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Bishop Marian Eleganti

August 24, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The current abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is closely related to homosexuality, Bishop Marian Eleganti, the Auxiliary Bishop of Chur, Switzerland said. Bishop Eleganti said this in an interview in Ireland during the World Meeting of Families. He calls for a new “sobriety” with regard to the problem of homosexuality and reminds people that Pope Francis said that homosexual men should not become priests.

Catholic News Agency’s Germany edition published a report today on this new interview conducted by EWTN Germany on August 22 in Dublin. When asked by the interviewers Pia Cagianut and Robert Rauhut about the current abuse crisis in the Church in light of a “homosexual subculture,” Bishop Eleganti, OSB explains that “the attitude regarding homosexuality has changed since 1968,” and it has been “liberalized.” While he reminds us that “we have to welcome all people with great respect,” Eleganti insists, “the scandal of abuse shows clearly, it is related to homosexuality.”

Quoting the report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury on the 300 abusing priests, the Swiss bishop points out, “90% [of the abuse cases] are in direct connection with a homosexual inclination.” The victims “were not children, they were 16 to 17 years old,” “they were seminarians,” and “it would be blind to deny that we do have here a problem in the Church with homosexuality and that homosexuality plays here a role,” he continues.

“Perhaps this leads us also to a new sobriety, before we simply regard homosexuality as a valuable variant of creation, just like a heterosexual marriage,” Eleganti explains, “so that we see that there are still very different elements in the situation here that we have to face.”

Quoting Pope Francis, Bishop Eleganti says that “also Pope Francis recently said that we cannot admit to the priesthood, to the seminaries people with a deep-seated homosexual inclination.”

“Such statements also have to be taken into account,” the bishop adds.

For him the Church has “to be in the truth,” since “everything that is hidden will come to light.” This has to happen now, if it is not already the case. Bishop Eleganti therefore now calls for an independent “objective commission,” since the “institution should not investigate itself.” He says that each clergyman should make an examination of conscience as to how he has lived his priestly celibacy and how he conducted himself in the past. The faithful could see whether someone is “a man of God,” or whether he “lives a double life.”

“The networks have to be investigated,” the Swiss bishop adds, “all of us have to face and endure this truth.” A “great purification” is needed.

Bishop Eleganti welcomes this “inner shake-up,” saying, “rather let things come out now, and a purification takes place.”

Bishop Eleganti was the youth bishop of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference for many years. Earlier this year, he signed the “Profession of the immutable truths about sacramental marriage” of the bishops of Kazakhstan. In a February 2018 interview, he explained that it was his conscience that led him to sign this text that reaffirmed the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage and the family in light of the confusion that is spreading in the Church since the publication of the post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Bishop Eleganti’s new statement concerning the problem of the abuse crisis and homosexuality stands in stark contrast to what Vatican advisor Father James Martin, S.J. just told the Dublin World Meeting of Families. He stated yesterday in an official talk that the Church should admit homosexuals as eucharistic ministers. As LifeSiteNews’ Doug Mainwaring commented:

While the Catholic Church in the United States is beaten down, gripped with story after story of predatory sexual abuse and cover-ups by priests and prelates — the vast majority of which are homosexual in nature – the priest used his platform at the Vatican-run event to lobby for the Church to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism.