Blogs May 31, 2010 at 9:54 am

Comments

1
I'm assuming the last line should be "allowing priests to marry"
2
Why not just change the name to "semenary" and get it over with.
3
"But you could crowd 'em out by ordaining women and allowing priests."

yeah?

yeah???

" allowing priests........."?
4
What's especially funny is that they DO allow priests to be married -- if they've converted, as priests, from the Church of England. A married CofE priest can become a Catholic priest while staying married. It's part of their strategy to poach disaffected Anglicans who are tempted to leave by the ordination of gay and female priests and particularly bishops.
5
"sexually damaged and/or stunted and/or dysfunctional men—...."

oh no

we feel a lecture about ButtFuckers coming.....
6
4
damn.
that IS especially funny.
7
So
according to Dan
Catholic homosexual clergy are
freaks and weirdos;
sexually damaged and/or
stunted and/or
dysfunctional men
with problematic and/or
criminal sexual interests;
scumbags and other moral bankrupts....

come on Dan-
are you holding anything out?

are they also lushes?
boozers?
rehab whores?
8
You cannot reason with the intrinsically disordered. Don't even try. And let them continue their fourth century ways so they become even less relevant to people's lives. The less of that rotten bunch, the better!
9
Maybe the affirmative answer is the one they're looking for.
10
@7

Ummmmm....huh? Dan never said all homo clergy are "freaks and weirdos....". He's simply pointing out that the Church is self-selecting for priests who are closet cases, sexually damaged, and/or pedophiles. Learn to read a little more critically.
11
Scientific studies have found no link between sexual orientation and abuse . . . Concern over gay men in the priesthood has simmered in the church for centuries, and has been heightened in recent years by claims from some Catholic scholars that 25 percent to 50 percent of priests in the United States are gay. The church has never conducted its own survey, but other experts have estimated the number to be far smaller. The sexual abuse scandal has prompted some conservative bishops to lay blame for the crisis on a “homosexual subculture” in the priesthood. While no one has proposed expelling gay priests, the crisis has pitted those traditionalists against other Catholics who attribute the problem to priests, gay and straight, with dysfunctional personalities.


Obviously, anyone who molests a child has a dysfunctional personality. And of course, those people can be gay or straight (although, in society at large, child molesters seem to be predominantly male.) What puzzles me, however, is why most priests who molest children seem to be gay (or, at least, molest boys instead of girls.) Is that because those cases just get more publicity -- if straight men are, say, 65 percent of all priests, then are approximately 65 percent of all molestations actually done by straight priests to little girls? -- is it because there is greater access to little boys than there is to little girls, are gay priests more likely to have dysfunctional personalities than straight priests, or some other reason?
12
@2 - LMAO!!
13
10
You think Dan is saying some homosexual Catholic clergy are healthy and normal?
Cause we didn't see that in there....
14
11
no one here will believe you when you point out that the Emperor has no clothes
15
11: no one here will believe you when you point out that the Emperor has no clothes

I'm just saying what seems to be the case.

I don't believe that gay men molest children at a higher rate than straight men...at least in society at large. But it's possible they do in the priesthood. As I wondered above, perhaps dysfunctional gay men are more drawn to becoming priests than dysfunctional straight men.
16
15
sometimes the obvious answer is the correct answer
17
Normal people don't look at porn on the internet.
18
Dan exerts a great deal of energy ignoring the 800 pound gorillas rampaging through his fantasy world.....

Why are Catholic clergy and youth pastors who molest underage victims disproportionately homosexual?

Why do homosexuals give each other AIDS and other STDs at much higher rates than other Americans? Don't they realize homosexual behavior is Safe and Normal and Natural?

Why do so many couples that experiment with 'consensual cheating' end of ruining their relationships and breaking up their families? Don't they realize adultery is a pressure valve that opens the door to relationship bliss?

Why do so many 'homosexuals' have such a rich and full heterosexual life as well? Don't they realize homosexuality is an innate hardwired genetic trait- it's what they ARE?

If you shut your eyes real tight and
stick your fingers in your ears and hum
you may not notice the smell....
19
Boy, it sure is nice not having to real all the garbage from the unregistered douchebags.
20
asking the vatican to accept non-celibates or women into their (and i emphasize "their") priesthood will get the same sort of response as asking major league baseball to accept metal bats.
21
@15:
In case you're really asking, and aren't just trolling:

In fact, some research shows that for pedophiles, the gender of the child is immaterial. Accessibility is more the factor in who a pedophile abuses. This may explain the high incidence of children molested in church communities and fraternal organizations, where the pedophile may more easily have access to children. In these situations, an adult male is trusted by those around him, including children and their families. Males are often given access to boys to mentor, teach, coach and advise. Therefore, a male pedophile may have easier access to a male child. In trying to make sense of an adult male's sexually abusing a male child, many of us mislabel it as an act of homosexuality, which it isn't.
...
The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be practically no reportage of sexual molestation of girls by lesbian adults, and the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual.

