Posted on 04/24/2002 10:06:25 AM PDT by Notwithstanding
Roman Catholic priests wary of outcome of Vatican summit on sexual abuse
Wed Apr 24, 4:04 AM ET
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer
NEW YORK - The Vatican (news - web sites) summit of U.S. cardinals on ending the American sex abuse crisis has made many Roman Catholic priests wary that they will be sacrificed in a frenzy to restore trust in the church.
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Many also remain deeply concerned about comments from top-ranking prelates about a renewed need to bar homosexuals from the priesthood, regardless of whether they remain celibate. Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit and Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, emerged from the meeting Tuesday saying the issue is among those the church must address.
"I think that priests, having been overprotected in the past, are concerned there may be a tendency to throw them overboard to save the ship," said the Rev. Philip Murnion, director of the Pastoral Life Center in New York, which is not affiliated with the New York Archdiocese.
"They want to assure that care be taken that the concerns and rights of all will be protected."
Christopher Bellitto, a church historian and academic editor of The Paulist Press in New Jersey, said homosexual clergy have told him they are terrified they will be made scapegoats as the scandal drags on.
"There is a real fear among gay priests that they are going to be seen as the fall guys," Bellitto said.
American church leaders in Rome have been working on a communique expected to be completed at the close of the two-day summit Wednesday. Advocates for victims of priestly abuse have long complained that bishops have protected abusive clergy at the expense of children.
The scandal erupted in January when it was learned that a now-defrocked Boston priest was moved from parish to parish by church officials despite allegations that he abused more than 100 boys.
In the following months, bishops nationwide have suspended dozens of priests and turned over hundreds of personnel files to state prosecutors under intense public pressure.
Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II, in an address to the cardinals, said there was no room in the priesthood for clergy who hurt young people. Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles interpreted the comments as an endorsement of "zero-tolerance" for errant clergy. Others have called this the "one strike and you're out" policy.
The Rev. Robert Bullock, head of the Boston Priests Forum, a group of more than 100 priests formed in response to the crisis, called the approach misguided.
"It's so sweeping that it does not seem to me to leave room for the presumption of innocence. Even for priests there's a presumption of innocence," Bullock said.
At last week's annual conference of the National Federation of Priests' Councils in Montreal, some of the 300 priests at the event were so worried that they proposed creating a national forum to air their concerns, said the Rev. Robert Silva, the federation president.
"It's frightening to us," Silva said.
Removing a man from the priesthood is different from firing them from a regular job, Silva said. Under Catholic tradition, once a man is ordained, the church has a lifelong obligation to him for housing, financial support and other needs. Only the Vatican can remove a priest.
"We are not a corporation, we are not a business and priests are not employees. There is a spiritual relationship which exists between a bishop and his priest," Silva said.
Marianne Duddy, executive director of the gay Catholic advocacy group Dignity/USA, said she's been fielding calls from homosexual priests who are so frightened about the prospect of losing their jobs, they can't sleep at night and have sought counseling.
"One guy has been a priest for 28 years," Duddy said. "Where would he go? What would he do? Would he be able to leave with any kind of retirement money?"
Estimates of the number of gays among seminarians and the 46,075 Catholic clergy in the United States vary dramatically, from 10 percent to 50 percent. Experts in sexual disorders warn there is no evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children.
Silva called the idea of weeding out gays "absolutely absurd."
"The problem isn't being oriented one way or the other. The problem is whether you can live a celibate life," Silva said.
Years of dealing with this issue in the criminal justice system has led to this irrevocable conclusion: YOU DON'T "REHABILITATE" A PAEDOPHILE, period.
It's impossible. They are sick, warped, twisted, distorted, and slaves to their appetites. This whole line of thinking is so ridiculous I can't believe we keep seeing it cropping up in the lamestream press.
But the fact is that the HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST COMMUNITY is running things. When events like this are reported, they are always run through a homo vetting committee, to make sure that the politically correct angle is always present. That's why you heard plenty of stories reporting the myth of heterosexual AIDS, but almost none talking about how the homosexuals continue to suffer and die with the disease because they will not give up their burning lust toward one another.
Well, the vow of chastity has been a joke for some time. Now, so much for vows of povery as well.
I'm sure he must have lots of "friends."
I guess it was all those straight priests that were sexually abusing the altar boys.
>85% of sexual allegation against priests are male. Now tell me again how it is homosexual in nature.
It is a homosexual problem/issue. The priests are fairies. They are supposed to be celebate and not just with women. The "abuse of children" issue is a byproduct of the larger issue of fairy priests. Fairy priests work each other over and then the quest for new meat kicks in. The altar boys become the targets because they are near, very accessable, take very little "courtship," are very gullable and can easily be "threatened" to be quiet.
The Pope has taken the faggots side and made this a paedophilia issue, it isn't. It is a fairy issue and until senior staff recognizes it as such and attacks that problem, it isn't going away. Sure, we'll see the bishops trot out a handful of priests who tearfully confess having sex with females and female children but that's just more deception. YOU GOT FAIRIES IN THE FROCKS!!!
Thus even if your "gay", if you've been chaste, it is unlikly that you will be thrown out of the church.
It's all the "gay" priests that haven't been chaste that are worried, as they should be.
My reaction to this whole affair is the same as when a pastor is caught with a woman not his wife (to relate things in a Protestant manner). The man should be repudiated publically, and then cast out of whichever Church-leadership position he is in.
To do anything less in either case would be foolish.
:) ttt
"Experts". I wonder to what place in Hell those experts will go.
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