More Scape Goating of Gays By Vatican; Church Remains Blind to Causal Effect of Celibacy Requirement

The ever wonderfully disingenuous Catholic Church hierarchy is at it again trying to blame all of the Church's sex abuse scandal problems on "the gays." Never mind that likely one-half of the predator priests were STRAIGHT or that many experts believe that the priestly celibacy requirement in and of itself breeds repressed sexuality problems all too ready to overflow. First, Pink News is reporting on the Vatican's latest effort to deflect blame and depict gays as the sole predators. Here is a sampling of the usual noxious bullshit:

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A Vatican official has said that the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was caused by gay men preying on teenage boys, rather than paedophilia. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, read out a statement after a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva. He said: "Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

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The statement also attacked other religions, with Tomasi saying that most US churches embroiled in abuse scandals were Protestant, adding that the problem was also common in Jewish communities.

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The statement was released after the International Humanist and Ethical Union accused the Holy See of covering up child abuse. International representative Porteous Wood said: "The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far.

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Well, timing is everything and just as the duplicitous Archbishop Tomasi was spewing bullshit, Raymond Lahey, former bishop of Antigonish, Newfoundland (pictured above), was arrested on child pornography charges. Oops!! I guess the Vatican's excuse isn't exactly fool proof. The Globe and Mail has coverage on Bishop Lahey's "problem" and here are some highlights:

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Raymond Lahey, who served years in the upper levels of the church in Newfoundland, helped it stickhandle its way through these scandals during his long tenure in the province. He was never personally implicated in the abuses. But news that the former bishop of Antigonish, who resigned on the weekend citing personal reasons, had been arrested on child pornography charges resurrected the church's ghosts.

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He would not speak about Mr. Lahey, who was taken into custody in Ottawa Thursday afternoon, saying it would be irresponsible to speculate about his former bishop. Mr. Lahey was born in St. John's in 1940 and ordained as priest in 1963. He studied canon law in Rome and pursued post-doctoral studies in Cambridge, England before returned to his native province, where he spent the next 22 years.

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While in Nova Scotia, Mr. Lahey negotiated an historic settlement with victims of sexual abuse by priests. He was not implicated in the abuse and, announcing the settlement in August, he told the public that his diocese had “been taking steps to protect children and youth.” The apparent disconnect between that statement and this week's allegations, which have not been proven in court, shocked some observers. Ronald Martin, who launched the class-action suit that prompted the settlement, told the CBC that the allegations were “the ultimate revictimization.”

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As I have maintained for years now, a thorough house cleaning of the Church hierarchy is needed and until such times as it occurs, the Vatican has no moral standing on any issue. Another interesting article comes by way of a flash back from the National Post in reaction to Bishop Lahey's arrest. Here are some highlights which again show that the Vatican is not being truthful (imagine that):

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The breaking child-porn scandal regarding Raymond Lahey, former bishop of Antigonish in Nova Scotia, sent me down memory lane to this column ... Jonathan Kay National Post Friday, March 05, 2004:

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On Feb. 27, two major reports were released documenting the extent of American priestly abuse between 1950 and 2002. The numbers are staggering. All told, 4,392 priests were alleged to have sexually abused 10,667 children. That works out to about 4% of all priests in ministry, a figure many times the rate of that for Protestant clergy. The most obvious explanation for the discrepancy is simple: Protestant ministers are allowed to take wives. Catholic priests are not.

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Some trace the Catholic child abuse epidemic to the disproportionately high presence of homosexuals in the ministry. There is some truth to this: Of the alleged abuse victims identified, 81% were male, just 19% female. . . . . All in all, homosexuals -- who are believed to account for at least one-third of Catholic priests -- are thought to be responsible for about half of all priestly sex abuse.

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But even if you remove homosexuals from the equation, the data yield an abuse rate among straight priests of about 3%, which is still extremely high. Clearly, the problem spans gay and straight clerics alike.The root cause of the abuse epidemic, as a variety of researchers have concluded, is that Catholic seminaries seem to both attract and incubate sexual deviants and disturbed closet cases. Or, as Harvard Medical School associate professor Martin P. Kafka more gingerly put it in a recent report delivered to the Vatican: "The [available] data suggest that Catholic diocesan priests are a relatively distinct and atypical group of male sexual offenders.

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Driving all this is the formal requirement that Catholic priests be celibate. On one hand, the restriction serves to attract men who are ashamed of their sexuality for one reason or another, and are looking for a socially acceptable means to repress it. On the other hand, by insulating priests from the normalizing influence of a monogamous, adult relationship (gay or straight), it permits them to surrender to their dark fetishes unimpeded. Men who remain single through their middle-aged years often sink into a sort of self-indulgent weirdness.

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The Vatican will never willingly admit that its celibacy policy - which was initiated to keep more money under the control of the Church - is at the heart of the sex abuse problem. Just as the Church was centuries behind the curve in accepting scientific knowledge (and still is for that matter), no one should expect truthfulness from the Vatican any time soon.