Much of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church and certainly many of the far right "traditional Catholics" were quick to blame the Church's sex abuse scandal on gays within the priesthood. Why face the real root issues when it's so much easier to scapegoat gays? It seems that this preferred storyline/excuse has blown up in the faces of those homophobes as a new Church commissioned study finds NO LINK between gays in the priesthood and sexual abuse of minors. That's right, NO LINK. Meanwhile, the Vatican commissioned a witch hunt to root out gay seminarians. It looks like this was a wasted effort if stopping sexual abuse was the real goal as opposed to persecuting gays - something that may back fire on the Church as a new organization is launched to "out" gay priests. It goes without saying that the Church will be unable to defrock all the gay priests within its ranks without rendering the Church inoperative. First some highlights from the Austin American-Statesman on the study results:
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BALTIMORE — A preliminary report commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops on the roots of the clergy sex abuse scandal found no evidence that gay priests are more likely than heterosexual clerics to molest children, the lead authors of the study said Tuesday.
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The full report by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice won't be completed until the end of next year. But the authors said they have found no evidence indicating that homosexuality is a predictor of abuse.
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"What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse," Margaret Smith of John Jay College said in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now." Many experts on sex offenders reject any link between sexual orientation and committing abuse.
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BALTIMORE — A preliminary report commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops on the roots of the clergy sex abuse scandal found no evidence that gay priests are more likely than heterosexual clerics to molest children, the lead authors of the study said Tuesday.
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The full report by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice won't be completed until the end of next year. But the authors said they have found no evidence indicating that homosexuality is a predictor of abuse.
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"What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse," Margaret Smith of John Jay College said in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now." Many experts on sex offenders reject any link between sexual orientation and committing abuse.
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But meanwhile the Catholic Bishops' foray into anti-gay politics in both in California last year and recently in Maine and Washington, D.C., may be about to bite them in the ass. Taking a page from Mike Rogers and BlogActive.com, a new organization called ChurchOuting.org has been established with a goal of saving "LGBT children from the hypocrisy of priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who engage in romantic and sexual relationships, and yet stand silent while Archbishop Wuerl and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops increase their dogmatic war against all LGBT children of God." Here are highlights from the organization's website as it describes the Church hierarchy's transgressions against LGBT individual and why it is necessary to "out" gay priest who do not denounce the bishops' anti-gay agenda:
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Every Sunday, for generations, hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian American Catholic youth are told in church, they need to be ashamed of who they are and are deemed to live loveless lives as social and religious abominations. The emotional, psychological and spiritual pain inflicted on them by Catholic priests and our church hierarchy is more damaging than any level of physical or sexual child abuse that is quickly condemned in our society. More shameful is that this abuse is being inflicted by men, many of whom are gay themselves, leading closeted lives of self-persecution and quiet desperation.
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As America grows closer to establishing full civil equality for LGBT citizens and our families, the Church hierarchy's attacks against all LGBT children of God increases. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, under the directive of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, is meeting to issue a new pastoral letter to every parish priest, demanding they speak out against LGBT equality and to raise money for political efforts to deny recognition of gay and lesbian families in civil law.
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We encourage every gay priest, not only to come out of the closet and free themselves from a life of fear and false wittness, but to come out in support of fairness for gay and lesbian families. . . . NOTE: no priest who signs the declaration, or comes out to their parish will be exposed as a hypocrite. Further, if a majority of the priests in the Archdiocese sign the the declaration, this campaign will immediately end.
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As America grows closer to establishing full civil equality for LGBT citizens and our families, the Church hierarchy's attacks against all LGBT children of God increases. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, under the directive of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, is meeting to issue a new pastoral letter to every parish priest, demanding they speak out against LGBT equality and to raise money for political efforts to deny recognition of gay and lesbian families in civil law.
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We encourage every gay priest, not only to come out of the closet and free themselves from a life of fear and false wittness, but to come out in support of fairness for gay and lesbian families. . . . NOTE: no priest who signs the declaration, or comes out to their parish will be exposed as a hypocrite. Further, if a majority of the priests in the Archdiocese sign the the declaration, this campaign will immediately end.
*The situation is actually not unlike that of Virginia Republicans who launched a vicious anti-gay agenda in 2004 only to see Virginia Congressman Ed Schrock outed later that year and Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode getting deserved publicity last year in the lead up to the 2008 election. Gays who do harm to other gays deserve to have their closet door ripped off its hinges.
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