Australian Catholic bishop accused of abusing boy

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Historically, it’s been because ALL candidates for priesthood are broken and sinful men in need of Grace to be remade holy. In charity, homosexuality isn’t some sort of uber-sin that makes a person especially unworthy or dirty compared to others. That’s just scapegoating.

More recently, there appears to me to have been a recognition that same sex attraction (SSA) makes the discernment of priestly or religious vocation EXTRA difficult. There can be a tendency for faithful people who want to live a chaste and holy life to see a celibate religious vocation as a tailor made match for them since Christian morality requires lifelong celibacy for them anyways (we won’t even discuss ‘faking’ heterosexuality and marrying under fraudulent conditions!).

But one of the major ways a person knows that they have a religious vocation is by recognizing they have the ability to make the sacrifice of lifelong celibacy for Christ. Those with SSA can mistake the relief at finding a vocation in which their struggle seems like a non-issue for a genuine call. Then later, once in the priesthood, they may find themselves unequipped to handle the temptations and challenges. It doesn’t look charitable, but it really is a charity to place greater scrutiny on people with a SSA who think they have a religious or priestly vocation. That has been the trend in recent years.

It’s important not to over-simplify and scapegoat gay people for the abuse problems that went on. It’s much deeper and more complex than that.
 
manualman said:
Historically, it’s been because ALL candidates for priesthood are broken and sinful men in need of Grace to be remade holy. In charity, homosexuality isn’t some sort of uber-sin that makes a person especially unworthy or dirty compared to others. That’s just scapegoating.

More recently, there appears to me to have been a recognition that same sex attraction (SSA) makes the discernment of priestly or religious vocation EXTRA difficult. There can be a tendency for faithful people who want to live a chaste and holy life to see a celibate religious vocation as a tailor made match for them since Christian morality requires lifelong celibacy for them anyways (we won’t even discuss ‘faking’ heterosexuality and marrying under fraudulent conditions!).

But one of the major ways a person knows that they have a religious vocation is by recognizing they have the ability to make the sacrifice of lifelong celibacy for Christ. Those with SSA can mistake the relief at finding a vocation in which their struggle seems like a non-issue for a genuine call. Then later, once in the priesthood, they may find themselves unequipped to handle the temptations and challenges. It doesn’t look charitable, but it really is a charity to place greater scrutiny on people with a SSA who think they have a religious or priestly vocation. That has been the trend in recent years.

It’s important not to over-simplify and scapegoat gay people for the abuse problems that went on. It’s much deeper and more complex than that.
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So, you don’t think excluding homosexuals from the priesthood would solve 90 % of this ongoing problem ?
 
PNEUMA said:
So, you don’t think excluding homosexuals from the priesthood would solve 90 % of this ongoing problem ?
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It might. Using the same logic you are here, deporting all the black males in this country would drastically reduce homicides. Shall we do that too?? Of course not! Using such generalizations and sweeping over-simplifications would be grossly unjust to the innocent parties swept up among the guilty.

But it might not work as simply as you suspect anyways. The John Jay data on abuser priests show that the sort of priest MOST likely to be an abuser was one who had been heterosexually active (i.e. not a virgin) before becoming ordained to the priesthood. Priests who described themselves as homosexual and who had been sexually active prior to being ordained were less likely to have later committed sexual abuse. Not surprisingly, the least likely were those who had been chaste before ordination. But if you really want to go by the brutal logic you suggest, seminaries really ought to bar previously sexually active heterosexuals.
 
manualman said:
It might. Using the same logic you are here, deporting all the black males in this country would drastically reduce homicides. Shall we do that too?? Of course not! Using such generalizations and sweeping over-simplifications would be grossly unjust to the innocent parties swept up among the guilty.

But it might not work as simply as you suspect anyways. The John Jay data on abuser priests show that the sort of priest MOST likely to be an abuser was one who had been heterosexually active (i.e. not a virgin) before becoming ordained to the priesthood. Priests who described themselves as homosexual and who had been sexually active prior to being ordained were less likely to have later committed sexual abuse. Not surprisingly, the least likely were those who had been chaste before ordination. But if you really want to go by the brutal logic you suggest, seminaries really ought to bar previously sexually active heterosexuals.
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I don’t believe this “John Jay data” and I don’t think you want to solve this problem.
 
Perhaps I just don’t believe in “simplistic solutions.” I learned it the hard way from my Grandma. She lived and raised her kids in a delightful working class suburb where everybody knew each other and nobody needed door locks. From HER perspective, everything went to heck once “those blacks” moved in. She got mugged twice, thieves robbed stuff from the garages twice, homes decayed, drugs were sold, property values collapsed, etc. In her mind, the problem was that black people moved in. She didn’t care to put in the effort to look past the surface and see that the issue wasn’t one of skin color, it was one of poverty of money and of despair in the soul.

