Saturday, November 21, 2009

Warn of Possible "Witch Hunt" to Oust Gay Priests - April 23, 2002

April 23, 2002 — Gay Catholics reacted with outrage to remarks following the first day of official meetings with Vatican officials, including the Pope, on the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the US Catholic Church. In reporting on the meeting, Bishop Wilton Gregory, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said, "It is most importantly a struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men," Gregory said. "Not only is it not dominated by homosexual men, but to make sure that candidates that we receive are healthy in every possible way — psychologically, emotionally, spiritually." Photo

Marianne Duddy, Executive Director of DignityUSA, the organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Catholics, said, "We are furious over this statement. We had high hopes that these meetings in Rome would point to real solutions for this terrible crisis in the Church. Instead, we're getting more of the same. The Church hierarchy is refusing to acknowledge their own failings in moving abusive priests from parish to parish, and protecting criminals instead of children. And now the American Church has joined the Vatican in cynically shifting the blame to gay priests."

Duddy said that Gregory's comments signal that a witch hunt to oust gay priests may be the bishops' next move, including rejection of any further gay applicants to Catholic seminaries.

"Gay priests have been carrying out the Church's work for decades," she continued. "They've preached the Gospel, visited the sick, comforted the dying and the grieving, celebrated marriages, baptized children — all the things faithful Catholics hope for from their pastors. Now, when the Church faces a crisis, its leaders are willing to sacrifice these good men. How is that a Christian approach?"

Duddy also noted that Gregory's remarks imply that gay people are sick. "By hinting that gay applicants to seminaries will be denied, he's saying that we are not healthy. That's thinking that goes back to the 1970s and has been widely discredited and rejected by medical and social experts and society as a whole."

"We do not believe that Catholics will stand for this patronizing approach to what is the most harmful crisis that has ever faced the Church in the US," Duddy said. "They know that this is not a solution. It's a public relations exercise — one that is doomed to failure. This desperate attempt to fix blame somewhere else treats Catholics as naïve and, most egregiously, fails to protect children in the future or make amends for the abuses of the past." Read complete article - DignityUSA


Related links:

VATICAN TRYING TO SCAPEGOAT GAYS
 - March 8, 2002

Directive Banning Gay Priests Is Released by Vatican - By IAN FISHER Published: November 30, 2005 – The New York Times – International

Shifting the blame: the Vatican's campaign to purge gay men from Catholic seminaries is an attempt to shift the blame for the sexual abuse scandal away from the bishops.

Vatican Defends Policy on Gay Priests. Associated Press; ABC News; Boston Herald, Miami Herald; etc… by Task Force in the News Nov 14 - Dec 5, 2005

Vatican 'to ban new gay priests' - The Vatican is to ban all gay men from joining the clergy even if they accept a vow of celibacy, reports say. BBC NEWS – September 23, 2005

SILENCING TRUTH">Impending rules on gay priests create Catholic divide – by Charles Honey – The Grand Rapids Press – October 8, 2005 * Benedict XVI -> SILENCING TRUTH

New Catholic Sex Abuse Findings: Gay Priests Are Not the Problem – by DAVID GIBSON – Politics Daily - November 18, 2009

AUSCHWITZ - CHRISTMAS 2008 - A flashback far more severe than in - BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Praise for report on gay priests and sex abuse - By Daniel Burke - National Catholic Reporter - 2009

Report: Homosexuality No Factor in Abusive Priests - By RACHEL ZOLL - ABC News - 2009

US Catholic Bishops threaten the moral 'fabric of society' and the sanctity Gay unions - 2009

Crisis in the Church – Dignity USA


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