From: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/gays…

Dan posted a great video about this very topic about three months ago. If you search, you'll probably find it. I think that video might also talk about how most gay males are attracted to masculinity, which children (of either gender) don't display, while most pedophiles are attracted smoothness and softness, which is evidenced in both male and female children.
22
@15: (in addition to what 21 said)

Due to the intersection of sexism and homophobia, it is considered more shocking, more horrific, and more newsworthy, when a male child is sexually assaulted or raped.
23
Dan is very keen on pointing out that, despite generial suspicion of the motives and abilities of gay parents, there is no statistical evidence that gay couples make worse parents.

Yet he seems quite willing to accept the general suspicion of the sexual motives of people entering the priesthood. Can he point to any statistical evidence that priests molest children at any greater rate than other people who work with children?
24
@23: The priesthood might not attract pedophiles any more than a daycare, say, but they have a proven record of sheltering their kiddie fuckers rather than turning them over to the law. THAT is their problem.
25
To add to Canadian Nurse's post @ 21.

A. Nicholas Groth is a pioneer in the scientific study of sexual offenders against women and children, who has treated over 3000 child molesters over the course of two decades.12 A former director of the Sex Offender Program at the Connecticut Department of Corrections, Groth is the author of Men Who Rape: Psychology of the Offender,13 a work widely regarded as a classic textbook on the psychology of sexual violence. In his work, Groth has found that approximately one‑third of all cases of child molestation involve an underage boy and an adult male14, a statistic which has been used incessantly by certain conservative activist groups in an effort to prove that homosexuals are disproportionately responsible for acts of child molestation. However, Groth explicitly states that it is a myth that men who molest boys are homosexual.

Homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia are not
synonymous. In fact, it may be that these two orientations are mutually exclusive, the reason being that the homosexual male is sexually attracted to masculine qualities whereas the heterosexual male is sexually attracted to feminine characteristics, and the sexually immature child’s qualities are more feminine than masculine. . . . The child offender who is attracted to and engaged in adult sexual relationships is heterosexual. It appears, therefore, that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater sexual risk to underage children than does the adult homosexual male.

For more information on the subject: http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/ht…
26
" ... closet cases and other moral bankrupts ...", so Dan, we are now judged as morally bankrupt if we don't announce to the entire world that we are gay and attend at least one pride march a year?
... and for christ's sake, eggplant won't kill you, be a grown-up and eat your dinner like a good boy!
27
@23, David, I don't mean to speak for Dan and I've got other things to do on a beautiful day (where I am, at least) than dig around for relevant research, but:

I suspect that the Catholic Church represents a unique nexus of contributory factors to this problem of psychosocially immature / sexually dysfunctional men gravitating toward the priesthood. I'm guessing you weren't raised Catholic, as I was, or some of this (admitted) speculation would come more readily to your mind.

Catholicism produces enormous pressure and guilt around sexual attraction or arousal of any kind. But it is virtually unique among religions in also insisting on regular private confession to a priest of one's "failures" to follow church doctrine, in order to participate in the much more visible sacrament of communion--if you have committed a "mortal sin," in essence any orgasm not produced by [non-contracepted] vaginal intercourse with a married spouse, you cannot take communion. So when you remain in the pews on Sunday and don't join the communicants at the altar rail, in a sense, the whole community knows what you have done.

The best evidence is that some small percentage of people have predominant same-sex attraction (because of genetics, womb microenvironment, aggressive mother/absent father [debunked], whatever). As humans experience their nascent sexual attractions to others, these are initially directed to their natural age cohorts (with some Oedipus/Electra diversions along the way). Normally this moves in the direction of actual contact and experimentation with other people. But it seems likely that in the intense guilt/repression/tacit shaming of the Catholic environment, some individuals who are psychologically vulnerable and cannot resolve the conflicts in terms of their own conscience, begin to dissociate, and their sexual attraction to individuals that were once their own age becomes fixed as they themselves age while trying on the one hand to deny their attractions and on the other beginning to live a secret life of binge-like indulgence. Under these circumstances entry into the clergy may seem like an opportunity to subvert their impulses and remove temptation by denying the self, but in reality it just worsens the problem. This scenario covers the warping of both straight and gay people, since all out-of-wedlock non-vaginal sex is illicit, but it's obviously worse for the gays.