I think you’re making the same mistake. You want the easy solution in which trouble comes from THOSE sorts of people, not sin within all of us. The John Jay data was the massive data gathering done by John Jay college at the request of the USCCB to investigate and look for trends that could help identify causes and solutions going forward. It’s a massive and comprehensive study that shouldn’t be dismissed simply because its findings don’t match your preconceptions.
 
manualman said:
Perhaps I just don’t believe in “simplistic solutions.” I learned it the hard way from my Grandma. She lived and raised her kids in a delightful working class suburb where everybody knew each other and nobody needed door locks. From HER perspective, everything went to heck once “those blacks” moved in. She got mugged twice, thieves robbed stuff from the garages twice, homes decayed, drugs were sold, property values collapsed, etc. In her mind, the problem was that black people moved in. She didn’t care to put in the effort to look past the surface and see that the issue wasn’t one of skin color, it was one of poverty of money and of despair in the soul.

I think you’re making the same mistake. You want the easy solution in which trouble comes from THOSE sorts of people, not sin within all of us. The John Jay data was the massive data gathering done by John Jay college at the request of the USCCB to investigate and look for trends that could help identify causes and solutions going forward. It’s a massive and comprehensive study that shouldn’t be dismissed simply because its findings don’t match your preconceptions.
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Your concern is for the homosexual priests, not for the boys being abused or the worlds perception of our church.
 
PNEUMA said:
Your concern is for the homosexual priests, not for the boys being abused or the worlds perception of our church.
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Shouldn’t the concern be both?

Do homosexual priests who have not abused any children, deserved to be punished because of what someone else did?

Do homosexual men who are genuinely receiving a call to the priesthood be rejected because of the actions of someone else?

If the data shows that homosexuality actually doesn’t increase the likelihood of abuse occuring, then what do we gain by treating those suffering from SSA in such a manner?
 
CatholicSheila said:
Shouldn’t the concern be both?

Do homosexual priests who have not abused any children, deserved to be punished because of what someone else did?

Do homosexual men who are genuinely receiving a call to the priesthood be rejected because of the actions of someone else?

…
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In light of what has happened and what is happening in our church, they should all be defrocked, the situation is unbearable, nobody feels good about what’s going on, it’s a nightmare.
 
PNEUMA said:
In light of what has happened and what is happening in our church, they should all be defrocked, the situation is unbearable, nobody feels good about what’s going on, it’s a nightmare.
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Does that include the bishops that covered it up (including the popes)?
 
PNEUMA said:
Your concern is for the homosexual priests, not for the boys being abused or the worlds perception of our church.
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Pretty much what Grandma said when my folks remonstrated with her for concluding that an entire group of people was no good based on the crimes of a few. As far as she could see, they were defending the muggers and drug dealers.

I do want to reiterate something I said above. Seminaries ARE supposed to put particular scrutiny on seminarians with SSA. It’s just not that having an SSA makes them more likely to be abusers, but that the SSA makes it more likely for them to mistakenly believe they have a call to priesthood when they don’t. That’s not the same thing as barring gay people from the priesthood.
 
**MODERATOR NOTE
**
Please note:
  1. The article mentioned that he was not in the priesthood when the accused action is suppose to have happened.
  2. He denies it and a man is innocent until proven guilty here.
Way too much speculation going on here and the thread has wandered into a general condemnation of a wide range of Catholic clergy which is against forum rules. Also people have gone off track and started talking generally about homosexuality, which is not the topic of this thread.
 
manualman said:
Pretty much what Grandma said when my folks remonstrated with her for concluding that an entire group of people was no good based on the crimes of a few. As far as she could see, they were defending the muggers and drug dealers.

I do want to reiterate something I said above. Seminaries ARE supposed to put particular scrutiny on seminarians with SSA. It’s just not that having an SSA makes them more likely to be abusers, but that the SSA makes it more likely for them to mistakenly believe they have a call to priesthood when they don’t. That’s not the same thing as barring gay people from the priesthood.
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They do bar men with “deep seated homosexual tendancies”, which basically means that they bar homosexual men from the priesthood. Making a distinction between transitory feelings and deep seated tendancies basically makes a distinction between not gay and gay. Pope Benedict also stated that homosexuality is incompatible with the priesthood.

This sounds like if a gay man wants to be a priest he must lie about his orientation.
 
PNEUMA said:
So, you don’t think excluding homosexuals from the priesthood would solve 90 % of this ongoing problem ?
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There may be valid reasons to bar men with deep-seated homosexual desires from the Priesthood but to do this to address even part of the sex abuse crisis would be misplaced.

Pedophilia is a mental disorder and crime necessitating therapy- which has a rather low degree of success. Pedophilia transcends orientation with heterosexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals engaging in this behavior and experiencing attraction to children. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation and not related to pedophilia.
 
Here’s the thing - This person apparently did these things BEFORE his ordination to the Priesthood. If this was an ordinary person, we probably would never have heard this on the news.
But add “THAT Priest value,” and all of a sudden its worldwide headlines. This shows the hideous prejudice people have against us Catholics, but also Christians (Claiming we are all hypocrites, they aren’t, we’re always wrong, they are right).

I also think that some of these allegations are being made to line people’s pockets. People are making outlandish claims that could never really be proven, in the hopes of getting nice big payouts from the world’s richest organisation.
Yes - I admit there truly are Priests that HAVE done the wrong thing, but I reckon some people are taking advantage of this situation for their own benefit, and no-one else’s (Like the Salem Witch Trials, if anyone wants to remember THOSE atrocities of heresy, rumour and eventually individual motive).

I guess that above paragraph was perhaps judgemental. However, I cannot help but wonder about such things.
 
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