Please Pray For Our Bishops And Priests To Have The Courage To Remain Chaste And To Preach Chastity!
Written by Father Richard Perozich
The rash of priests molesting teenage young men is a prime example of why unrepentant homosexuality in the priesthood doesn’t work. The seduction of adolescent boys by unrepentant priests can be attributed in part to a clerical gay subculture within the Catholic Church that fails to discipline homosexual activity by its supportive silence or subtle protection.
Homosexual promiscuity is rampant in too many seminaries. Indeed, some seminaries are known for their attraction to homosexual recruits. The end result is the existence of a clerical homosexual network and its sympathizers that promote homosexuality in Catholic institutions and fail to discipline priests who act out sexually with male adults or adolescents. In an over compassionate attempt to communicate tolerance for homosexuals, they have also condoned the Catholic sin of homo-genital acts.
What to do? Marriage does not cure homosexuality. Instead, priests struggling with same sex attractions must be given the opportunity to participate in a Courage chapter in their diocese. Founded by Fr. John Harvey in 1980, Courage is the only Vatican approved ministry to homosexuals (http://www.couragerc.net). Although Courage has a successful history of assisting homosexual and lesbian Catholics in leading fulfilled chaste lives, Courage support groups are actively discouraged in some dioceses (including Los Angeles, Baltimore, Detroit, Albany, Rochester and Richmond) in favor of gay affirming ministries which either ignore chastity or celebrate sodomy.
How then are gay clergy and laity expected to refrain from homosexual behavior in accordance with the Catholic Church’s teachings when there is no such support group in their diocese? Priests and laity struggling with homosexuality need real compassion and not a patronizing “diversity” outreach program.
It is time for us Catholics to clean up each one of our dioceses and reach out as Christians to our homosexual brothers and sisters. An outraged laity must replace gay affirming ministries and priests with pacticing Catholics. If there isn’t a Courage chapter in your diocese, then demand one immediately from your pastor and bishop. Our diocese’s children and gay brethren deserve no less.
The statement of the Catholic Medical Association on homosexuality, Homosexuality and Hope (www.cathmed.org), should be made available to all priests, educators and Catholic families. With the Lord’s help, the Catholic priests who struggle with homosexuality can be healed.
The revelations of clergy sexual activity are very disturbing to me as a priest, and I believe also to you who put your trust in us. Priests are ordained to believe what they read (in the scriptures and tradition of the church), to teach what they believe, and to practice what they teach. Priests are ordained to mediate God¹s presence, love, and grace to you in the sacraments and in personal relationships; a priest must sacrifice his own interests, ideas, will, and passions to do this, spending himself for God¹s faithful in imitation of Jesus to whom he is conformed.
A priest is like other men in his human creation and tendency toward sin. He is like other Christians in his gift of baptismal grace oriented toward everlasting life. He is, however, very different from other men in his conformation to Jesus by sacred orders. A higher standard of behavior and holiness is to be expected of the priest, surrendering his humanity to allow the divinity of Christ to flow through to God’s people.
A priest is to teach God¹s people the whole truth and to embrace it himself. He is to sanctify them with the sacraments. He is to guide them in his conduct and with pastoral compassion, pointing out sin for what it is and the way of truth, whether it be well received or not.
Sexuality is a way of relating to others. Males need to learn to relate to both males and females in a proper way in proper settings and vice versa. Genital expression is only appropriate in a marriage between a man and a woman. If one has an urge to express oneself genitally outside marriage, it is an offense against chastity and an infidelity to God as well as the Church. The Catechism lists these as adultery (involving a married person), fornication (two unmarried persons), masturbation, rape, pornography, prostitution, and homosexual actions.
When a person desires sex with a child, adolescent, or a member of one’s own sex, it is often traced psychologically to a delayed psychosexual development. It is a tendency toward a moral evil. Such a characteristic is not to be expressed by anyone, but in particular never by priests. It can be dominated or even healed with Christ.
Clergy live in a world corrupted by lust. Unless our bishops and priests clearly cling to Christ and teach others to do the same, forming for ourselves a real refuge from the lustful world, the problems will continue. Our bishops need to articulate clearly the truth of human sexuality for themselves, for their priests and for all of us, without pandering to practicing homosexuals, pedophiles, adulterers and those living together in fornication. If not, that which corrupts the rest of society will continue to corrupt God¹s chosen shepherds.At all levels of our Catholic clergy these sexual corruptions are coming to light. Several bishops have resigned because of homosexual activity with adults and others with adolescent males, those between the ages of 13 and 19, and with children even younger. More than an expected number priests have been disciplined or lost their faculties to celebrate sacraments because of sexual activity with male adults, adolescents, and children, usually male children. The majority of us priests, however, embrace our celibacy as a gift, and continue to walk chastely with the help of Jesus. The majority of us accept our sexual identity as males and all that is appropriate to a man, our conformation to Christ, our roles as “fathers” of the spiritual family, shepherding spiritually those in our care rather than “fleecing the flock” by misleading them or by using them for sex.
Priests who die of AIDS contracted in sexual activity leave us fellow priests with mixed emotions. We feel sorry for their suffering. We feel a loss at the passing of a brother. We feel shame at their betrayal of all of us by acting homosexually. We feel outrage when someone tries to memorialize their homosexual liasons as good by creating a panel on an AIDS quilt when they were unfaithful to God, to Church, to us and to you.
When the Kansas City Star newspaper exposed the number of priests who contracted AIDS through homosexual contact, the Catholic bishops expressed outrage and denied the numbers were that high. When pedophilia is exposed, some bishops are quick to try to separate this from homosexuality, even in the case of adolescents. Fr. Donald Cozzens, psychologist and seminary professor in Cleveland, Ohio, estimates 50% of the priests and seminarians have homosexual inclination, and a great number of these act out and teach others that this is all right. 100% of bishops come from the ranks of the priests.
It seems clear now why little seems to be said against sexual acting out with minors and against homosexual activity either in the clergy or in society from the shepherds of the church. The only sexual teaching that has come from our bishops in the past decade came out of a committee. This bishops’ committee presented homosexuality in a neutral light. Its work was so flawed that the Vatican not only intervened by insisting on changes in this document, it told the bishops that no committee ever again could issue such documents without the support of the entire body of bishops.
Please pray for bishops and priests that we have the courage to be chaste and to preach chastity to you in the fullness of the gospel. Live your own lives chastely. Hold us priests accountable to the promises we expressed when God made us priests. If we’re not hearing it from our bishops who were ordained to shepherd us, we need to hear it from you that you will not tolerate sexual misconduct from us, and that with Christ, priests can live properly to bring His grace to you as we were ordained to do.
Originally Published by: pfox.org
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Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Homosexuality, Clergy, And Sexual Abuse…And The Purification Of The Church!
