Inside the Seminary Closet

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I thought this was really interesting. I’m honestly sick of hearing the liberal and progressive wings of the Church polarize on ideological values. I’m sick of homosexuality being blamed.

I ask everyone to read this account and ask yourself what would happen in a seminary if things were co ed and we were just expected to never reveal our sexual feelings? We were to pretend to be asexual? We were never to discuss a thing about sexuality with each other? How chaste would heterosexuals be?

Because frankly, we don’t support homosexuals in chastity. We teach repression rather than chastity. We teach innocense and inexperience instead of virtue. We have to stop giving false appearences, putting up facades and recognize that what the actual Catechism says about chastity.

" "There are sick, broken, power hungry, scared men on both sides of the “liberal/traditional” Catholic fence. We have to stop blaming differences of opinion about things like guitar music at mass vs. the use of a pipe organ as the source of the problem. Priests who celebrate the Tridentine mass are often guilty of abusing their power. Priests who couldn’t care less about their choice of vestments are too. Some priests who preach against gay marriage are having gay sex. Some priests who preach acceptance of all people are having gay sex too. A particular priest who ended up sexually assaulting me, after rambling on about his love for the Tridentine Mass, responded to my question of how this results in anyone’s greater holiness and well-being with, “It doesn’t. That’s not the point.”

What is? The mystery and nostalgia hit evokes a time when priests would never have been suspected of anything, and the word gay just meant “happy.”

Conservatives have for decades now been scapegoating the Second Vatican Council for every problem to hit the planet, and this is no exception. It’s simply not the case. No side is innocent, and no display of liturgical, theological, or ideological extremism is a sign of a priest’s well-being."

 
I can’t get myself to read this article right now… limiting my view of blasphemies.

I would like say that Catholics haven’t seen half the evil from all this. When defrocked clergy start writing articles, books, movies and giving interviews then the full face of the demon will be unleashed.

This is an infestation of evil only God can handle.
Catholics are actually better off not viewing.
 
I read it. This is kind of my own vision of what is happening which I have questioned from time to time as a little over the top. But apparently I am on the right track. It could be this bad - and include conservative and liberal priests, a wide spectrum. I get the OP’s point about repression/coming out and being gay but what the hell are these individuals doing in the Church if they suffer from this condition? In such numbers? Why not just be gay? I don’t get the lurid deceitful closet thing; pretending to be so faithful and traditional. Not a great argument for the mental health of homosexuals. It frankly confirms teaching, the disorder argument to my mind. No, straights don’t act like this. But I would love it if they would just get on with it and come out for everybody’s sake. I don’t see the pride parade in St. Peter’s Square so much as the dismantling of the RCC. But either way it’s progress, better than where we are now.
 
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It does remind me of something - there was a married guy where I worked years ago. Super nice, handsome, a flirt with all the women. A gay guy I knew told me he knew him by name - he hung out at gay bars and did that whole thing on the side, very actively and fairly well known. It blew my mind. Mainly because he went to such lengths to pretend to be straight. Much more so than most of the men at the company. I thought he liked me and so did other women. He winked and stuff, always stopped and talked.
 
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FollowChrist34 said:
I get the OP’s point about repression/coming out and being gay but what the hell are these individuals doing in the Church if they suffer from this condition?
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That is the component of the other half of this evil…the Lie…that thought will seduce many and actually already has.
Many more Catholics will consider it better to come out and be gay and also maintain status as a Catholic priest. Already this is what is happening right within the Church (Fr. Martin and many others). Never mind what is happening outside the Church. This article from the Closet is among the first lies. I can guarantee there will be boat loads of media produced by defrocked. Wait until the psyche board joins in. One triumph for evil will be to see Christians labeled as the sick ones in the DSM-5.
I’d rather be labeled sick here than lose my soul. So guard your hearts and minds and be cautious.
 
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The master that man serves is lust.


Watch this powerful message from Mother Angelica… paying particular attention at 1:00-1:21. She says how good it was the Holy Father didn’t not see the blasphemy.
People need to guard their hearts and minds from the fallout of this current corruption. The fallout has only just begun.
 
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So Fr Martin is gay, ha! I thought that. I don’t really get into the gossip. I try to refrain from googling all that as much as I can. It is depressing but you do have to have some level of knowledge about the Church I would think not to be lead into the briar patch. The same way you check out a used car. Wow. It does shock me - the moxie I mean. His speech and all that.