That's my take.
28
@27 really interesting take on the issue...do you think it's (the peer guilt/shaming/mortal sin) predominantly a North American Catholic thing? I spent a bit of time in Italy when I was in college, and I just remember how incredibly "sexualized" (for lack of a better description) young people were (Catholic young people...) Teenage boys seemed to find time every day to draw erect penises on the sidewalks--hard to go a few steps without seeing one--ads for quick-release women's panties in bus shelters, and people laughingly talking about the neighbourhood priest who slipped out once a week to visit the local pro. While I have no doubt the Catholic party line was the same as in North America, it seemed liked the people (the young sexy ones, anyway) were very open about their sexuality, which I would think wouldn't have been the case if there were a lot of guilt and shaming going on. Food for thought...
29
There is a documentary which deals with this- called Deliver Us From Evil. Very much in agreement with post 27
30
24's right. No particular profession can weed out the sexual predators from entering their profession, but what they can do is state very clearly, "If we ever hear one allegation, one complaint, one whisper, that means you POSSIBLY could have behaved other than properly with a child, we will not wait for a second complaint but will immediately kick your ass down the street at high noon to the nearest police precinct so they'll know you, and publish your name in our parish newsletter and the local daily and on all local blogs. Sue us if you want but that's what we'll do. Count on it. You're not going to be able to do ANYTHING without paying for it publicly. You will never set foot in a church or get another job again in your life. Now knowing that, if you still want to be a priest, we'll check every reference from the date of your birth and if anyone is even a little iffy, you can go pump gas somewhere. Just so you're clear about what we expect."

Of course the Church won't do that because they need priests.
31
Are poached Anglicans still safe? All these foodborne illness stories...
32
28 - I think you might have something there. I was raised as a Catholic in Canada, and the level of "you're going to HELL" shaming that we keep hearing about from Catholic Americans was much more muted. We learned roughly the same official line, but the didn't really get any more of a "don't have sex" message from the nuns than we got from the larger society ( this was during the sixties/seventies). I've had several American friends tell me over the years that the Catholic school experience you see in movies is only mildly exaggerated, while it bears almost no resemblance to my childhood. I was raised by nuns, but not *those* nuns.

My theory is that the Catholic Church, for historical reasons, was more of an outsider in the US than in Canada. We have Quebec, we've had Catholic Prime Ministers almost right from the beginning, we don't have the Puritan heritage - in the Prairie Provinces, Catholic schools are publicly run, in a sort of parallel school system, rather than private. In any environment where people feel under siege, and like outsiders, they tend to cling more to their mythology. I think American Catholics are more likely to be screwed up by their Catholicism than those in other countries, except perhaps the Irish, who were also clinging to their faith as an act of opposition.
33

http://www.nccafv.org/child.htm

"Studies indicate that half of all child molesters are under the age of 31 and only about 10% are more than 50 years of age."
34
@28, 32, I think the cultural background is VERY important--you're right on the money. Even though Catholicism is dominant in Italy, the people have had 2000 years to push back and the culture is very sexualized. There are also paganistic rituals common until just a few decades ago, like the one where naked teenage boys are passed through a cleft sapling between older relatives (Sicilian? I forget). In Mexico and Central America, the church has dominated but large families are expected and women relatively oppressed in their roles, so early sexual activity in or out of marriage is common and mostly overlooked (South American countries tend to have a more European orientation and outlook). I was going to mention the Puritan/Calvinist background of the U.S.--I think it's been hugely influential to this day, and I agree, it's largely the reason why Catholicism is so different and successfully manipulative here. I like 32's comparison to the Irish as well.

@29, I didn't know about that film; I'll track it down. Thanks!

@30, agree with you and 24 also.

@31, lol. As long as you don't eat them...
35
@32 I agree about the Canadian Catholic idea, my daughter went to a Catholic (we aren't) highschool for a couple of years, just for a change of pace, and other than taking a mandatory class on religion (which covered all religions) it was like any other secular highschool (beer, sex and rock and roll.) The Sister who was the guidance counselor was very chilled out and easy to talk to.

@34 It amazes me how far the influence of our puritan ancestors has reached, still going strong after all these years. Although Italy is a very male/macho society, there is also a lot of respect paid to mothers and mother figures, perhaps due to the worship of the Virgin Mary that seems absent in the States? I've read this is true in South America as well, as a substitute for the old goddess based religions? All you have to do is look around you in Italy...there is no way that a culture that produces such ornate, lavish churches, such amazing food and wine, and dotes on children as Italians do, could ever be truly sexually uptight.
36
21/Canadian Nurse: In case you're really asking, and aren't just trolling

No trolling at all. I was genuinely curious.

