Daily Kos

Is your priest gay?

Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:11:34 PM PDT

Yes friends, it has come to this. As John Aravosis writes at Americablog:

"the Vatican is now making clear that the sexual tension a normal adult feels in the company of other adults leads those normal adults to want to rape small children, sometimes as young as 4 years of age."

Say what? Sounds more to me like the problem (according to their own flawed reasoning) is celibacy, not whether the priest is gay or bisexual.

But this being the vatican, it gets better. (Oh yes, there certainly is more.)

As reported this week, investigators will be visiting all US catholic seminaries looking for "evidence of homosexuality." OK, boys, better hide the moisturizer, broadway cast albums and Cher posters quick. And calling your faculty advisor "girlfriend" is probably a career-limiting move.

But over at The Huffington Post, Nicholas von Hoffman reports:

"Some Catholic clergymen are expressing qualms. They wonder how the investigators are going to know who is and who isn't under the new Vatican do-ask-maybe-they'll-tell policy."

Well, duh! Like a group of old men with their feet firmly planted in the 15th century is gonna have a clue how to sniff out 21st century homos.

But this is where we can all do our civic duty. (And you don't even have to be catholic!) That's right, folks, let's all help the pope with his new witch hunt by playing that wonderful new game, "Is your priest gay?" Our panel of experts (meaning me and my roomate's cat) have assembled a list of questions to help cleanse the church (and hence our neighborhoods) of this horrible scourge. Just fill out this helpful questionnaire (or ask your catholic friends to help) and forward it to the vatican's Office of the Inquisition (OK, they call it something else now, but it's the same thing--it'll get there, trust me).

  1. Does your priest hang out with men who wear dresses?
  2. Do his vestments look like they came from "Our Lady of the Showgirls"?
  3. Has he complained that the pulpit lighting makes him look fat?
  4. Is he overly fond of sprinkling his homilies with references to David and Jonathan and the disciple that Jesus loved?
  5. Does he take more than half an hour in the vestry getting ready for mass?
  6. When complementing ladies on their frocks, does he ever say "honey, wherever DID you find that divine outfit"?
  7. Does he spend more time at the gym than he does on his homilies?
  8. Have you often heard him remark about how much he loves cruising, but you know damn well he gets seasick, can't swim and is deathly afraid of the water?
  9. After moving into the rectory, was installing vertical blinds the first thing he did?
  10. And did he complain that the medicine cabinet was too small for his skin care regimen?
We must be vigilant! We need to root out this cancer that is infecting the church and our communities. Then all that will remain is to decide what to do with all the thousands of empty churches that will be closed because they have no priests left after they finish with this hare-brained scheme!

Of course I'm being satirical. But they're not. These fools think that a) this will do something to help the problem, and b) it has a chance of working.

Americablog sums it up well:

"I'm just trying to understand why a presumably normal adult man like Razzi assumes that of course adult males to want to rape small children simply because they're in the company other adults who may, or may not, turn them on.

Those kind of bizarre assumptions shed a lot of light on why the Catholic church leaderhship has coddled and enabled these pedophiles for decades. They appear to think just like them."

Of course, the title of my diary was rhetorical. Because the answer is "probably"!

Let the witch hunt begin.

Tags: Catholic church, gay rights (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

Permalink | 21 comments

  •  Tips for the mohel. (4.00 / 9)

    (I know, wrong religion, but what the hell!)

    Well fuck it all, I'm still not leaving. I'm too goddamn mean and stubborn to be run off by a swarm of annoying insects.

    by homogenius on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:12:45 PM PDT

  •  As my friend's father said when asked (4.00 / 5)

    ... "Should priests be allowed to gett married?"

    He said, "The should be FORCED to get married."

    (So that they can share in the joy. Heh-heh.)

    •  Believe or not, there is unfortunate (none / 1)

           history among some Protestants, and also some Communists, of literally forcing priests and/or nuns to marry, often coupled with pillaging/burning of monasteries and convents...
    •  I've been told that Greek Orthodox priests (none / 0)

      MUST get married if they expect to have a congregation.
      •  It can seem that way (none / 0)

        Because in my experience as a Greek Orthodox, the definite majority of parish priests are married (at least in the Chicago area), although there certainly are a few single ones.  The official Greek Orthodox rule is that Priests can get married only before they are ordained (many seminary graduates actually put off ordination for a few years so that they can get married before they're ordained).  However, in order to become a bishop, you need to be unmarried (I think widowers can become bishops as well).  So there is a bit of a trade-off between either being celibate or giving up any chance of being a bishop, and it is also true that the large majority of married priests become parish priests while most single priests go to monasteries or teach at seminaries.  So while it is not "officially" necessary to be married to be a parish priest, it does appear to help your chances of getting such an assignment.

