Singing the Vatican Blues (Again): Demonization of Gays (Again)

Recently, the National Catholic Reporter (Kansas City) published an article by John Thavis entitled, “Vatican Says 2000 Document Applies to All Seminaries” (http://ncrcafe.org/node/1830#comment-22371). The article comments on a 17 May Vatican “clarification” regarding a 2005 document entitled “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders."

The 2005 “Instruction” announced that seminaries could not admit gay candidates for ordination. At the time of the 2005 “Instruction,” attention was focused largely on seminaries in the U.S., due to the clerical abuse crisis, whose ramifications began to be more and more evident from 2002 forward, as the Boston cases broke open stories of such abuse hidden by bishops throughout the nation.

One of the responses of the Vatican to the abuse crisis was to call for scrutiny of seminaries, on the (astonishing and totally unsubstantiated) ground that, starting with seminary formation, clerical life in the U.S. was now dominated by a “lavender Mafia” that had caused the abuse crisis.

Never mind that many abuse cases involved abuse of girls by priests, or that the cases about which we began to learn in 2002 had occurred largely before the “lavender Mafia” is alleged to have “taken over” the priesthood—indeed, they occurred in a time in which the Catholic church made it almost impossible for priests or seminarians to identify their sexual orientation as gay, in a time in which the sexual lives of seminarians and priests were rigidly regulated.

The 17 May “clarification” of the “Instruction” states that the prohibition of gay candidates from seminaries applies to all seminaries everywhere.

When the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education issued its “Instruction” in 2005 not long after the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to the papacy as Benedict XVI, there was an uproar in the media. Press coverage of the Vatican document was largely negative, and focused predominantly on the claim that the Vatican (and the U.S. bishops) were scapegoating gay priests to avoid owning responsibility for their own abuse of pastoral authority for years, as predatory priests were shunted from parish to parish without any attempt to inform parishioners, and as victims who came forward with stories of their abuse were re-victimized by being blamed for speaking out.

Now that the Vatican has renewed this conversation with its recent “clarification,” I think it is appropriate to revisit the commentary generated by the 2005 “Instruction.” Fortunately, at the time the “Instruction” was issued, I kept a file of various editorials, articles, and press statements reflecting on the “Instruction.”

I sometimes suspect that those in authority in both church and society who wish us to overlook their abuse of authority, and to scapegoat marginalized groups as a diversionary tactic, count on us to have short memories. They count on us to forget what has happened even recently, what has been published even recently, in our soundbite culture.

As a contribution to the conversation the Vatican is now re-opening with its “clarification” of its 2005 “Instruction,” I am offering the following excerpts from articles, editorials, and press statements that appeared in the wake of the 2005 statement. The arrangement is chronological, and all quotations are direct quotes from the piece abstracted:

▪ Ann Hagan Webb, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) Press Statement (2 Dec. 2005):

“The sexual abuse crimes of Catholic priests were perpetrated by adult, supposedly celibate men against minor children and vulnerable adults. Sexual orientation was a non issue. All adults know and have known for generations that minors are off limits sexually. For priests, everyone is supposed to be off limits.”

▪ Kathleen M. Dwyer, SNAP Press Statement (2 Dec. 2005):

“The hierarchy of Catholicism knows our culture well and is skillful in manipulating prejudices and fears. It uses them not only to exonerate themselves and preserve their power but to support their agenda in the secular community as well. Since 2002 when their own documents revealed the horror the hierarchy had both supported and perpetrated, they denied, rationalized and/or minimized what they did by blaming other people, places and things for what they are responsible for. We've all heard their claims – ‘it was the Sixties’ or ‘It's just Catholic bashing again’ or ‘It's the homosexuals’.”

“Rather than role modeling a moral, supportive and loving way to address sexual abuse, the hierarchy, from the Pope on down, continues to cover up and blame others in order to protect themselves, their power and their money. But now, they are more focused and have settled on blaming Gays for all the abuse, even though countless studies indicate that most child molesters are heterosexual and/or are characterized as fixated -- being attracted to children, not to men or women.”

▪ David Yount, “Vatican’s New Directives Are Flawed,” (Scripps Howard, 3 Dec. 2005):

“Worse, the directives fail to confront the church's real problem, which has bankrupted dioceses and cost many millions of dollars paid to victims of child abuse by clergy.

