Priesthood

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In his book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, Father Donald Cozzens, a Catholic seminary president, says there is such a high percentage of gay priests in the church that he is concerned “the priesthood is or is becoming a gay profession.” A.W. Richard Sipe estimates that between 25 percent and 45 percent of American priests are homosexual in orientation. I remember Scott Hahn talking about this problem on a radio interview once.

What are people’s thoughts on the causes of this?
 
Read Michael Rose’s Goodbye, Good Men. Then, when you’re about to give up, read his book, Priest 👍
 
Well, i didn’t particularly care for Goodbye, Good Men, at least the part of it (the seminary) which i’ve had personal experience of. Basically, in my limited experience of seminary, religious formation and priesthood, i don’t think the statistics are accurate. Nevertheless, whatever the statistics are, homosexuality is an issue.

The causes of the problem are many, i suppose. I think the main one was a mistaken notion of what priesthood is and what a priest should be, both on the part of some of those who have become priests and those who allowed them to enter seminary/formation. Mistaken morality doesn’t help either.
 
The causes of the priest scandal are multi-layered and can partly be attributed to a mistaken misinterpretation of Vatican II and reshifting of ideas of sexual morality among some members of both the hierarchy and priesthood around that time. However, as evidenced by the extremely high incidence of clergy abuse involving post-pubescent males, it seems clear that homosexuality played a big part. It appears that it’s too much of a temptation for homosexuals to be living in seminarian situations with other males. Alot of these men are (and were) sexually immature and disordered to begin with and it was probably only a matter of time before some of them failed. Thus, I think the church must have the courage to not admit any homosexuals into the priesthood regardless of their desire and promise to lead a celibate life. If it comes to pass, it will certainly be controversial but in the end the right decision.
 
Br. Dan:
I think the main one was a mistaken notion of what priesthood is and what a priest should be, both on the part of some of those who have become priests and those who allowed them to enter seminary/formation. Mistaken morality doesn’t help either.
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Have you read The Changing Face of the Priesthood" - while the second half of the book received a lot of press attention, the first half, where it makes direct comparisons as to how the very nature and role of the priest has changed since Vatican II was very informative, and I thought fascinating.
 
a few years ago, just before the Boston Globe broke the sex abuse scandal, the Kansas City star did a series on gay priests, focusing on the high number of priests dying of AIDS. Since the reports on contributing factors to the abuse crisis have pointed out that the overwhelming number of abuse cases are actually homosexual acts, I would have expected some reporting and correlation or reference to that earlier reporting. Is it the gay rights lobby among liberals, or some other factor that seems to prevent obvious inferences and connections being made here. Since the cultural mood seems to be open and even proud of one’s sexual orientation, surely it cannot be denial mode. Somebody with more background out there, can you shed light on this?
 
I thought the Pope already stated that homosexuals shouldn’t be admitted to the priesthood. I could be wrong.
 
The causes of the problem are many, i suppose. I think the main one was a mistaken notion of what priesthood is and what a priest should be, both on the part of some of those who have become priests and those who allowed them to enter seminary/formation.
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What are the mistakes people make about what priests should be?
 
I’m not sure what I was thinking when i said that but…i’ll try to remember. I was probably referring to people not seeing priesthood as a distinct and separate role in the Church, a role that is formed and founded on Jesus Himself, poor, chaste and obedient. (Religious order priests, which i might be someday, refer to Jesus like that since we take the vows but all priests are specially conformed to the Person of Christ.) Instead, priests were seen as, basically, laymen who did special work like say Mass and hear confessions. And, even what priests do was seen in some strange ways so that, as the saying goes, they were basically social workers…not being called “Father” or dressing like a priest or living in a rectory or celebrating Mass everyday.

So, the religious (Christ-ian) nature of the priest both as a person as well as his work was minimized. Anyone, gay, straight, man woman, Catholic, Muslim…, can do what a priest does, especially if it is simply social work. But, it takes a calling from God as well as His grace to BE a priest…who is, above all, a doctor of souls.

I’ve got school work to attend to…but i hope that helps.

P.S. No, i haven’t read Fr. Cozzens’ book. I don’t even finish my assigned reading. Did i disagree with something he said?
 
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