Posted on 05/20/2003 8:44:20 AM PDT by Polycarp
An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops of the United States (on Homosexuality)
The recent outpouring of publicity regarding the widespread sexual scandals by the clergy within the Roman Catholic Church has affected almost every American in some manner. Today, we as Catholic health care, legal and business professionals, in accord with the knowledge and competence we possess, feel morally obligated to make known our opinions on these matters.
We believe that homosexually-oriented men deserve compassionate health care that is equivalent to that received by other individuals. As Roman Catholics, we also note that the Church teaches that the inclination to homosexuality is an intrinsic disorder which should receive both spiritual and psychological attention.
Unfortunately, the prevalence of homosexuality in the clergy within the Roman Catholic Church has resulted in a plethora of sexual scandals ranging from homosexual affairs, to grosser forms of perversion including ephebophilia (homosexual activity with adolescents) and pedophilia. It has been hypothesized that the rates of ephebophilia and pedophilia are no greater among homosexually-oriented men than they are among heterosexual men, but research does not support this. Dr. Paul Cameron (Family Research Council, 2002) recently presented ample evidence against this claim noting that some of the largest surveys to date have all found higher rates of ephebophilia and pedophilia among homosexually-oriented men than among heterosexuals. He noted that the Kinsey Institute found that 171 (26.5%) out of 646 homosexually-oriented men reported having had homosexual sex with a male aged 15 years or less. For a rough comparison, 79 (3.3%) out of 2,393 heterosexual men reported having had coitus with a female aged 15 years or less. Kinsey's data has been critiqued as being non-random; nevertheless, it supports the hypothesis that homosexually-oriented men have far more sexual activity with minors than do heterosexuals.
The Gay Report remains the largest survey of homosexually-oriented people, with 5,291 respondents (4,329 homosexually-oriented men) and 962 homosexually-oriented women). It showed that 23% of homosexually-oriented men reported having had homosexual sex with children aged 13-15 years. The latter figure is remarkably close to that noted in the Kinsey report (26.5%).
Finally, a large survey of over 5,000 men and women conducted by the Family Research Institute from 1983 to 1984 found that 9.4% of homosexually-oriented men stated that the age of their youngest homosexual partner was less than 14 years, whereas 2.3% of heterosexual men stated that their youngest partner was under 14.
Other writers and theologians continue to make the specious claim that the rate of pre-adolescent sexual abuse is higher among heterosexual men than among those with a homosexual orientation. But Tim Daily, a senior fellow for culture studies at the Family Research Council noted: "Although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses." Therefore, although it is true that heterosexual men comprise more than 95% of the population and therefore generate a higher total number of pre-adolescent abuse cases, their rate of sexual abuse is far lower than that of homosexually-oriented men.
It can be argued that these data are only estimates in an area which is difficult to evaluate, but one must work with the best information that is currently available and we have noted from the surveys above, that the rate of pre-adolescent sexual abuse for homosexually-oriented men is 400-800% higher than that of heterosexuals. Therefore we hope that at the very least, people will stop claiming that homosexually and heterosexually-oriented men have similar rates of pre-adult sexual activity. In addition, we believe these data support the claim that in general, a priest who has a homosexual orientation is far more likely to gravitate toward deviant pre-adult sexual relations than would a normally-oriented priest. Therefore, we believe, especially in the current climate of scandal, the riskiest strategy in regard to the welfare of our children and the Roman Catholic Church is to allow homosexually-oriented men to continue to enter the priesthood.
Some people have made the bizarre claim that St. Thomas Aquinas and Scripture writings support the normalcy of the homosexual state and/or act. Father Robert Zylla, a leading moral theologian and Thomist at Mount St. Mary's Seminary, noted that St. Thomas wrote: "Some special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly ("specialiter") qualified as unnatural vices. (ad 2um)." (Personal correspondence, June, 2002). St. Thomas also wrote: "Thus something which is 'against human nature,' either as regards reason or as regards physical preservation, may happen to be in harmony with the needs of this man because in him nature is ailing. He may be ailing physically; either from some complaint, as fever-patients find sweet things bitter, and vice versa; or from some dispositional disorder, as some find pleasure in eating earth or coals. He may be ailing psychologically ("ex parte animae"), as some men by habituation come to take pleasure in cannibalism, or in copulation with beasts or with their own sex, or in other things not in accord with human nature." Those who misquote St. Thomas appear to be committing the fundamental error of taking a text out of context.
