Posted on 04/22/2002 12:46:01 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
NEW YORK- The New York Archdiocese distanced itself Monday from a high-ranking official's sermon that blamed the Catholic Church's child-molestation scandal on gay priests and American immorality.
Monsignor Eugene Clark, who was filling in Sunday for Cardinal Edward Egan at the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral, gave the sermon without consulting Egan, the archdiocese said.
"He was speaking for himself," spokesman Joe Zwilling said.
Clark, the rector of St. Patrick's, called the United States "probably the most immoral country in the Western Hemisphere," labeled homosexuality "a disorder" and said that admitting gay students into seminaries was a "grave mistake," the Daily News reported Monday.
As he spoke, priests throughout the archdiocese read parishioners a letter from Egan apologizing for any mishandling of sex abuse cases involving priests. The cardinal struck a conciliatory tone in person Sunday when he asked a Bronx congregation to pray for him as he left for Rome to discuss the scandal with fellow cardinals and Pope John Paul II.
Clark estimated that 3 percent of U.S. clergymen have a tendency toward abusing children that is aggravated by sexual images in popular entertainment.
"So if the 3 percent were touched by that, we ask God to forgive them for it. We ask God to help remedy a situation which might be way beyond the control of the Holy Father and apostles," Clark said.
The monsignor did not return calls seeking comment Monday. Zwilling said he had been unable to reach him.
Clark celebrates Mass at St. Patrick's when Egan visits other churches in the archdiocese. The monsignor is not expected to consult the cardinal about the content of his homily, Zwilling said.
"I don't know if the cardinal even knew about Monsignor Clark's remarks before he departed for Rome yesterday," Zwilling said. "He certainly did not comment on them to me."
Clark is known in the archdiocese as a staunch conservative, unafraid to criticize the church hierarchy for liberalism, said Tom Reese, editor in chief of the Catholic weekly America.
"It's clear that Monsignor Clark is speaking for himself and is expressing the views of very conservative Catholics," Reese said.
Catholic League President William Donohue said he would be surprised if Egan disagreed with Clark's statements, which he called long overdue.
"This MTV world of sexual titillation has everything to do with the corruption, whether that's in the church or out of the church," Donohue said.
Clark's Sunday sermon echoed, in part, the Vatican's first public statement about the scandal. The pope's chief spokesman told The New York Times last month that the church needed to prevent gays from becoming priests.
Marianne Duddy, executive director of the gay Catholic advocacy group Dignity/USA, called Clark's homily "very irresponsible."
"I think that most Catholics see this for what it is - an attempt to deflect attention away from the horrible mishandling of the situation by church officials and the decades of coverup that have been engaged in," she said.
Too little, too late?
The problem is homosexuality in the priesthood, not child molestation.
Exactly how do you get off tarring Msgr. Clark, who is innocent, with that brush?
I guess your message is that, if some Catholic clerics are evil, they all are, and should just shut up?
By the way, I've never molested any boys, or any girls for that matter. Contraception is a sin, and so is divorce and remarriage. Am I allowed to say that, or do I have to just "shut up," too?
The Church is a conservative institution that has been slightly hijacked by liberal homosexuals and people that think homosexuality is OK......it's RIDICULOUS!
Please do';t let one or two bad priests ruin your life....come back to th fold....Jesus is waiting.
Cowards. The Catholic Church, MY Catholic Church, is 100% infiltrated with homosexuals. They will pay for their silence one day before the creator.
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Brazil would be surprised to hear this.
Even if it were true, Clark is somehow trying to scapegoat the moral environment for the actions of hierarchs.
So accustomed have we become to the politically correct, "all things to all men" homily, that the occasional dose of straight talk leads people to look for a "response". In my childhood, this type of preaching was the norm, rather than the exception.
The Catholic Church published a directive in 1961 (that's right, in the pontificate of John XXIII), that has never been rescinded, which proscribed the ordination of homosexuals, period.
With good reason.
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