ANALYSIS
January 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The fact that Pope Francis put pro-gay Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich in charge of next month’s Vatican summit of bishops on sexual abuse was a clue. The fact that the Pope has refused to talk about the homosexual connection to the abuse crisis, even though over 80% of clergy sexual abuse victims worldwide are males, is another indication of how things are gearing up for February. But there is evidence that leftists in the Church are employing the same tactics used by homosexual activists in order to stop conservative bishops from tackling homosexuality as “the root cause of so much sexual abuse,” as the former nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, recommended.
The summit, which will bring together all the presidents of the national bishops’ conferences around the world, poses a threat to leftists in the Church, particularly those in the Vatican hierarchy. The revolutionary agenda espoused by some is threatened especially by bishops from poor African nations where the purity of the faith, especially in her moral teachings, remains intact compared to the West.
Thus, revolutionary prelates have a keen interest in silencing those who would raise the issue of homosexuality at the upcoming Vatican meeting and in the Church in general. But how?
Misdirection
Firstly, by pointing to other vague hypotheses as the leading causes of the abuse crisis.
The Pope’s original “letter to the People of God,” released in August to address the fallout of the Pennsylvania grand jury report revealing hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse in the state, posited “clericalism” as the root cause of the abuse – raising eyebrows and leaving many scratching their heads.
“Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say ‘no’ to abuse is to say an emphatic ‘no’ to all forms of clericalism,” he stated. He called clericalism a “peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority” that is “common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred,” that “not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people.”
Cardinal Cupich, who will lead the Vatican abuse summit, picked up on the Pope’s direction of blaming the abuse crisis on “clericalism” and explicitly ruled out homosexuality, bold facedly asserting the opposite of the facts. Speaking to the National Catholic Reporter in October on the subject of homosexual priests, Cupich said:
We have to make sure that everybody in the church lives an authentic, chaste life. That's without question.
But the research has shown that the abuse crisis, the abuse of minors, was in fact due to other factors beyond somebody being gay. That's very clear. The research showed this. This is not my opinion.
I think we take our eye off the ball if we don't deal with the business of privilege, power and protection of a clerical culture. Those three elements have to be eradicated from the life of the church. Everything else is a sideshow if we do not get at that.
The 2004 independent investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the United States reports “81% of the victims were male” and subsequent reports by the U.S. bishops confirm it. Beyond that, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller – the leading authority on the question and the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the Vatican arm which handles sexual abuses cases worldwide – reported, “it is a fact that a little more than 80% of the victims of abuse are male teenagers after puberty.”
Disinformation
LGBT activists have successfully employed the labels of hater and instigator of violence on all those who dare to point to the factual connection between sexual abuse and homosexuality. The fact that pro-pedophilia groups were part and parcel of homosexual activist groups until recently doesn’t seem to deter them from their character assassination tactics. The current phenomenon of having young boys in drag dance on stage semi-nude while naked men prance around and onlookers throw cash doesn’t seem to phase them either.
Leftist pro-gay prelates are employing the same strategy to silence a majority of bishops who see the obvious link between homosexuality and abuse in the ranks of the clergy. Vatican consultant and celebrated pro-gay priest Fr. James Martin has charged that because of reports exposing homosexual activists operating inside the Church, LifeSiteNews and Church Militant have “fostered a culture of hatred, homophobia and violence.” He goes so far as to link claims of vandalism and violence directly to LifeSite.
Take a look at some of the passages from Pope Francis’ eight-page letter to the U.S. bishops assembled for the spiritual retreat he ordered them to have earlier this month after he blocked their vote on having a lay commission investigate abuse. In his letter, he targets conservative bishops with the thinly-veiled insults – such as “triumphalism” and use of “rigid” formulations – to which those who have followed this pontificate closely are accustomed.
But pay attention to Francis’ talk of hatred and violence and the like in the following passages from his letter (emphasis mine):
- “The call to holiness keeps us from falling into false dichotomies and reductive ways of thinking, and from remaining silent in the face of a climate prone to hatred and rejection, disunity and violence between brothers and sisters.”
- “This is the greatest service she offers, all the more so today, when we are witnessing a resurgence of inflammatory rhetoric and prejudices old and new.”
