Matt Walsh: gay clergy to blame for sexual abuse

[Kris34]

It is more likely my son would be abused by female teachers than catholic priests. And when a married female teacher is arrested for abusing a boy student the media doesn’t even use the word abuse in the title of the article. It’s teacher was arrested for sex, no it’s sex abuse/rape. 38 year old teacher and 13 year old boy is crime not sex.

 

[ATraveller]

I’m not getting why their attraction to the same sex is that important. It’s a detail but not the most important one. No one stresses the orientation of the pastor or volunteer who abused a child or congregant or the opposite sex. Abuse is abuse.
I’m failing to understand how this focus would prevent any possible future problems. Walsh addresses this in the second last paragraph but people can lie about their sexual orientation.

 

[ATraveller]

And when a married female teacher is arrested for abusing a boy student the media doesn’t even use the word abuse in the title of the article. It’s teacher was arrested for sex, no it’s sex abuse/rape. 38 year old teacher and 13 year old boy is crime not sex.

This is a serious problem. Abuse is abuse, regardless of gender or orientation. In many ways, the media are participating in grooming in their refusal to call it for what it is.

 

[gracepoole]

If there’s one constant upon which we can rely, perhaps it’s Walsh’s ignorance and vitriol. The damage he routinely does to the image of the Church is frightening.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

In the Historic institutional sex abuse in Aus, females, both religious and laity, count amongst perpetrators.

 

[exnihilo]

I’m not getting why their attraction to the same sex is that important. It’s a detail but not the most important one.

If same sex attraction is a disorder then its disorderdness could be more pervasive. This was an older view of the condition. It was abandoned but not with any justification.

 

[ChicagoDG]

Sure, a man that touches little boys is a pedophile - but he is also gay or bisexual - or else he’d find no pleasure in it.

And indeed the majority are teenagers that have been molested.

In addition let’s be honest - these priests are not devout, not prayerful, not even a little. Otherwise it wouldn’t happen.

 

[KMG]

Those bishops who refuse to ordain homosexuals are doing a service to the Church. On this general topic, Father Hunwicke’s blog today has an excellent post:

Homosexuality
A very senior prelate is reported recently to have said
“X, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like that and loves you like this and I don’t care. love you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

I find it logically helpful to substitute other things for gay (Paedophile? Psychopath?) and to see how the propositions look then.

Of course, this is a dangerous line to take. Those with an enfeebled grasp of logic are likely to blurt out “So you’re saying that all homosexuals are paedophiles!” or “So you think homosexuals are as bad as psychopaths?”

(In fact, I think that Christian homosexuals are, almost by definition, likely to be more admirable than heterosexuals. Because, denied the sexual outlets which are available to heterosexuals, they lead a grace-filled and continent life. I condemn those heterosexuals, often fundamentalist Evangelicals, who are very ‘strong’ against homosexuality, but don’t seem to have noticed what the Lord said about remarriage after divorce.)

Questions abound, some of them in the field known as theodicy. Does God make people gay, or are there (sometimes?) cultural factors involved? If gaydom is to be deemed a matter of divine creation, why is paedophilia (or bipolarity or spina bifida) not to be so considered? If gaydom is a matter of divine creation, does this imply that those so born should be permitted/encouraged to live along their instincts?

These are difficult questions. But Holy Mother Church has always taken the line that, whatever one is born with, one is still subject to the same divine laws (although psychological compulsion may well diminish the subjective culpability of particular breaches of the laws in individual cases).

If this is, according to the High Prelate concerned, no longer true, then it is not only ‘gays’ who are affected. There are other categories who need to be reassured that they are made the way they are by God, loved like that by him, and expected by him to be happy with the way they are; others who, perhaps, must be allowed to express the sexual inclinations God is said to have put within them.
Posted by Fr John Hunwicke at 10:34 No comments:

 

[Anicette]

Of course, there was, and there is still, at a lower level a “gay” problem in our Church. And the mollesters of teenaged boys are homosexuals AND Pedophiles.
Statistics worldwide are very clear.

