Scandals Issue Builds – Catholics Increasingly Angry With US Church Leadership The issue of sexual abuse and homosexual scandals within the US Roman Catholic church continues to build with increasing numbers of Catholics expressing dismay and anger over the dreadful lack of action by many bishops who had previous knowledge of the scandals.
The May 20 issue of Newsweek reports that half the men training for the Roman Catholic priesthood in the U.S. are homosexuals whose presence is tolerated because most are chaste. The magazine predicts that this may end with the Vatican’s widely-reported determination to crack down on the rise of sexually deviant clergy. But Newsweek warns that an overzealous policy could jeopardize the careers of non-sexually active homosexuals in the Church. The Internet news site SanFranciscoGate.com also reports fears of a “crackdown.” The feature highlights St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, Calif. as “one of the country’s gayest facilities for higher education,” with up to 70 per cent homosexuals. It quotes a 28-year-old alumnus claiming the seminarians there are chaste, but that “some … are gay, openly gay, and very loud about it.” Some heterosexuals have reportedly been hounded out of flagrantly homosexual seminaries. In a comment that reveals how difficult it will be to cope with the problem, the Rev. Charles Bouchard, president of a college that calls itself the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri, dismisses such complaints: “I think straight priests and seminarians shouldn’t be whining. I just don’t think it ‘s a big deal.” In a related item, CNSNews reports that the New York Archdiocese will report allegations directly to prosecutors before conducting an internal review. “When the archdiocese has reason to suspect that a priest has sexually abused a minor, it will report the complaint to the appropriate district attorney’s office without review by any advisory committee,” the policy says. As U.S. Cardinals and Bishops prepare for a June meeting in Dallas, a group calling itself “Operation Plainspeak” has sent an open letter urging the U.S. Catholic leadership that the scandal reveals “a deep corruption with the American hierarchy. The letter continues, “In many ways the tepid response to priestly sexual abuse has been more scandalous than the abuse itself,” echoing the Vatican’s conclusion earlier this month in that “the current scandal is a direct consequence of a failure to uphold and promote the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding sexual morality.” As a result, many Catholic clergy have failed for more than a generation to teach the faithful how to survive in a cultural environment that is “saturated” with explicit sexual content in the media, advertising, entertainment, and even public schools amidst the sexual revolution afflicting the modern West. A footnote: Newsweek misrepresents Catholic teaching when it says the church teaches “homosexuality is an ‘intrinsic evil’.” In fact, a brief glance at the Catechism of the Catholic Church reveals that homosexual “acts” are regarded as “intrinsically disordered” and homosexuals are said to be “called to chastity.” However, innocent individuals afflicted with the disorder are to be treated with “compassion” (CCC 2357-2359). To read the Newsweek feature see: https://www.msnbc.com/news/751068.asp For the full text of PlainSpeak’s open letter see: https://www.cwnews.com/news/getstory.cfm?recnum=18058&UserID=535 For the online article from San Francisco see: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/14/MN136183.DTL