- “Our credibility also depends on the extent to which, side by side with others, we help to strengthen a social and cultural fabric that is not only in danger of unravelling, but also of harboring and facilitating new forms of hatred. As a Church, we cannot be held hostage by this side or that, but must be attentive always to start from those who are most vulnerable.”
In reality, pro-family activists and particularly the bishops who seek to defend Christ’s teachings on sexual morality are the least likely people to engage in prejudice, hate, or violence. They recognize the damage that homosexual acts cause to body, mind, and especially the soul. They are truly the only ones loving and courageous enough to tell their brothers and sisters who are engaging in behaviors leading them to hell that they must repent and with the help of God overcome their temptations to sin.
A step too far
While the revolutionaries in the hierarchy will stop at misdirection and misinformation, forlorn Catholics who have accepted and imbibed their false teachings go further still. They have developed a convoluted psychological pathway to blame clergy sexual abuse on “homophobia” and the so-called failure of the Catholic Church to accept homosexuality as a gift from God.
Robert Mickens, English Editor at La Croix and former long-time senior correspondent at the London Tablet, openly bashed Pope Benedict yet was more honest than Cardinal Cupich in at least admitting, “there is no denying that homosexuality is a key component to the clergy sex abuse (and now sexual harassment) crisis.”
Writing in the Washington Post in July, Mickens posited the convoluted theory that ties clericalism to homophobia and thus sexual abuse this way:
Our problem in the Church is of the abuse of power, an abuse that happens as a result of homophobia that keeps gay men in the closet, bars them from growing up and results in distorted sexuality for many gay priests. We need to address this elephant in the rectory parlor.
Mickens betrays his stance as he argues that “gay priests who have found a way to wholesome self-acceptance of their sexuality…Some of them are sexually active, but many live celibately… are among the best and most compassionate pastors we have in our Church.”
Andrew Sullivan, the HIV-positive Catholic writer for New York Magazine, also admits, “it remains true that the overwhelming majority of Catholic abuse cases are between men and boys, or men and men, not men and girls, or men with women (although that happened too).”
And Sullivan asserts the same logic as Mickens regarding “homophobia”:
Homophobia may also have increased the proportion of priests over the centuries who have been gay, because the priesthood has always been a reliable cover for not dating women. And these closeted, f*****-up gays are the ones who may well have internalized many of the slurs against gays in the past, hated themselves, never come to terms with themselves, and seen no real difference between sexual abuse and sex. So gay priests may well have covered this stuff up for aeons, or formed cliques that perpetuated it, or developed personae that could create some campy subculture to make the awful contradictions and cruelties of sexual repression and self-loathing bearable. When no form of sex is allowed, all forms of sex can seem equally immoral. And if your celibacy has ever slipped, you sure don’t want to snitch on someone else, do you?
There is actually a lot of truth in what Mickens and Sullivan posit; however, it is confused. It is indeed the case that when we fall into grave sin and refuse to reform ourselves we tend to ever greater horrors, losing all boundaries. The course from pornography to heterosexual promiscuity to homosexual promiscuity and worse is well known.
Moreover, it is typical for those living lives steeped in sexual sin to externalize the guilt their consciences meet out due to their unnatural sexual practices. Thus, the elevated suicide risk for homosexuals is blamed on a supposed failure of society (and the Church) to accept and welcome them.
The fact is, however, that even in the most welcoming and accepting cultures the suicide rate of those practicing homosexual lifestyles remains very high. A study in Sweden, one of the world’s most “gay-positive” nations, found, “Even in a country with a comparatively tolerant climate regarding homosexuality such as Sweden, same-sex married individuals evidence a higher risk for suicide than other married individuals.” The study found the suicide rate for men “married” to other men was three times that of men married to women.
Conclusion
In truth, the agenda of the revolutionaries inside the Catholic Church is leading to destruction of the Church since its teachings on sexual matters, like all its irreformable teachings, come from Christ Himself. Moreover, it shows a profound disdain for the wellbeing of people, leaving them to behaviors which threaten their physical, psychological, and spiritual health. Such behaviors indeed may lead them to the loss of heaven and the pains of hell.
As the 1986 Vatican Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons says:
“(W)e wish to make it clear that departure from the Church's teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral. Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral. The neglect of the Church's position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve.”