        Legalize Qualo. Those in Chicago - listen to Boers & Bernstein on 670 AM 2-6 M-F. Libertarian Democrat Represent!

        by Larry Horse on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 01:27:22 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

    •  Kinky Friedman on gay marriage (none / 0)

      "I support gay marriage because I believe they have right to be just as miserable as the rest of us!"

      Source.

  •  i found out recently (none / 1)

    at a funeral that purgatory isn't there anymore & confession was passe or optional. seems they now conduct sort of blank absolution. i don't know... the mass was strange, the translations from the latin were, i don't know, like paraphrased? how much of a stretch would it be for the church to get rid of the celibacy thing, or even to recognize homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. they got rid of purgatory!

    Anyone who advocates, supports, defends, rationalizes, or excuses torture has pus for brains and a case of scurvy for a conscience. - James Wolcott

    by rasbobbo on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:29:56 PM PDT

    •  Purgatory was redundant. (none / 0)

      The repugs control all three branches of government. "Let the workhouses begin."

      Well fuck it all, I'm still not leaving. I'm too goddamn mean and stubborn to be run off by a swarm of annoying insects.

      by homogenius on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:32:26 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

    •  no purgatory? (4.00 / 2)

      what happens to all those "high-indulgence" prayers I said as a kid to get days chipped off my purgatorial stay? sounds the a savings and loan scandal to me.

      Rome wasn't burnt in a day.

      by Miss Devore on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:51:55 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      •  exactly !! (none / 1)

        half of the church activity revolved around saying rosaries & doing novenas to try to get someone out of purgatory. the theory being if they made it to the board room "up there" they could lobby for you.

        Anyone who advocates, supports, defends, rationalizes, or excuses torture has pus for brains and a case of scurvy for a conscience. - James Wolcott

        by rasbobbo on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:57:12 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

    •  Umm, nope. (none / 0)

      Indulgences are still around, purgatory is still an article of faith, and confession is still required once a year of all American Catholics.

      It's just that everyone is so embarrassed by the indulgence thing that nobody really wants to talk about it any more, and the more "liberal" theologians keep on hoping that if they ignore purgatory, limbo, and the "Laws of the Church," they'll just go away.

    •  please Please PLEASE (none / 0)

      Do not refer to homosexuality as a "lifestyle", that infers choice like living in the burbs. Homosexuality is the way people are born, it is a naturally occurring part of human and animal sexuality.
  •  Not a good week for Mother Church (none / 1)

    Yesterday, I ran across this story in the Ann Arbor News:

    ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- Diocese officials are discouraging Catholics from participating in the area's annual CROP walk because the event's organizing group uses part of its money on condoms to fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa.

    I was raised Catholic, but voted with my feet 15 years ago. My only regret was not having done so 20 years earlier.

    Replete with "misstatements" and elisions and retracted and redacted and revoked assertions.--Carl Bernstein on HRC's record.

    by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:32:34 PM PDT

  •  Of the priests I have known (none / 0)

    several were gay, and even more than several really like the women.  Several affairs were had.  And it was all hidden.  
  •  In what world is (none / 0)

    homosexuality and pedophilia the same thing...

    Oh, right - the Vatican's....

    Blogging locally, acting globally 4&20 blackbirds

    by jhwygirl on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:37:58 PM PDT

  •  If by priest, you mean my right hand... (none / 0)

    no.

    U.S. blue collar vs. CEO income in 1992 was 1:80; in 1999 it was 1:475.

    by Lode Runner on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 12:56:37 PM PDT

  •  The problem is (none / 1)

    that the Church has no problem with using modern psychology when it suits the Church's purposes, but damning it as "disordered" or just plain satanic if it contradicts Church doctrine.

    The witch hunt is really scary.  I couldn't care less if the Church lost half of its priests--but I am scared of the possibility that lots of decent (and often celibate) gay priests will be outed.  Expect a lot of suicides, and the Church following such deaths with a tut-tut on the order of "See? Tool of Satan, died the Judas death."

  •  Why's it matter if they're gay? (none / 1)

    All that matters is if they're from Boston.  After all, it's "a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America" and therefore it should "come as no surprise" if priests from there fondle little boys.

    /santorum

    Zach W. Morris and John Slater McCain may have seemed like rivals...but they are two peas in a pod

    by BlueEngineerInOhio on Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 03:12:29 PM PDT

Permalink | 21 comments