Looks like a St. Louis seminary wants to be an early test of the new apostolic visitation of seminaries and a rumored ban on gay seminarians. The Aquinas Institute of Theology is directly challenging the contention that gays shouldn’t be priests and has some very strange allies in doing so: Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
First, Fr. Charles Bouchard, president of the seminary, comes right out and says that homosexuality would not disqualify a student. This is the same priest who said: “Homosexuality involves attraction to adult persons of the same sex and is not in itself sinful or sick.” As Diogenes correctly points out Bouchard is wrong:
The Church teaches that the homosexual inclination itself is an intrinsic disorder—not necessarily sinful, but necessarily sick. Whether this particular disorder (or sickness) is curable, transient, gradated, etc., is a matter for debate, but to deny the teaching is to take a position of dissent.
But moving on to the strange bedfellows category, notice the linkage, or anti-linkage, Bouchard expresses between homosexuality and the Scandal.
“I think it might be relevant in as much as that it answers some people’s question that possibly there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilea [sic]. I don’t think that link exists, so I’m not afraid of that question.”
“Barbara said half the victims of abuuse by priests are females.”
I heard this before and it could be an apple & oranges comparison, deliberate or not subtle slight of hand.
The one who I heard use it stated, in reference to the Scandal and homosexuality, that half a all clergy abuse cases involve female victims and he cited a study (I cannot remember what one, perhaps someone out there is more familiar)showing such. But I recall the cited study covered not only priests, but Protestant clergy and Jewish rabbis. Perhaps that is were the 50% comes from.
peace
Dom,
You are often saying “80 percent of the abuse was against teenage males”, but I do not believe that is accurate, according to the John Jay Report (JJR).
According to JJR, 80.9% of ALL abuse victims were males of ANY age, not just teenagers.
Furthermore, 49.7% of ALL abuse victims (male or female) were between the ages of 13-17, which would be classified as the “teenage” years. If you include age 12, then the percent rises to 64.4%.
That would mean, if the distribution of males and females remained constant over all age groups (which is an assumption, as the report does not break that down), then 49.7*80.9%=40.2% of all abuse victims were teenage males at the time of the first instance of alleged abuse (or 52.1% if you include 12-year-olds in the “teenage” grouping).
Source: http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/incident3.pdf (PDF-format)
I do not neccessarily disagree with your final conclusion, but I believe it is inaccurate to say that 80% of all abuse victims were teenage males, as it appears that the true number is half that.
You’re right. I was conflating that. I would contend with one thing. I would expand “teen years” to 19. While 13-17 is technically underage, up to 19 is an indicator of the same pathology at work.
So more than two-thirds of all victims were teens, more than half were adolescent males, and 80 percent were males of any age.
Also, as I said, the chart I linked is illustrative because it shows that the rate of abuse against females remained relatively constant over time while abuse against males rose precipitously.
istribution of males and females remained constant over all age groups
That is indeed a big assumption and could drastically change your conclusions.
SNAP says that half of the victims it encounters are women; but women are much more likely to join support groups than men are.
Even if the split of victims is 50-50 (and it isn’t), homosexuals constitute only 2-3% of the general population (according to recent studies) or at most 10% (according to Kinsey’s overstated figure), Therefore homosexuals either are more likely to abuse or they have more victims than heterosexual abusers (or half of preists are homosexual. Rudy Kos in Texas identified himself as a homosexual who indulged in underage males.
The number of pre-puberty victims seems to have declined over the past 50 years. The great majority of the victims were at or above the age of puberty, almost of them were males.
All psychologists agree that abuse of males in underreported. In all probability the vast majority of victims were males.
There is certainly a strong connection between homosexuality and the Scandal. But many of the worst abusers (Shanley in Boston, Cinel in New Orleans, Porter in Fall River) had victims of both sexes and all ages. Some even married. They seemed to enjoy perversion more than a specific type of sexual contact
Interesting they’re doing this. I suppose there are a lot of efforts behind the scenes to set up footdragging and resistance as the dominant response in the American Church to any attempt by the Vatican to do something about homosexuality. I wonder how messy it will get.
Shanley abused females?
“While we are loyal to Church teachings, we are not satisfied with the short answers”
This is a quote from the website of Aquinas Institute of Theology…it doesn’t exactly inspire great confidence in their orthodoxy. And being nestled in the bosom of St. Louis University (my alma mater)….let’s just say that while I haven’t been there for a long time, it is pretty well known as a liberal bastion. The College Church is one of those “magnet” parishes that liberal/progressive types travel to from all over.
“I think it might be relevant in as much as that it answers some people’s
question that possibly there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilea
[sic]. I don’t think that link exists, so I’m not afraid of that question.”
What’s most outrageously disturbing of all is the good(?) Father’s
implication here that he would be afraid of the question if he believed
that there was in fact a link between homosexuality and pedophilia!! Good
God; how hard dies the sick impulse of so many Church authorities to cover
up corruption!! In so many of her corners, the sodomites are undoubtedly in charge.
“But moving on to the strange bedfellows category”
Ha, ha, I love it! That’s what we’re after: no more “strange bedfellows.”
Until the reason for the disproprionate percentage of homosexual priests involved in child abuse especially with male teens is understood, it is irresponsible for the Church to continue to ordain homosexual priests. For some reason the population of homosexual in the priest hood has a very high rate of abuse of minors relative to the general population (gay or straight). The reason for this needs to be understood. Until it is, it very irresponsible to continue to ordain any homosexual persons. This is putting teens at risk.
Further, no homosexuals should be in seminary until the Church develops new rules and programs to address chastity issues with this population (ala Courage perhaps) and to impose serious penalties for sexual sins among clergy. The possibility of black mail is real. More than one of the recent scandals involved bishops that were being blackmailed for their own sins or to avoid scandal over the sins of others.
A priest from Aquinas Institute gave a talk at our Dominican parish a few years ago concerning ‘gay rights.’ He was in favor of them.