Thanks to you (The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. . . . the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual.) and Kim (Homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia are not
synonymous. In fact, it may be that these two orientations are mutually exclusive, the reason being that the homosexual male is sexually attracted to masculine qualities whereas the heterosexual male is sexually attracted to feminine characteristics, and the sexually immature child’s qualities are more feminine than masculine
) for the education.

It always seemed reasonable to me that a male pedophile would molest a young boy or young girl depending on his sexual orientation but the points above make sense.

I still think that given an equal opportunity to molest a young boy or young girl a heterosexual pedophile would tend to choose the girl but I might be wrong about even that and, regarding priests, they probably have more opportunities to molest young boys.
37
There aren't any altar girls or girls' choirs in Catholic churches, are there? (Honest question)

If not, there's an obvious tilt toward boys being molested because they're the ones who are available.
38
@37 There are only just beginning to be altar girls in a few very forward-thinking countries where the bishops allow it. It's the whole 1st Corinthians deal: women aren't meant to make a peep, let alone touch any of the sacred objects in the Church. Plus, they should stay away from the most sacred spaces around the altar - maybe St Paul thought we might break stuff, or menstruate all over it?

Girls' choirs have been around a bit longer but traditionally they were brought in from the local convent school for special occasions - the boys' choir which evolved from monastic traditions is typically used for everyday mass. You need pre-pubescent boys in the choir because a lot of the early music was written for castrati.

So yeah - girls only rarely and surrounded by grim-looking nuns, versus boys under the personal direction of the priests in all the un-public places of the church, like the sacristy. That said, a lot of convent schools have a priest "permanently attached" as a spiritual advisor and teacher.
39
#37. Girls and boys can be lectors, who read the Epistles from the pulpit...but are generally older than altar boys, 7th and 8th grade. I was a lector in my elementary school, St. Anthony of Padua, in Queens, NYC.

There are of course just girls and boys in the school who would have contact with priests, sisters and brothers of various orders.

I've mentioned that all during K-12 I never experienced anything remotely approaching the stories rendered about Catholic school.
40
The explanation for why they're doing what they do:

"it has to do with our view of marriage,” he said. “A priest can only give his life to the church in the sense that a man gives his life to a female spouse. A homosexual man cannot have the same relationship."

Right? Because the Catholic Church is a LADY.
41
@37: There are definitely altar girls in Australian Catholic churches, have been for at least 20 years (since I was a kid and had to be one every other Sunday). I think there's still plenty of shame in our Catholic church, maybe because of what @32 said about the Irish clinging to their religion in times of political upheaval and adversity (Australia is the most Irish country in the world outside of Ireland, followed by America). But, I agree that the USA's Catholic sexual repression stems from the Puritan history. The Catholic Church probably feels the need to compete with all those fundamentalist religions, too.
I think the repressed sexual attitudes are a cultural thing, too - influenced partly by the Anglican history, which includes the role of the Protestant church, but that's not the whole story. In countries like Italy and Spain, they are also much more open about periods and other matters which are very taboo in the Western Anglican world.
Obviously abstinence ed plays a huge role in this too. Weirdly, my Catholic all-girls' school had the most thorough sex ed I've ever heard of, before or since. I can put a condom on a banana with more dexterity than anyone I know.
42
in a great many 'catholic' countries it is a cultural identity thing and not a matter of belief. so, yeah, italians say they are catholic but fornicate and adulterate like bunnies and think nothing of it.
americans of all faiths have tended to take their religion more seriously and it is more likely to reflect in some measure their beliefs and not just what they (culturally) are.
people to whom religion is meaningless find it quaint, they don't get that it is what makes america better than any other nation on earth. (tho, we are skipping merrily to gommorah and are losing much of what has set us apart- soon we will be nothing more than a bloated waddling bankrupt impotent imitation of belgium; inept and powerless not giving a shit about anything...)
43
Official opposition to married priests isn't all about the vow of chastity. The vow of poverty figures in, too. If RC priests could get married, the church would have to PAY them. Millions of parish priests suddenly getting a living, family-raising, competitive wage would bankrupt the institution.
44
Uhm, allowing priests to marry won't keep the fucktards out. Please see your own reference to the pastor at the Baptist church and the church member who impregnated the 15 year old. Both were married. Allowing women into the church as priests won't keep the fucktards out. Please reference how many women inflict clitorectomies on other women as part of their religious requirements. Here's one story on it. http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas…

The truth is that the horrors caused by religious beliefs cut across all lines - celibate, married, male, female, gay or straight. Power corrupts.
45
@37, it's changing, but even 15-20 years ago altar girls were virtually unheard of in US Catholic churches. So abusive priests have had MUCH more access to boys than girls.

@11, please read the excellent materials that's been posted above and note that men who abuse boys are NOT displaying homosexual inclinations. The age of the victim is much more important to them than the gender.

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