Closeness and available of youngs boys can be an argument to men with bad intentions to considered priesthood.
Live in community with others men can brings tempations, but how to avoid? There are many earnings to such a community on spiritual, and psychological level.
So perhaps, as Benedict XVI decided, it is not smart that men with clear homosexual orientations be ordained to priesthood. Because there will be many temptations to sin.

But that doesn’t mean that the majority of catholic priests are attracted by men, or act unchastely.

I know many seminarians or youngs priests. They seems to be very holy men. Not potential abusers.

 

[BoomerangToo]

I’m not getting why their attraction to the same sex is that important. It’s a detail but not the most important one. No one stresses the orientation of the pastor or volunteer who abused a child or congregant or the opposite sex. Abuse is abuse.
I’m failing to understand how this focus would prevent any possible future problems. Walsh addresses this in the second last paragraph but people can lie about their sexual orientation.

Perhaps these excerpts from the USCCB website will help:

A REPORT ON THE CRISIS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES
The National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People
Established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Feb 27, 2004

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[Anicette]

thanks to the document!

A lot of common sense!

And yes, the “gay” subculture seems to be a very great problem in some presbyterium of certains dioceses!

I don’t know of any cases in France, but in the US, diocese such as Miami, (who had already gone to investigation, that unfortunately go public, and with little conclusive elements) there may be a serious problem.

 

[Joe_5859]

Matt Walsh is one of those people I check in on periodically for reasons I can’t even explain to myself.

I feel you there. He is a provocateur, but I actually find him to be a more thoughtful and intelligent provocateur. Normally, I can’t stomach that type of stuff. But I can tolerate Walsh much more than most. I’ll read Walsh (which I admit I don’t do that often or regularly), and I’ll still feel like I gained an insight or two.

I can’t speak for the state of his soul, obviously. I think he just feels strongly about things and feels like it’s his duty to lay out his perspective without mincing words. I think that approach can work sometimes. But not all the time.

 

[Joe_5859]

With regards to this particular article, I think this is at the heart of his argument:

If he were not a homosexual, he would not have molested boys. Who could dispute this? I’m not claiming that all homosexuals molest boys. I am claiming that only homosexuals molest boys.

I think people do dispute this, which is why they’d disagree the point Walsh is making here.

I do wonder at the psychology at work here. Indeed, it is only recently in human history that “gay” has become an identity. It is only if we grant that being homosexual is an identity that Walsh could argue such a point. To me, that’s curious, because I’m not so sure Walsh subscribes to that concept of “being gay.”

 

[abucs]

It is not a good policy to shut down legitimate concerns because someone else might down the track say something in response that one does not like.

It would also give people who want to shut down legitimate concerns raised in the threads the power because if something is raised that they don’t like they know not only can they shut it down by posting abuse but they will even stop such threads from being raised in the future.

I don’t think there can be any support for that and I think CAF now has a more enlightened view on the subject.

 

[yankeesouth]

Coping With Scandal: What Everyone Can Do

Coping with scandal: what everyone can do

Perhaps the most prescient article that I ever published in my years as an editor, and certainly the most controversial, is The Gay Priest Problem, by Father Paul Shaughnessy, SJ, which appeared in the November 2000 issue of Catholic World Report. The concluding section of that piece, offering...

www.catholicculture.org

 

[Joe_5859]

I saw that article. I think he goes a little too far. Challenge the priest every time you see him not in clerical garb? I think that’s a bit much. My pastor already gets enough grief from everyone about every little thing he does that is not up to their specifications. I’m not going to harass him while he’s out for his morning walk because he’s not in his collar.

I mean, I understand the need to be reasonably vigilant. I just feel like he’s asking the laity to be in a constant state of suspicion with every priest they encounter.

 

[angel12]

Challenge the priest every time you see him not in clerical garb? I think that’s a bit much.

It’s outrageous, is what it is. We’ve already got the liturgy police screaming “Abuse!” at anything that doesn’t conform to their own personal opinions and preferences. Now we’re supposed to have the priest’s clothing police?
Good way to make every priest think we all hate them.