That problem is pedophilia, which must not be confused with homosexuality. Pedophiles are sexual predators, attracted to boys, girls or both. A pedophile can be straight, gay or bisexual.”

▪ “The Vatican’s Real Scandal,” (Los Angeles Times editorial, 4 Dec. 2005):

“The guidelines allude only briefly to the sexual abuse scandal as the ‘present situation’ that made the new policy an ‘urgent’ matter. A more urgent issue for the Catholic hierarchy to consider is this: The public astonishment and outrage at the scandal was directed not only at the molestations — there are pedophiles in all walks of life — but even more at church leaders who protected the molesters and stonewalled their victims.”

▪ Eileen McNamara, “What About Girl Victims?” (Boston Globe, 4 Dec. 2005):

“Where is the long-awaited Vatican policy that would protect women and girls from priests who cannot control their ‘heterosexual tendencies?’

Where is the plan to evaluate every heterosexual seminarian to ‘'assure that the candidate does not have sexual disorders that are incompatible with priesthood?’

Where is the National Conference of Bishops' Un-Holy Activities Committee to ensure that no man is ordained a Roman Catholic priest who has not ‘'clearly overcome’ anything more than a 'transitory’ sexual interest in the opposite sex?

Where, in short, are the witch hunters for the girls' team?”

▪ Mark D. Jordan, “New Gay-Priest Ban Raises Another Level of Problems for the Church to Solve” (Newsday, 4 Dec. 2005):

“Affirming gay men in the priesthood would open a door on a roomful of disconcerting questions about how church hierarchy has functioned in the past. Male homosexuality may be denounced as the epitome of sexual self-indulgence, but the deeper anxiety it provokes has to do with church power.”

“But the illusion - or the spin - conceals more. The ‘abuse scandal’ was not in the end about a few pedophiles having gotten into the priesthood. The scandal was that their bishops or religious superiors protected them after they had abused children. Victims and their families were silenced one way or another; congregations were deceived; perpetrators were reassigned. The cause of the scandal was not in seminaries or seminarians. It was in the church hierarchy and its insistence on authoritarian secrecy.”

▪ Brenda Power, “Pope’s Instruction Is Perversion of Truth,” (Sunday Times [London], 4 Dec. 2005):

“But it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this new Vatican instruction is aimed at scapegoating homosexuals within the Catholic church for all the scandals. If only we’d done this years ago, runs the text between the lines of the controversial istruzione, we’d never have had all that bother.”

"In a nutshell, the Vatican believes that homosexuality is a perversion that is treatable, reversible and, given the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s description of it as an 'intrinsic moral evil', freely and willfully chosen by licentious degenerates. And if in future such immoral and disordered types might hang themselves, or have their heads kicked in by drunken but otherwise upstanding heterosexual members of the community, it will be a challenge for the Catholic church to work up a convincing head of indignant steam."

▪ Kane Webb, “Return of the Enforcer,” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 4 Dec. 2005):

“This policy also sends a strong message to homosexuals who aren’t interested in the priesthood but who are Catholic, maybe devout. The message is simple and brutally clear, if indirect: These church doors are closing on your kind.

Regardless of your innate (homo)sexuality and your ability and desire to control it, you are, if not un-save-able, then unworthy of serving as a spiritual father in the Catholic Church.”

▪ Kenneth Zamit Tabona, “Panic Prevention and No Cure” (Times of Malta, 4 Dec. 2005):

“We have, during the last 30 odd years, witnessed the Church's veil of mystique and inviolability being torn away and no echelon of its hierarchy has been left unscathed. It has cost the Church millions of dollars but even worse it has opened a can of worms that has wreaked untold damage to its reputation. Despite this, the Catholic Church still refuses to countenance the reintroduction of a married priesthood and, while praying for vocations that dwindle annually, has put yet more deterrents in the path of any young man who may be remotely interested in priestly life. I will not cite examples from Church history as I will definitely be accused of raking up mud and my space is perforce limited, so anyone interested can do so by using one's ever so useful and efficient internet to read all about it and judge for oneself.

