Tough With Deviance

If The Church Gets Tough --Very Tough-- With Deviance, Pope Will Make His  Mark  
Michael Brown

Pope Benedict XVI may be shaping his pontificate as a quiet one that will  tend to housecleaning -- the first of which, critically, is to root out  homosexuality. If he is doing this, he is truly receiving the torch from  John Paul II, who had ordered an investigation of seminaries. If he sticks  to his guns, he will be known as the Pope who corrected a terrible  situation.

For the Church, nothing is more urgent. Sexual transgression has created a  crisis of historic proportions. Whether homosexual or heterosexual,  perversions and those who practice them have no place -- none whatsoever  -- in the clergy.

With the current case, the crisis is homosexuality. In the United States  there have been allegations of sexual misconduct against approximately one  priest in fifty. Of the alleged victims of these assaults, about 10,000  were male, and about a thousand female.

In April 2002, Wilton Gregory, then bishop of Belleville and president of  the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, noted that "there does exist  within American seminaries a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes  heterosexuals think twice" about entering the priesthood, adding that "it  is an ongoing struggle to make sure the Catholic priesthood is not  dominated by homosexual men."

It is a struggle that the Church must now decisively win.

This is not to judge those who are "gay." Many are sensitive and talented  people who like the rest of us have failings. Many of them yearn to be  spiritual. They are skilled in many ways. They are anything but the  picture of hardness and militancy we envision when we see radical "gays"  parading around Greenwich Village or San Francisco. Some of the most  considerate, sensitive, and upstanding people are of this leaning -- good  in other ways. We are to love them as we love anyone else. Nor can we  judge them: how do we know how they got to where they are? And have we  looked for the logs in our own eyes?

But we are also to hate the sin and acknowledge the truth and the truth is  that those who are homosexual grapple with a disorder that requires  deliverance. It is a spiritual issue. And while they struggle with that  disorder they do not belong in a position of any spiritual authority.

It is better to suffer a severe priest shortage than to limp on with those  who are too immersed in personal turmoil to tend to the flock -- and who  in fact can pose (as has been startlingly seen) an actual danger.

Let's tell it like it is. The demonic is at work. How did the spirits  invade? We note that much of the onset for this crisis was in the Sixties.  During alleged messages at Akita, Japan (a partially Church-approved  occurrence in which a statue wept), the Blessed Mother warned around that  time that "the demon will be especially implacable against souls  consecrated to God."

Priests are exceptional men on the front line and prone to horrific  temptation and assault. We must sympathize with that.

But those who are homosexual must be rooted out and hopefully the Vatican  is moving forcefully in this direction.

We have been accused of being too easy on priests. We believe that they  should be defended because, by and large, they are exceptional,  well-meaning, and selfless. They deserve our respect. A minority have  caused the crisis. One in fifty.

But that respect will not return until the "gay" element is rooted out and  the typical Catholic can go back to the assumption that his or her pastor  is not disordered or deceived or otherwise touched in such a way.

Plain truth: at least 81 percent of priest-abuse cases involve men who are  homosexual.

This disorder has manifested not only in sinful, aberrant sex, but also in  a modernism that has replaced spirituality with intellectuality (which is  less "judgmental") and has helped lead to an epidemic of pride. The crisis  spread because the Church has always sought to hide scandal before  everything, because priests were in short supply (and bishops reluctant to  get rid of even one), and because priests were arrogated above the common  man when they are supposed to stand for humility.

That says a lot. Let us not make excuses here.

But also, let us also not throw every priest out with the bathwater.

Instead, let us purge the homosexual element -- ministering to those so  afflicted, praying for their deliverance (from actual evil), but removing  them from authority no matter how painful this will be in the short run.  We must purify the priesthood even if the shortage of priests becomes  excruciating.

Doubtless, there will be parishes without priests. Doubtless, there will  be a special strain on dioceses that have tolerated homosexuals and as a  result are deeply infiltrated.

But in the long term, reducing and then purging such from the priesthood  will reshape public perception of the priesthood and once more attract  heterosexuals to their calling.

All this we mention because the Vatican is set to reaffirm a policy that  has said just this all along: that gays should not be in the priesthood.

Reportedly, it is preparing a document to this effect.

And at the same time, Rome is ready to begin a review of all 229 U.S.  seminaries, looking for homosexuality.

A loud cry of secular protest there is, already -- but Rome must remain  firm. To go on as we have because we need the priests or because we wish  not to offend -- because we wish to be politically correct -- will lead to  a disaster greater even than what we have seen already!

In recent decades, Vatican officials have stated several times that  homosexuals are "intrinsically disordered" and should not become priests.  Let us now enforce that. How many are "gay"? No one knows. The estimates  range as high as 25 percent and in some cases upward. Many with a  homosexual proclivity are not practicing homosexuals. Those who already  are priests will and should remain -- as long as they are strictly  celibate, and as long as they are working at correcting this deep  spiritual flaw, as we all must work at correcting our flaws.

Any priest who is not celibate, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is  breaking his vows and sinning. When there is a perversion or "disorder,"  it makes it all the worse. It is not for the laymen to pry into the  personal lives of priests, but surely it is in the domain of bishops. It  is also in the jurisdiction of law enforcement: those who have abused  children belong in jail like anyone else.

The fact that such abuse has happened is stunning and will be a stain on  the Church for much of this decade, if not this century -- an historic  crisis.

But not one from which we can't recover.

Priest shortages in the West?

Bring in heterosexual priests from places like Poland and "third world"  countries where the seminaries are bursting at the seams. Along with the  rapid expansion in Catholic population, reports one Catholic newspaper,  "has come an explosion in African bishops, priests, brothers, sisters, and  deacons. There are today more than 600 African bishops and almost 30,000  priests, and Africa and Asia each number approximately 30,000 seminarians.  In 2004, roughly 20 priests were ordained for all of England and Wales,  while Nigeria alone ordained more than 200."

Bring those they can spare to areas where there will be shortages due to  the purge.

That sounds harsh:

A "purge"?

To purge is to cleanse. Homosexuality is often the result of what Christ  called unclean spirits. Purge them. Christ did not tolerate such spirits.  He cast them out.

Let's help those who are homosexuals -- but not by pretending that what  they do (or want to do) is normal. Let us help them as Jesus helped the  adulteress.

Until they expurgate the spirits or personal flaws behind their disorder,  homosexuals have no place in the ministry; none. They are in need of  ministry.

Perversity of any kind can not be allowed in the priesthood, no matter how  the priesthood shrinks.

Good will come from the fire.

We must purify the Church at all costs.

Nothing else will work.

A gay should not become a priest. He should seek out a good priest for  help and deliverance.

"I do think about leaving," a 30-year old Franciscan seminary student told  The New York Times in the wake of the announcement of the new document,  which apparently will affirm policies set in 1961 and again in 2002  against homosexual priests. "It's hard to live a duplicitous life, and for  me it's hard not to speak out against injustice. And that's what this is."

An injustice? To allow a priest to contravene God's law? And to afflict  the faithful?

Good-bye, dear friend. You have our love and prayers but you do not belong  in the priesthood.

9/26/05