Other people have had the audacity to claim that the Sodom and Gomorrah account in Sacred Scripture is a story about inhospitality. This outrageous interpretation has been readily refuted by Monsignor William B. Smith as well as by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both uphold the consistency of Scripture in regard to the heinousness of acts of homosexuality, and specifically note that the sin of Sodom was sodomy, (from where the word is derived), not inhospitality.
In addition to egregious misinterpretations of saintly writings and Sacred Scripture, we are concerned about the frequency of confidentiality agreements with victims of clerical sexual abuse, which involve the so-called hush money. Indeed, victims ought to receive financial compensation, especially for the often extensive counseling they undergo. But we are greatly concerned that an agreement to promise not to tell anyone about the clerical perpetrator or the nature of the incident is counterproductive and could be construed as a type of bribe. This seal of silence has three negative effects. First, it keeps information about a sex offender from other Catholics, indeed from the public at large, which can only serve to place our children/adolescents at risk in the future. Second, it compounds the guilt of the victim, as he now has accepted monies in exchange for a promise; specifically, a promise to withhold information about a sex offender who has a history of molesting adolescents and/or children. Third, victims who may have otherwise come forward, may be inhibited from doing so. The burden of this seal of silence can only bring harm to the victim throughout the years of his life as he contemplates the possibility that the offender could and probably will go on to molest other victims; in addition, the silenced victim carries the burden of having accepted money to repress the truth.
We believe the statements and arguments noted above necessitate clearer direction from many of the Catholic Bishops in the United States. We respectfully ask them to consider the following:
1. Bar men with homosexual orientations from entering Catholic seminaries as some bishops have already done. The Church has spoken clearly on this matter as noted below:
A. As early as 1962, the Congregation for Religious law noted that: "Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers."
B. The Congregation for Catholic Education, "A Guide To Formation in Priestly Celibacy" (4/11/74) n.21 directs: "In order to talk about a person as mature, his sexual instinct must have overcome two immature tendencies, narcissism and homosexuality, and must have arrived at heterosexuality. This is the first step in sexual development, but a second step is also necessary, namely 'love' must be seen as a gift not a form of selfishness."
C. "Those who do not seem to be able to overcome their homosexual tendencies, or who maintain that it is possible to adopt a third way, 'living in an ambiguous state between celibacy and marriage' must be dismissed from religious life."
D. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2357) notes that:
"Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law…Under no circumstances can they be approved."
D. Seminarians ought to have "sufficient affective maturity and clarity of male sexual identity."
E. The Pope has recently (8/5/02) reiterated the Church's position: "It would be deplorable that, by a mistaken act of tolerance, he (the bishop) would ordain young men who are immature or who exhibit clear signs of affective disorders, who, as is sadly known, could cause serious confusion in the consciences of the faithful with obvious harm of the whole Church."
Forbidding the entrance of homosexually-oriented men into the seminary and ultimately the priesthood is an act of charity toward them. It is not fair or prudent for men with a homosexual orientation to live with other homosexually-oriented men or for that matter, with heterosexuals, who might feel as though they are objects of desire. To place even chaste homosexually-oriented men in this situation would be unfair and would require heroic virtue on their part. This is not to deny that chaste homosexual-oriented men can and have led lives of sanctity.
The Church teaches that in a theological sense priests are married men, that is, they marry the Church. This requires that the candidate for the priesthood possess a mature male psyche (especially because the priesthood is exclusively male.) We recognize the special pastoral dilemma the local ordinary faces in regard to priests who have a homosexual inclination but have never acted upon it. Such priests have demonstrated heroic virtue. Nevertheless, this does not justify allowing men with a homosexual orientation into the priesthood since a man with a homosexual orientation still has a disordered inclination that encompasses the whole psyche of his individual and is pervasive. A man should not become a priest if he has unresolved issues about his masculinity and does not have a healthy desire to be a father. Psycho-spiritually his character is incompatible with the virtuous character associated with the Catholic priesthood. Any man with a homosexual orientation should be encouraged to receive counseling which assists him in his struggle and promotes the ultimate goal of developing a heterosexual orientation. This may require a long and persistent struggle but is attainable as has been noted in the literature. ,
2. Publicly refute erroneous statements by those who claim that a) hetero-sexually-oriented men have a proportionally higher rate of pre-adolescent sex abuse than homosexually-oriented men and/or b) homosexuality is within the realm of normalcy.
3. Remove any priest and/or seminarian and/or Bishop who has exhibited any overt homosexual activity from all "public duty." (That is, this priest should have no contact with children, the public at large, the internet etc.) One option would be to transfer such a priest to a cloistered monastery.
