While some bloggers lavish effusive (and perhaps over-the-top) praise on Archbishop-elect George Niederauer, Diogenes casts a more skeptical eye on the new archbishop of San Francisco. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle’s reporter who covers gay and lesbian issues, the archbishop-elect says:
“People who see as the sex abuse scandal as having as the cause the sexual orientation of the priests—I felt they were mistaken. Because when we’re talking about pedophilia, we’re talking about a sickness, an illness, an aberration.”
As Diogenes insightfully asks, “Then what is homosexuality?” Is it not a sickness, an illness, an aberration? The Church certainly thinks it is.
Once again, the US bishops’ own study compiled by the John Jay College found that nearly 80 percent of all abuse by priests over the past 40 years involved abuse of adolescent boys. This is not pedophilia, according to all medical standards, but is properly called ephebophilia, which is a form of homosexuality.
Now we have a question with one of two answers: Is Archbishop-elect Niederauer ignorant of the study’s conclusions or does he have a reason to tell the gay-issues reporter for the gay-friendly newspaper of America’s gayest city in his new archdiocese what he wants to hear?
Update: Later in the interview, Niederauer talks about movies he’s seen. He saw and liked “Syriana” and “Brokeback Mountain,” and admits he didn’t see “Chronicles of Narnia.” Now, I’m not saying that one has to see Narnia to be considered a good Catholic, but what does his choice of films say to you, considering everything else he said about homosexuality above? Of “Brokeback” he said:
“I thought it was very powerful, and I probably had a different take on it than a lot of people did…. It was a story not only about the relationship between the two principal characters, but very much a cluster of relationships…. And I think in all of that one of the lessons is the destructiveness of not being honest with yourself, and not being honest with other people—and not being faithful, trying to live a double life, and what that does to each of the lives you try to live.”
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