To say that "liberal" Catholics were disappointed with the election of Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, is an egregious understatement. In light of the scandals involving pedophile priests, the new Pope is wasting no time in cleaning house, and those same liberals are not going to be too happy about it.
Investigators appointed by the Vatican have been instructed to review each of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for "evidence of homosexuality" and for faculty members who dissent from church teaching, according to a document prepared to guide the process.
Amid all the jokes about priests and altar boys, the scandal has been framed in the wrong light. The Church is not suffering from a pedophilia problem, but a problem with homosexual priests. Michael D. Rose, editor of the New Oxford Review, has been saying this for years, most notably in his book Goodbye Good Men, but when the New York Times--hardly a proponent of Catholic sentiment--backs up these assertions, suddenly the validity of the homosexual problem is more secure.
The issue of gay seminarians and priests has been in the spotlight because a study commissioned by the church found last year that about 80 percent of the young people victimized by priests were boys.
It is unknown how many Catholic priests are gay. Estimates range widely, from 10 percent to 60 percent.
It is amazing to me that the Times had the fortitude to print this. Even if the high-end estimates are true, we have sixty percent of a population committing eighty percent of the acts. The gay priests are working overtime to the tune of twenty-five percent. If the low-end estimates hold true--and priests about accurately reflect the high-end estimates of homosexuality in the population at large--the results are even more staggering. Suffice it to say that homosexual priests are not only committing more heinous crimes, but doing so at a greater rate than heterosexual priests.
Benedicts reaction then, is quite understandable. Obviously, those homosexuals who are, "practicing", so to speak, should not be allowed to be priests. Whether one agrees with Catholic thought on the issue of homosexulaity or not, one must agree that consistency begs that the priests of the Church refrain from serious sin.
The tougher issue is whether or not homosexuals who are living chastely may still continue to be priests. Benedict thinks not. I am not entirely sure. What I will say, however, is that if a young man is a homosexual, he is putting himself into a very bad situation by joining the seminary. We ask God to "lead us not into temptation" but he expects us not to seek it out. Putting a gay man in a seminary is only slightly better than throwing a straight man into a sorority. The dots connect themselves.
Benedict is not lacking in passion for reform. Many will feel that he has over-reached in condemning all homosexual priests. For while homosexual priests are more likely to become pedophiles, certainly not all gay priests are living in sin. It seems a bit absurd to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
That being said, the new Pope's heart is in the right place, and change is needed now more than ever in the Catholic Church. Not the change liberals would seek; change that would reject Christian traditions and render the Church an institution lacking authority, leaving us as just another group of Protestants. What Benedict must do, and indeed is already starting to do, is to give the Church a good scrubbing. A bath, or baptism if you will.
Only a renewal of the orthodox teachings of the Roman Catholic Church will save her. She has not stood for two millennia by confirming to the winds of a changing world. She has clung to the Truth she was founded on and stood the test of time. Fad after fad has come and go, but the Holy Church remains. Benedict will bring her through this storm, just as the Popes of the past have. After all, God is with him, and us. And amidst the suffering a few bad apples have wreaked upon some unfortunate people, that is a great comfort.
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4 comments:
Only a renewal of the orthodox teachings of the Roman Catholic Church will save her. She has not stood for two millennia by confirming to the winds of a changing world.
Where have you been? The Catholic Church has only been able to survive because it has changed its doctrine to elicit the support of those in power, or to cement its domination over the wretched of the earth. If it were true to the original Christian teachings, the Church would be the world's largest anarco-communist organization. Clearly this is not the case.
I guess I'm not sure where I've been. If you kindly point out what I've missed I cuold learn from it. If the Church is wrong, I'd like to hear about it as soon as possible.
For the record though, I think you're wrong. There is a reason that St. Augustine is the most quoted writer in the Catechism--not the Baltimore one either. Church teachings have, so far as I know, changed very little in 2000 years.
If I'm wrong though, I'd be happy if you straightened be out. Thanks.
Are you actually saying that gay men are more pre-disposed to pedophilia? The crime here is not men having consensual sex with other men but men having sex with children. Statistically, just as many straight people are pedophiles as gay people, per capita.Plenty of priests have illicit sex with females, of age and not, but consider the opportunities created by the system of alter boys. (aint no alter girls)
Troutsky, I am not sure that being gay leads one to become a pedophile. I am merely looking at the statistics and marking a trend.
While it is true that there used to be no altar girls, in many dioceses that has changed--and fascinatingly enough, those dioceses have seen a sharp drop in seminarians. So it would depend on when the instances of abuse happened.
One thing is certain, Pope Benedict is not messing around with the scandal and will reform the American seminaries. That is a good thing for certain.
High and Dry,
I think that the Jews have experienced more discrimination and persecution than Catholics. That being said, it is quite alright to be anti-Catholic. We do not have an adequate understanding of this in America, but ask anyone who lives in China or a Muslim country how receptive the respective governments are to Christian converts.
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