Meanwhile, the Church, true to form, has decided to clamp down on the homosexual world - I say world because statistically it is one in five - and make it their scapegoat.”

▪ Andrew Sullivan, “The Vatican’s New Stereotype” (Time, 4 Dec. 2005):

“There is a simple principle here. The message of Jesus was always to ignore the stereotype, the label, the identity--in order to observe the soul beneath, how a person actually behaves. One of his most famous parables was that of the Good Samaritan, a man who belonged to a group despised by mainstream society. But it was the despised man who did good, while all the superficially respected people walked on by. Jesus consorted with all of society's undesirables--with tax collectors, collaborators with an occupying power, former prostitutes, lepers. His message was that God's grace knows no boundaries of stigma, that with God's help, we can all live by the same standards and receive the grace that comes from his love.

The new Pope has now turned that teaching on its head. He has identified a group of people and said, regardless of how they behave or what they do, they are beneath serving God.”

▪ James Carroll, “The Basilica of Denial” (Boston Globe, 5 Dec. 2005):

“Last week’s Vatican ‘instruction’ restricting admission to the priesthood to heterosexuals was an exploitation of prejudice about homosexuality aimed at drawing attention away from the real crisis facing the Catholic Church.

If any one group ‘caused’ the priest sex-abuse scandal, it was not gays, but rather the bishops themselves, who now scapegoat gays.”

“What the scandal reveals is the moral bankruptcy of the entire Catholic clerical culture, but in order to deal with that, basic questions about celibacy, women's ordination, the role of the laity, and repressive authority would have to be asked. Obviously, those are questions the Vatican is desperate to deflect, and that is the purpose of this new ruling.”

▪ Keith Swain, “Sex and the Church” (Denver Post, 6 Dec. 2005):

“As a therapist, there's no one I have more respect for than a client who understands a problem, deals with it and takes responsibility.

Sadly, it seems the Catholic Church doesn't have the same strength of character. In a weak attempt to address the problem of child sexual abuse by the clergy, the Vatican last week issued a dictum. Was it a call to action against sexual abuse of children?

No. The church has decided to blame someone else for its problem, namely gay men. The truth is the Catholic Church does not have a problem with gay men. It has a problem with sex - in particular, with pedophilia and chastity.”

▪ Gerard J. Ahrens, “Don’t Forget Female Victims of Clerical Sexual Abuse” (Cincinnati Inquirer, 7 Dec. 2005):

“At the recent national convention of Voice of the Faithful, I was privileged to hear the witness of Barbara Blaine. A woman of incredible courage, she is a founding member the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests who, at the age of 12, was sexually abused by a priest.

In our own Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area, there are women of comparable courage who have survived such an incomprehensible physical, psychological and spiritual assault. What does homosexuality in any way have to do with their suffering, the silent suffering of other women who have not come forward, or the potential suffering of possible future female victims?

The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing. Which is, for the most part, what the hierarchical church has done for women historically, and apparently is continuing to do.”

▪ Tim Louis Macaluso, “The Vatican Jumps from Sex Scandals to Sex Documents” (City Action [Rochester, NY], 7 Dec. 2005):

“In targeting gays, the Vatican deflects attention away from the real problems, says Thibodeau. The bigger issue for him has been the way the Vatican responded to criminal acts within its ranks.

‘But equally important, and for my mind, more so,’ says Thibodeau, was ‘the criminal behavior of a handful of bishops who covered up and enabled this transgression. We would never allow a superintendent of a school district to just move a teacher into another school after doing this, but that is essentially what happened.’”

▪ Ami Eden, “The Clothed Demonization of Gays” (Forward, 9 Dec. 2005):

“Both Anatrella and the Congregation for Catholic Education included calls for tolerance, respect and sensitivity. But such calls cannot paper over the fact that the Vatican has effectively jettisoned its hate-the-sin-but-not-the-sinner approach. Through their recent pronouncements, the Vatican and Anatrella demonized gays, painting them as a force that threatens to undermine the church and destabilize society.”

And my own words: Preach it, brother. Preach it, sister. In season, out of season, speaking truth to power even when power tries to bash us into submissive silence over and over again. Somebody somewhere is listening. And God never stops listening.