U.S. bishops’ report reaffirms link between clerical abuse scandals and homosexuality

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WASHINGTON, D.C., June 6, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – A new report
from the U.S. Bishops on the clergy sex abuse scandal highlights
the importance of Vatican guidelines barring men with "deep-
seated homosexual intendencies" from the priesthood.

While the clerical sex abuse has often been described as
pedophilia to denote prevalence of prepubescent victims, the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' 2016 annual
report, released last week, shows the clear link with the
problem of homosexuality in the priesthood.

According to the report, 78 percent of the victims are male. And
when the age of the victim was determined, only 15 percent were
under age 10.

The report confirmed as well that this year’s findings were
"similar to those reported for year 2015," where 81 percent of
the victims were male. The 2013 report showed the number of male
sex abuse victims at 80 percent.

The numbers support direction from the Vatican, Pope Benedict
XVI and other high-ranking prelates that the admission of
homosexual men to the priesthood conflicts with Church
principles.

The USCCB Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection and its
National Review Board issue the report each year after
completion of an audit of U.S. dioceses and eparchies. The audit
assesses compliance with the USCCB Charter for the Protection of
Children and Young People, developed by the Bishops at their
first meeting after the scandal first broke in 2002.

The U.S. Bishops had also commissioned the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice to study the clergy sex abuse crisis.

The first John Jay study was released in 2004. Titled The Nature
and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and
Deacons in the United States 1950-2002, it stated that “overall,
81 percent of victims were male … ”

This statistic was reaffirmed in the 2011 John Judy report, The
Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests
in the United States, 1950-2010. That report said as well: “A
very small percentage of the priests who had allegations of
abuse were motivated by pathological disorders such as
pedophilia.”

The 2011 report also refuted the popular assertion that the
clerical sex abuse crisis could be attributed to the all-male
priesthood and priestly celibacy. Among its data were statistics
pointing to adult male sexual predators gravitating toward
institutional roles providing them access to victims.

The USCCB initially acknowledged the issue of homosexuality in
the priesthood, as ChurchMilitant reported.

In 2004, its National Review Board had stated that although the
sex abuse crisis had no single cause, “an understanding of the
crisis is not possible” without reference to “the presence of
homosexually oriented priests.” The board had cited the data
that “eighty percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual
nature.”

Further, Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns
Hopkins Hospital and a member of the National Review Board, also
clearly spelled it out.

McHugh said in an August 2006 National Catholic Register
editorial that the John Jay study had revealed a crisis of
“homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.”

But even as its John Jay studies indicated a clear prevalence of
homosexual behavior in the abuse priest sex abuse crisis, the
findings have been otherwise interpreted and the homosexual
element unstated by the USCCB after the initial report.

“No single ‘cause’ of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests
is identified as a result of our research,” the 2011 John Jay
report summarized. “Social and cultural changes in the 1960s and
1970s manifested in increased levels of deviant behavior in the
general society and also among priests of the Catholic Church in
the United States.”

Despite the absence of any clear statement of such, the high
percentage of male victims of the clerical sex abuse crisis
shown statistically in the USCCB’s annual reports directly
concur with a series of Vatican documents and statements by
senior prelates regarding admission of homosexual males to
Catholic seminaries.

A December 2016 document from the Vatican Congregation for
Clergy reaffirmed that men with homosexual tendencies should not
be considered for the priesthood.

“Those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated
homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'"
are not to be admitted to seminaries or be ordained as priests,
according to The Gift of the Priestly Vocation.

In reaffirming this prohibition, the Congregation for Clergy
also cites the 2005 Congregation for Catholic Education’s
document Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment
of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies
in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.

The 2005 document reaffirmed Church teaching that homosexual
tendencies are objectively disordered and that individuals who
experience them are to be accepted with respect and sensitivity.

However, the document states, the Dicastery “believes it
necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly
respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary
or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-
seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called "gay
culture."

A 1961 document produced by the Sacred Congregation for
Religious stated: “Those affected by the perverse inclination to
homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious
vows and ordination,” because priestly ministry would place such
persons in “grave danger.”

The late Cardinal George of Chicago had told the bishops
conference in 2005 that per the teaching of the Church,
homosexuals are not to be ordained into the priesthood.

The late Bishop John D’Arcy, then of the Fort Wayne-South Bend
Diocese in Indiana, spoke in 2004 against admitting homosexual
men to the seminary, pointing out the impracticality of placing
men with same-sex inclinations in seminary with other men.

In 2002, Cardinal Jorge Estevez of the Congregation for Divine
Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated, “Ordination
to the deaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men
with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and
imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A
homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not,
therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders.”

Pope Benedict had approved the 2005 Congregation for Education
document on admitting men to the priesthood.

In 2010, the Holy Father emeritus had told Peter Seewald in the
book “Light of the World” that even if homosexuality were
innate, it would not make the behavior morally acceptable.

To the question of the existence of homosexuality in monasteries
and among priests, the Holy Father said, “Well, that is just one
of the miseries of the church. And the persons who are affected
must at least try not to express this inclination actively.”

“This is a point we need to hold firm,” stated Pope Benedict,
“even if it is not pleasing to our age.”

This approach was sharply contrasted when in 2013 Pope Francis
infamously stated regarding a Vatican Curia priest accused of
homosexual activity, “Who am I to judge?”

The remark continues to embolden homosexual activists worldwide.

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