So you think if I understand you correctly the gay priest and proud of it argument will prevail. The pride parade will be a-ok, Anglican style. I did not see that coming. I think it will fracture the Church and this is ironically a very good thing for the faithful, however shepherdless they may be. 😉😍 Precisely what it needs to shake off this sickness and have a chance to heal. I am starting to sense that we should brace for some shocks though - prominent clergy bishops cardinals who you would never never never suspect…that is my takeaway from this interview and of course (sigh) it makes sense. And I wouldn’t stick around if it gets too bad, just for the sake of your mental and spirtual health. I referenced Lot’s wife in a post the other day and it bears repeating. Not trying to be negative here.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32
 
Lot’s wife is a very good example. Look away and know that Christ already reigns.
Satan, defeated by Christ, fights against his followers. The battle against the evil spirits “was joined from the very origins of the world, and will continue until the last day, as the Lord has attested” (no.37). During this time, every man is on battle alert because life on earth is a trial of faithfulness to God. “We strive therefore to please the Lord in all things (cf.2Cor 5:9). We put on the armor of God that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil and resist on the evil day…For before we reign with the glorious Christ, all of us will be made manifest ‘before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has won through the body, according to his works, whether good or evil’ (2Cor 5:10)” (Lumen Gentium, no. 48)

Even if this battle against Satan concerns all men and all times, there is no doubt that Satan’s power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident.

An Exorcist Tells His Story – Gabriele Amorth- page 29
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FollowChrist34 said:
I get the OP’s point about repression/coming out and being gay but what the hell are these individuals doing in the Church if they suffer from this condition? In such numbers? Why not just be gay?
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I’m sorry? These are individuals who are sinners just like the rest of us. Why not just be gay? They are gay. But, called to chastity according to their state in life, they are called to radical sexual inactivity that is difficult for most. Heck, marriage used to and still is seen as a way for the weak to manage their sexual desires. Men often shift the blame of their sexual sins onto women by failing to distinguish between a woman who is dressing to be deliberately sexually provocative and a woman who you find yourself sexually tempted by. Find any additional way for her to hid her adult femininity, and you don’t have to deal as much with your own lack of chastity. And then there’s marital rape. It wasn’t even illegal for the longest time. People denied it happened, and many have not understood that sexually shaming into sexual submission isn’t rape. Afterall, the woman’s body is the only proper vessel the man can finish in, so she needs to be used as a tool for him to manage his temptations to adultery and masturbation.

Certainly, it springs out of that old temptation to see marriage as the way to manage sexual feelings and solve the problem of sexual sin that leads to ideas that homosexuals should be allowed to manage their sexual feelings through committed relationships with the same sex. It’s the SAME logic.

Again, if seminaries were co ed and if we expected heterosexuals to never slip up into looking anything but asexual, this sort of thing would happen between men and women in seminaries. You’d have a scandal of the women pretending to be virgins by using contraception. Heck, when Josephite Marriages were seen as a way for heterosexuals to be holier, there was a problem of many people faking it. They’d insist their own children were their wards–a niece of nephew from a deceased brother or sister. Afterall, admitting they were your own meant admitting the Josephite part of your marriage was a sham.
 
There was another thread where someone was asking about going out and expressing discomfort at being in situation where there was a lot of drinking. It appears that there is a correspondence between drinking copious amounts of alcohol and a lot of this sinful behavior.
 
I’ve noticed this as well. Without hijacking this thread and the reality of the issues being discussed – there is also a heavy drinking culture with Catholics that gets shrugged off with “Jesus turned water into wine” or tiresome jokes about one’s heritage and ethnicity (Irish, Polish, etc.) giving them the ability to “handle their liquor”, among other things. I suppose it may also be people trying to mask their deep-rooted issues with alcohol.
 
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Catholicwife32 said:
I’m sick of homosexuality being blamed.
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It seems to me the article clearly makes the case for it absolutely being the issue. The article makes the case this has nothing to do with liberal or conservative but entirely with homosexuality.
FollowChrist34 said:
It does remind me of something - there was a married guy where I worked years ago. Super nice, handsome, a flirt with all the women. A gay guy I knew told me he knew him by name - he hung out at gay bars and did that whole thing on the side, very actively and fairly well known. It blew my mind. Mainly because he went to such lengths to pretend to be straight. Much more so than most of the men at the company. I thought he liked me and so did other women. He winked and stuff, always stopped and talked.
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If you don’t look at sexuality as being simply you are gay or straight this makes sense. Homosexuals have pushed this notion to justify their sex acts. Rather, there are just homosexual sex acts. Plenty of married men engage in homosexual sex acts. Plenty of ‘gay’ men have had sex with a woman.

In fact many very masculine men will have secret gay sex. I heard a credible story about a well known professional wrestler. We know Aaron Hernandez had a girlfriend but was having sex with men on the side. I’ve heard second hand that a successful athlete said, ‘you would be surprised how much homosexuality there is in football players’.

