Scapegoat of recent scandal?

[EnglishTeacher]

[Post by Goout] Priests have all kinds of opportunities around women or girls.

Nuns, generally no. (Why nuns?) But women in general? Opportunities abound. If a priest and a woman wanted to do something, it wouldn’t be too hard.

(Opportunities for young girls, on the other hand–or boys for that matter–would be quite difficult nowadays, thankfully, due to the Safe Environment policies that have been in place for the last 15-20 years. Sadly, that seems not to have been the case in previous decades, though.)

 

[Thorolfr]

So if you couldn’t access men you would be married with a woman?

Where did that comment come from?

I’m not saying that there weren’t a lot of sexually repressed and screwed up gay men involved in the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. But it seems to me from the line of reasoning that most people are using, that they want to pretend that gay men are more likely to be abusers. JimG has already posted an article to that effect which tries to make the point the gay men by their very nature are different from straight men, more likely to seek out underage sex partners, more likely to want anonymous sex, use drugs, etc. They want to make the point that homosexuality is just naturally bad and evil and that explains the sexual abuse crisis. But, as I pointed out above, if most of the abuse cases had involved girls and women, no one would be saying that this is a “heterosexual problem.”

 

[Thorolfr]

Nuns, generally no. (Why nuns?) But women in general? Opportunities abound. Trust me, I worked at a parish for several years and observed much. While I never witnessed anything improper, I can tell you that if a priest and woman wanted to do something, it wouldn’t be too hard.

In most cases, the person being sexually harassed doesn’t want to have anything to do with the harasser. It’s not like a consensual love affair. The tactic used by former Cardinal McCarrick of inviting young priests to share a bed with him for the night on a retreat would have been more difficult to carry off with a woman. Someone I know who was a seminarian, said that a teacher might let it be known that a student could get a better grade if he had sex with him. The opportunities of doing that kind of thing with a woman would have been less.

 

[dumbox]

What’s a scapegoat? Seriously…if an engineer was told that he could get rid of 80% of the problems…that’s what he’d focus on.

Being a priest is hard enough…we don’t need people with all sorts of issues being priests.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

In most cases, the person being sexually harassed doesn’t want to have anything to do with the harasser. It’s not like a consensual love affair.

I thought you were talking about opportunity for consensual affairs with women. I would agree that it is less if we are talking about coercion / non-consensual contact.

 

[Canvas]

Sexual predators can be very adaptive. Look at prisons. There is a lot of homosexual activity in prisons between men who would otherwise not be in same sex situations on the outside. There isn’t a lot of heterosexual rape in prison for obvious reasons–even men who identify as heterosexual commit sexual assaults on other men when that is what is available.

There are some people who will take whatever they can get

 

[Thorolfr]

I agree, although men who usually have sex with women outside of prison wouldn’t be considered to be homosexual. It’s not as if they prefer to have sex with men.

 

[Canvas]

That is what I meant—straight men who have same sex relationships in prison. We are in agreement here.

 

[BoomerangToo]

And if they had had easy access to girls, the number of girls abused would probably have been higher.

Catholic schools are full of girls that a deviant priest could molest, as well as in the confessional. There are also youth clubs for boys and girls in almost every parish.

 

[Rahn]

Why Men Like Me Should Not Be Priests | Daniel Mattson | First Things

 

[Joe_5859]

This is something I’d like to see more research on. Do sexual predators just go for the easy target? Does sexual orientation not matter as much to them?

 

[Canvas]

I think some people are just predators period. Look at prisons. Guys who would not be in a same sex relationship on the outside might be prolific rapists of men on the inside. I really don’t know. I don’t study this stuff, but I know it happens. In certain circumstances, when women aren’t around, certain guys who would normally go for women, turn to men. In some cases I think it is more about power than sexuality. Perhaps it was that case in some of these abuse scandals. For some rapists, it isn’t the sex, but the thrill of dominating others that drives them.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I do not believe the issue with this crisis is homosexuals but homosexuals in the priesthood. The temptation is too great.

Also, there are many opportunities a priest could have around women and young girls. There are nuns, teachers, secretaries, mothers…

Young girls and women go into the confessionals also.

One of the incidences said a priest asked a young girl if he could follow her in to the bathroom, so it can and does happen. It is just seems the majority of cases are abuses toward other males.

 

[Calliope]

I don’t think that homosexuality in and of itself is the problem, but for some reason, guessing it being as straightforward as the clergy being all male, the numbers show that homosexuality is a significant issue in the sex abuse debacle.

