US Bishops Wanted Delay on Vatican Document on Homosexuality by Gary L. Morella @ TraditionInAction.org

Homosexuality and the Clergy

US Bishops Wanted Delay on Vatican
Document on Homosexuality
Gary L. Morella

Some rather shocking news was recently printed, although not many Catholics seemed to notice it amid all the outrageous news that bombards us every day. This is it. According to the press, American Bishops asked the Vatican to delay publishing the recent document on homosexuality in the seminaries – "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders" – because they considered it too strong against homosexual seminarians.

"We asked them not to publish it, but to delay it – to wait – otherwise it would color the visitations," said Cardinal George. (Chicago Sun-Times online, January 16, 2006).

He said the Bishops were concerned that the document would be released during the official visits of U.S. Bishops to seminaries, and that this could ignite the sensitivities of homosexual activists. George explained: "We said, 'If you do this, it will be taken as a commentary on the visitations and we'll get into this whole business that the gay community is so sensitive to of, 'You're blaming us for the pedophilia.'"

I do not understand Cardinal George and the U.S. Bishops concern with the “sensitivities of the gay community" given that there is nothing acceptable in being inclined to sodomitic acts. What does "sensitivities of the gay community" have to do with uncompromisingly telling the truth for salvation's sake? When did Christ ever show concern for the de facto approval of inclinations to mortal sin? When did Christ ever refer to such inclinations as anything other than what they have always been, are, and always will be, temptations, that if not fought off, ultimately put souls at risk of eternal perdition?

Furthermore, the Church should not be reticent to admit that there is a well-documented proven direct correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia when the total cases of pedophilia are looked at. A commonly skewed statistic is that there are more cases of pedophilia in the heterosexual population than in the homosexual. This comes as no surprise since homosexuals make up only about 2% of the population. There is an inordinate occurrence of pedophilia in the homosexual population relative to the heterosexual. In fact, in a special 1990 double issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, it is proudly trumpeted that “parents should welcome the loving pedophile into their homes,” and where “adult-child sex” is referred to euphemistically as nothing more than “intergenerational intimacy.”

Cardinal George admits that the Bishops
asked for a delay

The following evidence showing the correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia is current research from NARTH, The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, in an article entitled The Problem of Pedophilia.

Gay advocates correctly state that most child molesters are heterosexual males. But this is a misleading statement. In proportion to their numbers (about 1 out of 36 men), homosexual males are more likely to engage in sex with minors: in fact, they appear to be three times more likely than straight men to engage in adult-child sexual relations (1). And this does not take into account the cases of homosexual child abuse which are unreported. NARTH's Executive Director Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, for example, says that about one-third of his 400 adult homosexual clients said they had experienced some form of homosexual abuse before the age of consent, but only two of those cases had been reported.

While no more than 2% of male adults are homosexual, some studies indicate that approximately 35% of pedophiles are homosexual (2). Further, since homosexual pedophiles victimize far more children than do heterosexual pedophiles (3), it is estimated that approximately 80% of pedophilic victims are boys who have been molested by adult males (4).

1. Freund, K. and R. I. Watson, "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (Spring 1992): 3443.
2. K. Freund et al., "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 10 (Fall 1984): 197.
3. Freund and Watson, "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles," 3443.
4. Schmidt, Thomas (1995), Straight and Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, p. 114.

In fact, the study on sexual abuse commissioned by the U.S. Bishops after the scandals broke in 2002, confirmed that homosexuality indeed was a major part of the problem. The John Jay study noted that 80% of the sexual abuse in the priesthood involved adolescent males rather than young boys, pointing to the core problem being one of homosexuality, not strictly pedophilia (LifeSiteNews.com, January 19, 2006)

Minors, i.e., children, legally, are those ages 17 and under according to positive law. The suggestion that pedophilia applies only to the youngest children is incorrect in that pedophilia as defined in Webster’s is “sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object;” its definition of “children” includes all those ages 17 and under. Also, pederasty in Webster’s is “one who practices anal intercourse especially with a boy.” There is no reference to the age of the boy in this definition, which clearly implies that the line between pedophilia and pederasty is very fine indeed, if existing at all.

The U.S. Bishops and certain others in the Catholic Church must stop using the language of the Devil in characterizing homosexuality as "gay,” and referring to an orientation to homosexuality as if it were innate and final, which is also a proven lie. It is not correct to talk of individuals as being homosexual or oriented to homosexuality in this context. Rather, the Church should unequivocally be talking about heterosexuals with homosexual inclinations that can be overcome.

To consider that homosexuality is native to man, and not a moral vice, is to offend God. Indeed, the Omniscient All-Good God could not have created a half-man/half-woman type of person, clashing with His very rules of nature, thereby immediately putting such an individual on the fast track to hell! It would be contradictory. Now then, in God there is no possible contradiction. Therefore, the sexes are defined and the homosexuals or androgynous persons are moral degenerate persons who revolted against the order created by God. This rebellion is an effect of Original Sin.

So, if the Bishops or anyone else insist on qualifying homosexuals as merely gay, which is defined as happy, joyful and playful, they are acting against the designs of God and favoring the plans of the Devil.

There is nothing "gay" about acts that are so filthy that they cannot be accurately described without causing feelings of extreme revulsion. We are talking about behavior that is physically, psychologically, socially, and most especially, spiritually ruinous! It must be recognized as such for the sake of the souls of all concerned.

Yet worse is for the Bishops to be afraid to raise strong opposition to the sin of homosexuality. It insinuates that they want to keep those who wrongly consider themselves defined by inclinations to gravely sinful acts inside the seminaries, against the allegedly strong measure the Vatican would take.

The “strong measure” did not come. What came was a tactical approval of those inclined to homosexual acts in the seminaries. Almost everyone in the Church is concerned more about not hurting the feelings of this group instead of witnessing to the Truth Who is Christ. So what kind of clergy will this leave us to serve the Church in the future? Clearly, the answer is a clergy that sees nothing wrong with a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance, i.e., a clergy that has long since lost the faith!

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Posted January 30, 2006

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