I think homosexuality has more to do, at least in many cases, with hyper-sexuality. This is why those who are engaging in it can be particularly risky. This is why men later in life can settle into homosexual sex. There have been plenty of examples of men who were ‘bisexual’ who settle into homosexuality.
 
After reading that entire article, I’m wondering exactly where the “sexual secrecy” comes in, because it sounds like all the soap opera goings-on were about as “secret” as the Kardashians parading around.

I do not care if seminarians are gay or straight, but I expect them to live in a holy non-sexual way and from the article, that wasn’t happening, so time for reform.

I did like the part about visiting 7 churches on Holy Thursday. I hadn’t heard of that before. I think the Newman Center youth group last year got on a bus and went to some churches, I bet that’s what they were doing.
 
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I hope it’s not off-topic to say, anything from the American Conservative website (co-founded per wikipedia by Pat Buchanan, personally, I like most of what he says) but in spite of that, anything they say, I will be a bit skeptical of. They may be right for all I know but they have said plenty in the past that I disagree with. Just because they say it doesn’t mean it is so.

On the other hand, National Review has had quite a few articles on the current situation as well. I don’t think they are as brash nor condemnatory as well. Some TAC views and articles, I find positively abhorrent.
 
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No he hasn’t. To my knowledge he has never directly addressed the question of his own sexual inclination. We can only infer.
If he did publicly proclaim that he is homosexual, how might that affect his crusade?
 
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Wait…I thought the narrarative was born this way…
 
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exnihilo said:
It seems to me the article clearly makes the case for it absolutely being the issue. The article makes the case this has nothing to do with liberal or conservative but entirely with homosexuality.
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The article makes it clear that conservatism isn’t immune to this problem. It does not make it clear that this is about homosexuality. I’d argue that it’s about heteronormative ways to promote chastity. A repressive environment does not cultivate the virtue of chastity, but encourages people to express their sexuality in hidden ways. The sins of these homosexuals are graver than homosexuals who are out of the closet and living an active homosexual lifestyle. Certainly, that isn’t enough. We are called to much more, but we need to recognize that efforts to appear more virteous than we are weakens us to sin. It is rooted in spiritual pride.

We similar issues with Josephite marriages where couples would pretend they were virgins and claim that their own children were their wards and not their own children.
 
exnihilo said:
It seems to me the article clearly makes the case for it absolutely being the issue. The article makes the case this has nothing to do with liberal or conservative but entirely with homosexuality.
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I think if we try to ban homosexuals from seminaries, we will end up bitterly disappointed by the results. Reading the article, the issue is way deeper than homosexuality. It’s about immaturity, both sexual and general, it’s about closet homosexuals not accepting themselves and it’s about an absolutist sexual morality that forces people outside the “rules”, into the closet.

If you read the part about some seminarians engaging in licentious behaviour and then going through a cycle of shame, repentance, then fall again… it’s a classic example of many vices and an immature approach to dealing with them.

Also, clearly, if the protagonist in the article was able to slip into the seminary by lying about his sexuality, I wonder what kind of filter could be used to guarantee homosexuals cannot enter the seminary.

I’m beginning to think that the root of the problem is the Church’s entire approach to sexuality. Thomist theology and people’s realities seem to clash. The goal of chastity is certainly laudable but by reducing it to a set of rules to be followed rather than an ideal to strive for simply drives either scrupulosity on one side, or closeted, secretive misbehaviour like in the article. Neither are healthy. It betrays not only sexual immaturity on the part of the people involved, but also, I think the Church

Our sexuality doesn’t simply turn itself off just because we are not married. Monks will say that any virtue of self-control is a learned behaviour that can take a lifetime, or at least very many years, to master. Throw a bunch of randy wet-behind-the-ears heterosexuals into an all-male environment with copious amounts of alcohol, and I can guarantee there will be misbehaviour, sexual and otherwise. A seminary should be a place to learn discipline and self-control. It would seem that this is difficult even for those running the places so how can we expect the students to do better?

Don’t interpret this as to mean I am against Church teaching on sexuality. I am instead having issues with the way she goes about it and the tools or lack of same needed to learn the right behaviours. If it’s something that needs to be enforced, then there’s something wrong with the approach.

Sexuality is one of the most powerful human urges. You can’t tell a beginning pianist “if you can’t perform a Beethoven sonata tonight in a concert hall you’re guilty of dereliction of duty”. It’s difficult, and it takes years of practice and encouragement. Anything that’s difficult, takes practice and encouragement, not strict enforcement. That includes mastering one’s sexuality.

I’m convinced that gay, or straight, doesn’t matter when it comes to being chaste. What matters is our ability to learn self-control.
 
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