[SuziQ]

Do you think I don't know that there have been homosexual priests and bishops? Of course there have, and they've been messing with some of the Seminaries for WAY too long. My brother in law is a priest, and had dealings with some of those folks in a Seminary to which he sent some candidates for the priesthood from his Parish. He had to go personally to deal with the people giving the candidates a hard time. But not ALL of them are that way; some were not affected by that liberal infection. I don't see a homosexual priest or Bishop behind every bush, and don't blame every problem in the Church on them. The liberal attitudes that were allowed to creep in after Vatican II did a number on the Church, and it has taken YEARS to reverse the damage that was done. I believe the acceptance of homosexuals in the Seminaries were an outgrowth of the liberal attitudes, not the other way around.

I believe that Benedict XVI will not have the squeamishness about dealing with homosexuality in the priesthood that John Paul II had, as a result of his wartime experiences in Poland. I believe this new Pope will be clear with the Bishops about what is allowed, and what is not.

My point in all of this is that I don't think there are as many homosexuals in the priesthood as some of you do, and though there have been molestations, the Church, as an institution, has had no more than other faith communities, or even schools, it is just more titillating to the media, and they see it as an opportunity to bash the Church, and lessen her influence in the Public Square.

[marshmallow]

I believe the acceptance of homosexuals in the Seminaries were an outgrowth of the liberal attitudes, not the other way around.

Perhaps. In practice, I think it's probably a chicken/egg situation. A little hard to discover which came first.

If you read the John Jay Report on the sex abuse crisis, you'll see that 44% of the accused priests analysed in the report, were ordained prior to 1960. That's almost half. This before Vatican II and before the proverbial you-know-what supposedly hit the fan.

This tells me that there were significant numbers of homosexual clergy already in place prior to the 1960s. I have no doubt that many of these men played significant roles in the chaos which ensued in the wake of VII, which in turn, led to an even more liberal and pro-homosexual attitude in seminaries.

In other words, a "snowball" effect.