get you fired, demoted, given another job, and so on. Too much detail to get into here now. But believe me when I tell you the culture was very similar to the culture created by McCarrick and his buddies. His pink cocktail parties sound like some of the display parties I used to get invited to.  I also knew of more gross 'get togethers' which took on the character of an orgy.  (If anyone is still alive from my days in display, you will want to know that the presidents of the company were gay and married, as was the display director, and several of his management team.  Curiously, many were into the occult as well.  That's another story.)

A homosexual club-culture can be very influential and is quite manipulative - be it in the Church, the office, or a corporate situation. Hollywood is a great example. It covers a multitude of sins - protects offenders, straight or gay, and even controls who is promoted and so on.  It's corrupt and based upon dishonesty.

Pay attention to what Monsignor Pope says here - he too knows what he is talking about:

All this demonstrates that seminaries and the priesthood are not good places for those with deep-seated same-sex attraction. It does not take an anthropology or psychology degree to figure this out. Putting a man with same-sex attraction in a seminary is no more advisable than putting a heterosexual man in a woman’s dormitory where he shares shower facilities and close quarters with women. A man with same-sex attraction is going to face temptations in all-male settings that would test the strongest. 

Add to this the possibility that other men of same-sex attraction are there and soon enough a subculture sets up where temptations are fierce, and compromises and liaisons soon emerge. And this is what we have seen in the “gay” subculture that is demonstrably existent among a significant number of clergy in the Church. 

An honest discussion of the recent crisis needs to include a clear setting forth and analysis of these facts. Ignoring them and staying silent through political correctness is malpractice at this point. We must speak charitably and clearly about this. We must not allow charges of intolerance, homophobia and scapegoating to suppress a frank discussion and analysis of the link of much of this misbehavior to active homosexuals, and a subculture among some of them that tolerates and promotes behavior which God forbids. - Monsignor Pope

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.