Professor's view: Witch hunt for gay priests off base when target should be homosexual child abusers
* US *
Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005 ordered an investigation of America�s
229 Catholic seminaries in order to eliminate gay seminarians. The week
of Sept. 27, Vatican investigators began the �witch-hunt� at the Aquinas
Institute of Theology in St. Louis. The question posed to the students:
�Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?�
The investigation was reminiscent of the house arrest of Galileo in his
home near Florence from 1633 until his death in 1642 for espousing the
Copernican heliocentric view of the universe. The church does not suffer
�heretical� thinking well and is extremely slow in altering its
doctrines to be consistent with scientific progress as well as changes
in cultural mores regarding acceptable human behaviors.
In the 1994 edition of the Catholic Catechism, the church had this to
say about homosexuality: �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. They close the sexual act to the gift
of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual
complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.�
Such pronouncements conflict with what psychologists and biologists tell
us about homosexuality. Homosexuality is not listed as a psychological
disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American
Psychiatric Association. It is termed as sexual and emotional attraction
to members of the same gender. It is a given aspect of one�s self which
has unspecified genetic implications. Although there is flexibility in
human sexual responses to persons of the same and other genders,
homosexual orientations are not considered a personal choice and are
quite resistant to any alterations.
Variations exist as to the percentage of homosexual men in our culture.
Typically, sexologists indicate that it is somewhere between 2 percent
and
10 percent. There is no hard data available as to the number of priests
who indicate they are gay. In an earlier study, 15 percent indicated
they were homosexual. However, recent literature tends to place this at
a higher estimate. Because of the stance taken by the church, admitting
to being gay could surely create apprehension.
It is apparent that this inquiry into the sexual orientations of
seminarians is a crisis as a result of the pedophilic acting-out of some
priests. It is evident the church sees a link between this recent crisis
and homosexual, not heterosexual, clerics.
According to Fred S. Berlin, associate professor of psychiatry at Johns
Hopkins University, �There is no evidence that a male homosexual is any
more risk to a boy than a male heterosexual is to a girl. � One of the
problems within the church is that they are confusing homosexuality with
child abuse and pedophilia.�
It is my belief the Catholic Church�s focus on gay priests is merely a
strategy for affixing blame and is consistent with its historical
antipathy toward homosexuality and same-sex behaviors. However, research
in the area of child sexual abuse suggests that pedophilic intrusions
occur preponderantly with heterosexual males rather than gay men. It is
not one�s orientation that is predictive of pedophilia. According to Dr.
Nathaniel McConaghy, �The man who offends against prepubertal or
immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in
older men or women.�
Being immature psycho-sexually, these men find themselves responding
sexually to other males who also are immature. One�s orientation is not
predictive of pedophilia.
When men enter the priesthood, they take vows of celibacy and chastity.
These quasi �contractual� arrangements deprive priests of sexual
contacts with persons of their own age group and of marriage. Being
deprived of these relationships with other mature persons, sexual
expression is more likely to be invested in immature youth (male and
female). Furthermore, chastity is also part of vows for entrance.
Chastity is defined by Webster as �purity.� Does this mean that the rest
of us who are enjoying connecting sexually with others are impure?
What century are these folks living in? It would seem that these vows of
celibacy and chastity contribute to the sexual isolation of some men of
the cloth and to their seeking to express sexual energy in ways in which
we consider inappropriate.
Sexual orientation does not always determine our expression of our
sexuality. The Kinsey Reports on human sexual behavior reported that 38
percent of males have had at least one same-gender sexual experience
resulting in orgasm. It is evident that sexual behavior is flexible
irrespective of orientation. It is well known that same-gender sexual
activities occur between some men who are imprisoned. When they are
released, they return to their more typical mode of behavior.
It is evident that the Catholic Church is experiencing a critical
cultural lag in many of its prohibitions involving some aspect of
sexuality. The area of homosexuality is one. Lust, contraception,
masturbation, abortion, celibacy and chastity, and the role of female
clerics are others. There is evidence that the American public is
changing its attitudes, condoning marriage between gay adults, passing
laws consistent with the equal protection clause for gays in the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, gay men and women asserting
their orientations by �coming out,� and mainline churches supporting the
ordination of gay preachers.
Pope Benedict XVI is using his power to assert public policies that are
less and less supported by Catholic parishioners through their private
behaviors and in their public pronouncements. How will the church
strategize change?
Iver Bogen is a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota
Duluth.
Patrick
> Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005 ordered an investigation of America's
> 229 Catholic seminaries in order to eliminate gay seminarians.
> When men enter the priesthood, they take vows of celibacy and chastity.
> These quasi "contractual" arrangements deprive priests of sexual
> contacts with persons of their own age group and of marriage. Being
> deprived of these relationships with other mature persons, sexual
> expression is more likely to be invested in immature youth (male and
> female). Furthermore, chastity is also part of vows for entrance.
> Chastity is defined by Webster as "purity." Does this mean that the rest
> of us who are enjoying connecting sexually with others are impure?
> What century are these folks living in?
> Iver Bogen is a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota
> Duluth.
Where has this guy been the last five years?
This discussion took place and was settled a dozen times now.
default
I think the prof has a good theory for the cause of the "american
problem," but the assertion that the pope is making "public policy"
has me stymied.
The pope can only tell Catholics what to believe, and many of them
have already tuned him out.
"It is evident that the Catholic Church is experiencing a critical
cultural lag in many of its prohibitions . . ." Duh! you think?
14th amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the
state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I don't see the word gay, I see "all persons born or naturalized"
I infer that means it applies to "all persons."
The " equal protection clause for gays in the Fourteenth Amendment to
the Constitution" Iver Bogen seems to be reading more into it.
Maybe this is where he gets it:
In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Court struck down a Texas statute
prohibiting homosexual sodomy on substantive due process grounds. In
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion concurring in the judgment,
however, she argued that by prohibiting only homosexual sodomy, and
not heterosexual sodomy as well, Texas's statute did not meet
rational-basis review under the Equal Protection Clause
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