It sucks that because of this, men with SSA who may be called to the vocation and have the gifts for it, will not be able to follow that call. It’s one of the many fall outs of this entire situation.

I don’t know if the priesthood tends to attract a higher percentage of those with SSA rather than heterosexual attraction or not. Maybe it’s just that a subculture of sexually active priests arose who first practiced consensual sex and that opened the door for other forms of sexual activity to be tolerated and pursued.

Once a sin is given a nod of approval, other things begin to seem less serious, and people become bolder in what they do and think they can get away with.

Personally I think that screening for men who are not properly disposed to all the conditions and challenge of the priestly life, is more important than banning those with SSA, but that’s not my call to make. In the short term, if conclaves of homosexual activity have been allowed to flourish, not allowing those with SSA will put an end to that pretty quickly.

I doubt that heterosexual priests , in any great %, engage in gay sex simply because they spend a lot of time around other men. It’s not like a prison where there are no other possible outlets, though sex can and is used as a power play, and sometimes men do use it against other men in that manner.

I doubt that is what accounts for the majority of the abuses that have come to light, though from what I have read, I think it does account for some

 

[JimG]

But, as I pointed out above, if most of the abuse cases had involved girls and women, no one would be saying that this is a “heterosexual problem.”

Actually I think that if the great majority of abuse cases had involved girls and women we would be saying that this is a heterosexual problem. Just as in the #MeToo incidents, which proved to be a heterosexual problem.

 

[Thorolfr]

From the article:

I am the sort of man the Catholic Church says shouldn’t be a priest. I experience what the Vatican calls “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” which, according to the Church, make me an unsuitable candidate for the priesthood.

I don’t know what this “deep seated homosexual tendencies” thing is about. Is there also such a thing as “deep seated heterosexual tendencies” or is it only homosexuals who can have “deep seated” tendencies?

men with homosexual tendencies find it particularly difficult to live out the demands of chastity…Fr. James Lloyd, C.S.P., a priest with a PhD in psychology from NYU, has worked with homosexual men (including priests) for more than 30 years as a clinical psychologist. On the subject of chastity and homosexual priests, he says, “It is clear enough from clinical evidence that the psychic energy needed to contain homosexual drives is far greater than that needed by the straying heterosexual.”

I think that this part of the article is especially ridiculous. Mattson and Fr. Lloyd make it sound as if gay men by their very nature just can’t control themselves when it comes to sex and have some sort of insatiable sex drive. This is again an attempt to portray gay men as somehow different from heterosexual men when it comes to self control. But we all know that this is a bunch of baloney. In the last year there have been multiple stories about powerful men sexually harassing women which spawned the whole #MeToo Movement.

 

[Thorolfr]

Actually I think that if the great majority of abuse cases had involved girls and women we would be saying that this is a heterosexual problem. Just as in the #MeToo incidents, which proved to be a heterosexual problem.

No one thinks that heterosexuality in itself is a part of the problem in the #MeToo incidents. It’s predatory behavior that is the problem. Is anyone saying that companies should not allow any heterosexuals to work there any more or that heterosexuals should not be allowed to run for Congress?

 

[JimG]

In the last year there have been multiple stories about powerful men sexually harassing women which spawned the whole #MeToo Movement.

Yes, exactly. It was heterosexual men with a deep seated inclination toward non-marital sex, (which was the original meaning of the word heterosexual.) Men with such a deep seated inclination should also not be admitted to ordination.

Also, I do not think that every homosexual priest was part of the abuse problem. I have read several commenters who say that there are many priests with such an orientation who never molested anyone and who remain good and holy priests.

 

[MikeInVA]

No one thinks that heterosexuality in itself is a part of the problem

Actually, I’ve heard a lot of talk about how married clergy would solve the problem. It’s called the celibacy problem. And it’s unfounded.

 

[goout]

Thorolfr:

No one thinks that heterosexuality in itself is a part of the problem

Actually, I’ve heard a lot of talk about how married clergy would solve the problem. It’s called the celibacy problem. And it’s unfounded.

Do you agree that currently the priesthood is exclusively celibate? And do you agree that this culture is broken?
Do you agree that married men in the priesthood would change the culture?

We can make varying predictions all we want about what might happen with changes, and in the meantime we have decades of stonewalled abuse from a culture that does not change.
Doing nothing is to cooperate with the evil.