Amen!

The question of sexual orientation, Catholicism, and "celibacy" is bizarre and Gothic beyond anyone's understanding. As Patrick Carroll certainly knows, a large percentage of Jesuits and other Catholic clerics are homosexual. The author (and sometime Jesuit) Garry Wills estimates the percentage to be as high as 50%. Forbidden by the power structure to marry, or to publicly acknowledge the truth about their most basic and personal selves, they choose to live lives that are often tortured and conflicted. Women are excluded from this power elite, marginalized, and told to accept second-class status as nuns or to marry, bear children, and never practice "artificial" birth control.

These men are then given the job of instructing parishioners and students how to live their sexual lives. The party line is straightforward--no sex until marriage, no birth control, no homosexuality. Don't ask and don't tell except in the confessional which serves in extreme cases as a place of clandestine sexual assignations.

This might be ok if it stopped there. Just one more cult with peculiar ideas and problematic dogma. But the attractiveness of the clergy, as we have seen far too often, is not limited to adults with healthy, normal sexual needs, whether gay or straight. It is also a pipeline for tortured, controlling perverts who use the pulpit and their power to victimize and abuse children, often altering and destroying their lives. When this happens the hierarchy closes ranks to protect those who provide support to the organization. In the name of some guy named Jesus Christ.

Wonderful, Pat!

I'm saddened to read gabowker's broadside on Catholic priests. Granted, the instances of pederasty and cover-ups are numerous and tragic, but there is a lot of good, hard, honest work being done by countless Catholic priests out there who are sullied by the work of a relative few monsters. I'm sad that gabowker sees the words "Catholic" and "same-sex" and, rather than respond to the author of a good column, uses the words as an gratuitous opportunity to blast Catholicism. I'm no Catholic myself, but I do see a lot of good in the Church of Rome and in many, many of its priests. Some of the more heroic among the priests combat the dark tide of backward thinking that advances from Rome, and I believe these heroes should be lauded, not humiliated by trollish comments such as gabowker's. Editors of Crosscut should carefully consider the meaning of an "Editor's Pick" citation. Is this the kind of comment Crosscut's editors truly want to reward?

Gosh, Reverend, I think that's the first time I've been called "trollish" in print. Disclosure: I graduated from an Irish Christian Brothers high school (O'Dea) and matriculated (but chose not to graduate) from a Jesuit University (University of San Francisco). At both schools I was exposed to but not personally victimized by numerous predatory clerics, although I knew students at both institutions who were. In one case a prominent Jesuit who had molested high school students at Loyola High in Los Angeles was sent to USF where he was named University Chaplain and continued his predatory activities without any apparent restraint.

The fact that there are some good priests is no defense for the institutional policies of the Catholic Church and its ongoing shameful actions and persistent defense of its egregious criminal element. It sounds like saying Hitler was really ok because some of the Nazis weren't so bad. Even now the American Catholic bishops are blaming clerical excesses and crimes on the nuns, the hippies, even the Girl Scouts. I don't know what denomination you represent, but perhaps the Christian cover-up extends further than I had thought. Why the rush to defend these colleagues? Perhaps you could think about this for your next sermon.

It's up to Crosscut's editor(s), not readers, as to which comments are labeled "Editor's Pick". The phrase kind of explains it, Rev. Brown.

This article fits into a system of commentary that is easy to understand and at least superficially convincing: a representative of the old moral order renounces his or her past beliefs. “prostitution is harmless” says a one time evangelist, “bigamy should be tolerated for consenting adults...within a sub category of social tradition” says a woman who left a prominent position in the Anglican Church (I’m making these up). The point seems to be those who once embraced social norms have some special insight into how mistaken and pernicious said norms really are. That may be true. But moral codes that are confirmed or dramatized by unexpected events are less common, e.g., “if I didn’t know better I would definitely say that’s a baby” says woman who observes an aborted fetus (sounds like the Onion doesn’t it?). How about “I think smoking dope really ruined my lungs” or “I am really sorry my parents split up…” expressed by someone whose prodigious dope smoking and commitment aversion gives them genuine downside authority. Probably won’t see that at Crosscut (or anywhere else either).

I do not renoucne any past beliefs.....i'm simply arguing with those within my tradition who hold onto beliefs widely not accpeted by people within that tradition....