Posted on 08/12/2018 5:53:34 PM PDT by ebb tide
N., an exceptionally well-informed lay Catholic, tells me that there are two basic tribes of gay bishops and priests.
The first tribe is the Progressives — some sexually active, others not — who believe homosexuality should be normalized by the Catholic Church, and are pushing openly for the Church to change its teachings to reflect that.
The second tribe are Conservatives who live a double life. Outwardly they advocate for traditional Catholic teaching on homosexuality, but they also live homosocially (in the sense of socializing with other gay conservative priests), and some have gay sex. They therefore live in a state of cognitive dissonance.
N. discussed particular examples of both kind of bishop and priest.
I asked N. why the gay Catholic progressive priests don’t simply out the hypocritical conservatives. Why not destroy your opposition, especially given that they really are hypocrites?
“Neither side wants to do that to the other. That would mean Armageddon,” he said. “Both sides live in a Cold War situation. They take potshots at each other, and fight proxy wars, but neither side wants to challenge the other too hard. If they really went to war, there would be nothing left for anybody.”
What N. meant is that the problem is so deeply embedded within the Catholic clerical structure that if the truth were known, the system as we know it would likely collapse, and neither gay nor conservative gay priests would have any privileges left to enjoy. So they tolerate each other.
After that conversation, I thought about orthodox (theologically conservative) Catholic bishops who are not sexually compromised, and who have the power to clean up these sexually corrupt messes in their dioceses — corrupt in terms of acts and teaching — but who leave things alone. Why don’t they do so?
Might the answer be: because they sense that the problem is such that if they really tried to clean up the mess, they wouldn’t know for sure which pillars and walls would fall?
It was reported by Italian media (and others) that the reason Benedict XVI resigned is because he was confronted by hard evidence of a sizable gay underground in the Vatican, and did not have the strength — spiritually and otherwise — to confront it. If true, it is worth asking to what extent that state of affairs exists at the diocesan level. It is worth asking to what extent a clerical culture of Mutual Assured Destruction might be preventing true reform within the Catholic clergy.
In phone calls and e-mails lately, I’ve been hearing from more and more priests who say they are finding it hard to know who to trust within the priesthood — because of a culture deformed by sexual secrets. This one letter from a priest (I’m withholding his name) is typical:
I’ve been thinking a lot about secrecy in the Church. It’s part of my job. I can be excommunicated if I reveal anything I have heard in the confessional. But then there’s the other kind of secrecy. You learn, if you have any degree of intelligence, that you are extraordinarily vulnerable as a seminarian. You learn that you have to pick your battles. Depending on the level of support you have from your bishop, you learn to keep quiet about many things, only choosing to speak openly with those brother seminarians whom you trust.
Unfortunately, this stays with you. … If we had an atmosphere where we could speak openly without fear of reprisal, that would do tremendous good both for the morale of the clergy and for the transparency in the Church. But we don’t have it and things have only gotten worse in Rome under Papa Bergoglio.
The Catholic Church has undergone an existential crisis about every 500 years. In the 5th century Rome was sacked, many Church records dating back to the time of Christ were lost, many priests, bishops and laymen were killed, In the 10th century there was the schism between East and West. The 16th century introduced heresy and the Reformation. Now in the 21st century the Church is plagued internally with a decadent, homosexual clergy and hierarchy. Heretofore the Church survived each of the prior challenges? Will it survive this crisis of internal rot. Faithful Catholics believe that while they may not live to witness it, eventually somehow a faithful remnant will emerge and the Church will again prosper.
I do not have any way to verify this. Objectively, the resignation of Benedict XVI and the rise of Pope Francis was a very unusual event. It happened when the most homosexual friendly U.S. President was in power. I have wondered if there was any connection.
When Pope Francis visited the Obama White House he was greeted with a veritable gay festival. The Pope did not object or walk out.
A succint comment at the site: “What we have now cannot in any way be what Jesus Christ intended.”
All this discussion appears to be not acknowledging that in 1960, at so called Vatican II, it was made completely against church doctrine to turn in a pedagogue or rapist priest or face immediate ex-communication and be thrown out of the church penniless. This came as an order from the pope and is still their scummy law. This is why even good priests fear doing what should be done. What this means is that the Catholic Church has fallen into deep evil.
All of these articles and the commentary are, as usual, unreliable. Anyone wanting true information on this should refer to quality Catholic media.
I now have the song by Frankie Goes To Hollywood stuck in my head.
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