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  Scapegoating Gay Priests Won't Work: Church's Policies, Cover-Up Fueled Sex A

Sunday Gazette-Mail [United States]
October 2, 2005

The Roman Catholic Church needs to recognize that gay people are not the cause of its problems.

During the next few weeks, Pope Benedict XVI is expected to sign stricter new rules for Catholic seminaries. The church will reportedly bar gay men from becoming priests — even those who remain celibate. And it is beginning a search for "evidence of homosexuality" in the seminary.

The church says this is in response to the sexual abuse scandal.

But in many ways, the worst part of the scandal was the church's handling of the situation.

Catholic leaders tried to cover it up by pretending everything was normal. In some cases, they merely shuffled abusive priests from one parish to another. Their inept response made it easier for these priests to continue violating the trust placed in them. It also made it harder for anyone to connect the dots about what was happening.

Not all of the implicated priests were gay. And gay people are no more likely to sexually abuse children than nongay people.

The tragic irony is that those most dedicated to Catholic teaching were the ones committing and covering up the sexual abuses. That's why tighter restrictions and requiring greater demonstrations of loyalty won't help.

Scapegoating gay priests ignores this reality.

The proposed ban tries to shift the focus for the scandal to young prospective priests who had nothing to do with it.

The church should try a new approach.

First, it needs to recognize that the problem in the abuse scandal was not gay priests. It was Catholic officials who failed to respond appropriately when they learned what was happening.

Second, the church needs to re-examine some of its own tenets. Celibacy does not put priests in a strong position to advise others about their romantic lives. Apparently, many priests couldn't even understand or manage their own.

Finally, the church should end its condemnations of gay people and its resistance to basic legal protections for gay couples and their families. That is nothing more than an ugly prejudice dressed up as morality.

The church created and nurtured the sexual abuse problem within its ranks. Further anti-gay rhetoric and a seminary witch-hunt will only distract the church from finally finding solutions to it.

 
 

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