After receiving numerous complaints from gay rights groups, a Catholic newspaper called The Boston Pilot has retracted a column (written by a guy who advises Catholic Bishops on how to compassionately hate gays) that argued that science had maybe-kinda-sorta proven that GAYS ARE CONTROLLED BY THE DEVIL (.pdf courtesy of rob!).

Chalk that up as progress! Via Reuters:

The weekly paper, the Boston Pilot, which is run by the Archdiocese of Boston, on Wednesday removed from its website the October 28 article titled "Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction."

...The essay in the 184-year-old paper had concluded that "scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil."

The author's "apology" for the article is limp-dicked bullshit, but what's really interesting is that the newspaper apologized for "having failed to recognize the theological error in the column before publication."

Since we can't read the pulled article (although commenter Kim in Seattle helpfully points us to its highlight reel), and since the paper fails to explain its "theological error," it's only fair that we engage in some good old fashioned rampant speculation here on slog!