4. Remove all priests and/or seminarians and/or Bishops who survey child pornography sites on the internet, or participate in men-boy chat rooms, from public duty.
5. Remove any priest or Bishop who has had any history of ephebophilia or pedophilia no matter when it occurred from public duty.
6. Preach openly the standard that any priest or Bishop who is found guilty of an act of pedophilia ought to receive the same prison sentence as a layman who commits such an act.
7. Discourage legal agreements between the victim of clerical abuse and the respective Church authority. Victims ought to be fairly compensated but under no circumstances should a promise be extracted which prevents the victim from speaking about the case in the future.
We recognize that the ultimate decision for these actions rests with our Bishops in union with the Holy Father. The Catholic Church's Teachings are congruent with sound scientific evidence and charity. The current crisis has wounded our children and wasted our financial resources (via large payouts and higher "sex-scandal" insurance premiums) with at least one diocese now considering filing for bankruptcy. We and many other Catholics have witnessed a great erosion of trust in many of our Bishops. We specifically hope that the leaders of the Catholic Church's major religious orders in the U.S. will reverse their recent decision which permits priests who have abused minors to remain as part of their order without any attempt to isolate them from the public. We hope the implementation of the considerations noted above will give some credibility to the reference of zero tolerance, and will serve to put actions behind the words. Trust has been broken and it will take consistent actions to slowly restore it.
We encourage victims of abuse, independent of the age at which it occurred, or those aware of other illegal behavior (e.g., visiting child pornography sites on the internet) to report such activity to their local district attorneys and to pray that courageous leadership from themselves and the Church hierarchy will ensue.
Mark Chuff, L.P.C. Founder, Counselors for Life Altoona, PA
Chris Kahlenborn, M.D. President, TPRI Altoona, PA
http://www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=20741
Friday, 16 May 2003
CHICAGO -- Gay and lesbian civil rights advocates in Illinois have strongly condemned the Catholic archdiocese in Chicago for intense lobbying efforts by the church aimed at undermining support for a statewide anti-bias measure.
"We've put out a call for all gay Catholics to respond," Martin Grochala of Dignity Chicago, a gay and lebsian Catholic organization, told the Free Press. "We're telling them to call their senators and Chicago Cardinal Francis George's office. This really is a Catholic justice issue."
Rights advocates charge the Catholic Conference of Illinois, which represents Cardinal George and other church leaders, "employs faulty logic to come to its negative judgment about [the gay anti-bias bill].
"There is no reason why a Catholic legislator of good conscience cannot vote for the bill," the Dignity letter stated. "Doing so actually upholds the basic principles of Catholic social teaching, which compels Catholics to oppose discrimination and acknowledges the fundamental dignity of the human person."
The Catholic organization says that while the church believes discrimination against gay people is wrong, they also believe passage of the bill would signal the state's endorsement of gay and lesbian sex. Rights advocates say the church is twisting its own teachings to oppose a law it should support.
"Sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex is not a question of or concern of the [Illinois anti-bias bill]," Dignity said in its letter. "The bishops can only see us as sexual people (whether we are or not) and are
Cardinal George has put a more conservative stamp on Chicago's Catholic Church since succeeding, in 1997, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who created in Chicago one of the country's strongest official outreach efforts to openly gay Catholics.
-- Editor
23% of homosexually-oriented men reported having had homosexual sex with children aged 13-15 years. The latter figure is remarkably close to that noted in the Kinsey report (26.5%).
"Although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses."
the rate of pre-adolescent sexual abuse for homosexually-oriented men is 400-800% higher than that of heterosexuals
the riskiest strategy in regard to the welfare of our children and the Roman Catholic Church is to allow homosexually-oriented men to continue to enter the priesthood
Cardinal Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in 1990, published a document entitled "Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons." Paragraph 9 of this document states:
``In assessing proposed legislation, the Bishops should keep as their uppermost concern the responsibility to defend and promote family life'' (no. 17).
Furthermore, under "Applications," Paragraphs 10 and 11 of the Document states:
10. ``Sexual orientation'' does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc. in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder (cf. ``Letter,'' no. 3).
11. There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example, in the consignment of children to adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or coaches, and in military recruitment.
How about adding "in seminary recruitment?!?
I'm a member of the board of both Counselors for Life and TPRI, The Polycarp Research Institute. We've been working on this document for quite some time. I think it properly addresses the central issues in the current Church scandals.
Wasn't the Kinsey report the discredited one that claimed that 15% of people were gay, because they sampled people in prison and mental institutions. If these two reports are in agreement on the pedophilia issue, shouldn't both be suspect? Perhaps both are sampling derelicts and nutcases.
"Finally, since a matter of the common good is concerned, it is inappropriate for Church authorities to endorse or remain neutral toward adverse legislation even if it grants exceptions to Church organizations and institutions. The Church has the responsibility to promote the public morality of the entire civil society on the basis of fundamental moral values, not simply to protect herself from the application of harmful laws (cf. no. 17)."
There's a headline on Drudge today saying that 20% of people had sex before 15, but only "2.3% of heterosexual men stated that their youngest partner was under 14"? Something looks a little out of place.
He noted that the Kinsey Institute found that 171 (26.5%) out of 646 homosexually-oriented men reported having had homosexual sex with a male aged 15 years or less. For a rough comparison, 79 (3.3%) out of 2,393 heterosexual men reported having had coitus with a female aged 15 years or less. Kinsey's data has been critiqued as being non-random; nevertheless, it supports the hypothesis that homosexually-oriented men have far more sexual activity with minors than do heterosexuals.
The Gay Report remains the largest survey of homosexually-oriented people, with 5,291 respondents (4,329 homosexually-oriented men) and 962 homosexually-oriented women). It showed that 23% of homosexually-oriented men reported having had homosexual sex with children aged 13-15 years. The latter figure is remarkably close to that noted in the Kinsey report (26.5%).
Please don't take it out of context when we specifically addressed the concern you nonetheless brought up here.
The idea is to hoist them by their own petard.
Then do it with good data.
ROFL!
Illinois Democrats Backing Gay Bill
Wednesday, 22 January 2003
SPRINGFIELD, Il. -- With Democrats in Illinois now in firm control of the legislature and the governor's mansion, gay civil rights advocates and their supporters are confident a statewide anti-bias measure will be signed into law this year.
The proposal soon to be put before state lawmakers would add sexual orientation to the Illinois Human Rights Act, which already prohibits discrimination based on race, religion and gender in housing, employment, credit transactions and public accommodations.
Similar measures have been debated in the Illinois House since the early 1970s.
The gay anti-bias measure passed the House in 1993 and 2001. This go around, the bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate. Previous efforts in the state failed because of opposition from Republican Senate President James "Pate" Philip.
But at the Daily Herald reports, Philip is retiring and the new Senate President, Emil Jones Jr., a Chicago Democrat, supports the plan. Gov. Rod Blagojevich also backs the measure.
State Sen. Carol Ronen, a Chicago Democrat, said she and other supporters wanted to build momentum behind House Bill 101 before the legislative session resumes on February 4.
"It's shameful Illinois has not done this sooner," she said. "It's a very simple notion that all people should be treated fairly and equally, and I think my fellow senators would agree."
Rick Garcia of Equity Illinois said Philip's departure has completely changed the political situation for gay people in Illinois. "Frankly" he said, "we couldn't be happier."
The prescriptions in this document sound like the daydreams of those who wish the Pope would "crack down" on abuses in the Church. It is not uncommon for such people to publish such wish lists. The one quoted above is grossly unjust. It is roughly equivalent to life imprisonment. The actual appropriate remedy for unchaste behavior in a priest is dismissal from the clerical state, not imprisonment in a monastery!
Did that also come from the Kinsey report? If not, you committed a slight of hand on the readers, perhaps even a fraud, by comparing an acknowledged skewed 26% of homosexuals sampled from criminals and psychopaths to a random sample of heterosexuals.
Furthermore, your 3.3% heterosexual number seems to conflict with the 20% number published in the NY Times today.
I personally don't have a problem with most of your recommendations, just the data that you're using to justify them.
Then do it with good data
In this case, the data may be good. I read Kinsey's report and I didn't find any data on the percentage of pedophiles among homosexuals. Presumably the data comes from Kinsey Institute's other research (i.e. other than the much-criticized Kinsey Report.)
In theory, I agree. In practice, in the past, the priests that have been dismissed rarely had criminal records, because everything was handles "in house" and hidden from secular prosecution, and they often pursued other professions after dsmissal in which they had access to teenage boys.
So for those priests who must be removed, but the statute of limitations are expired in the secular courts, do you then insist they must be dismissed to prey upon the unsuspecting public, with no criminal record to alert potential employers of their past crimes/sins?
A priest here who molested my childhood friend continued as a hospital chaplain till just 8-12 months ago. He even paid a pastoral visit to my ownb son when he was hospitalized 2 years ago.
The standard background checks the hospital performs on all employees and volunteers found no records of his past molestation.
This is the scenario we were specifically thinking about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.