US Bishops STILL in Denial

It seems that some US Bishops thought the Vatican's document barring homosexuals from Ordination to the priesthood would be....ah, unseemly...if it were released just before the seminary visitations currently being conducted throughout the US.

In an annual interview with Chicago Sun Times reporter Cathleen Falsani, Chicago Cardinal Francis George revealed that last year the United States Bishops visiting with the Pope asked the Vatican to delay release of the long-awaited document on homosexuality and the priesthood.

The document entitled, "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders", reinforced Church teaching barring men "who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'", from becoming priests.

"We asked them not not to publish it, but to delay it -- to wait -- otherwise it would color the visitations," Cardinal George told the Times.

He said the bishops were concerned that the document would be released during the official visits of US bishops with the Pope over the issue of sexual abuse in seminaries, and thus would ignite the sensitivities of homosexuals activists. Explained George: "We said, 'If you do this, it will be taken as a commentary on the visitations and we'll get into this whole business that the gay community is so sensitive to of, 'You're blaming us for the pedophilia.'"

In fact, however, the study on sexual abuse commissioned by the US Bishops after the scandals broke in 2002, confirmed that homosexuality indeed was a major part of the problem. The John Jay study (available online: http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/ ) noted that 80% of the sexual abuse in the priesthood involved adolescent males rather than young boys, pointing to the core problem being one of homosexuality, not strictly pedophilia.

Facts are just so darned inconvenient. The spin has been overwhelming, with the latest tactic to deny that "Pedophilia" was the problem. That is TRUE: the technical name is "Ephebophilia," which refers to sexual abuse of children over the age of (roughly) 12. As the John Jay study points out, 80% of the ephebophilia was homosexual.