The great Paradox! High rates of gay priests in the USA!
It is a great paradox! The Church teaches that gay men have an objective disorder and are disposed to intrinsic moral evil. It bans priests who have deep-rooted homosexual tendencies.
Yet independent studies have revealed that there is a high rate of gay priests in the USA.
The teachings of the Church as regards homosexuality
The Catholic Church preaches against homosexuality and since 2005, it bans priests who are gay or have a gay tendency. It teaches that gay men are disordered and are predisposed to conduct moral evil.
The percentage of gay priests in the Church
Despite all the preachings, independent studies have revealed that not less than 15% of the priests in the USA are gay. Some studies have pegged this figure at 60%.
New York magazine team has conducted its research and found that around 30-40% of the parish priests are gay. The percentage soars to 60% among religious orders such as the Franciscans or the Jesuits.
The Guardian has reported that 4 out of 5 Vatican priests are gay though they may not be sexually active. So there are a greater number of gay people in the Church than in the general population. There are 37000 priests in the USA and with such a high percentage of them being gay, the number would be in the thousands.
Many of these gay priests have now gone public as regards their sexuality. Things have changed over the past three decades and more and more priests are coming out of the closet.
What does this mean for the general public?
Knowing about the higher percentage of gay men in the Church, the public would first be surprised by learning it. But the recognition of this has now changed the thinking of the American Catholics. Now increasingly more American Catholics are in support of civil marriages for gay couples, including the priests.
When Pope Francis 5 years back was asked to comment on a gay priest, he had said:
“Who am I to judge?”
He continued:
“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me, when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being.”
In the 2014 Synod on the family, Pope Francis said:
“Are we capable of welcoming [them]?”
There is a sharp change in the official preachings of the Church after the figures came out.
The Catholic Right panic
The Catholic Right panicked with this new change in tone of the Church and dug up a 2002 case. They said that the person in the case was a homosexual and his gayness was responsible for the crime. Strong voices against this change emerged. American Cardinal Raymond Burke said:
“There is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root,”
Bishop Robert Morlino of Wisconsin stated:
“It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation. If you’ll permit me, what the church needs now is more hatred of homosexual sexual behavior, a sin so grave that it cries out to heaven for vengeance.”
Michael Hichborn who is head of the fringe-right Lepanto Institute asked for the banishment of all homosexual clergymen from the church …
He added:
“It is going to be difficult and will likely result in a very serious priest shortage, but it’s definitely worth the effort.”
In all this, the controversy catches the gay priests. They listen and are often scapegoated.
Source: NY Mag
