Dec

4

The Witch-hunt Begins

Filed Under Polemics & Politics on December 4, 2005 | Leave a Comment

The Catholic Church’s major policy document on homosexuality in the church was flawed and bad enough but to add insult to injury news of a private letter sent to all Bishops to accompany the new policy has been made public and it shows that there is now an actual witch-hunt underway. The Vatican are sending "inspectors" to all seminaries to look for "evidence of homosexuality". This kind of witch-hunt makes a mockery of the churches supposed love of gay people and plea that they not be discriminated against. This is the most un-Christian thing I have seen the Vatican do in my lifetime.

Firstly, I want to talk about the policy document, I will go through each of the flaws in it in turn. This policy bans homosexuals from joining the priesthood. Not only does it ban homosexuals but also people who "support the gay culture". The policy also makes a distinction between "Transitory Homosexuality" and "Deep-seated Homosexuality" and re-iterates the church’s view that homosexuality is a disorder and that it can be "cured".

Ignores Scientific Realities

Both the distinction between the two kinds of Homosexuality (which the Vatican made up) and the definition of homosexuality are at direct odds with the scientific study of homosexuality and show that rather than dealing with the realities of homosexuality the church would prefer to stick it’s head in the sand like a great big ostrich. I heard the Catholic stance on sexuality described as being like a house of cards this week. This may explain why the love between two men can cause so much trouble. Accepting the obvious realities about homosexuality, that it is natural, not a choice and not a disease, would bring all the church’s out-dated and illogical policies on human sexuality crumbling down around their ears. Simply put, in order to conserve the status-quo gays must be pushed back into the closet. The views on homosexuality that the church issue as fact are straight from the middle of the last century and ignore half a century of scientific research and study.

Children Left in Danger

The reasoning behind the policy is also fundamentally flawed, scientific studies have shown that homosexuality is not linked to pedophilia yet this policy is being billed as the Vatican’s solution to the child sex abuse problem. Thing is, the evidence shows that this policy is based on flawed logic and that the real cause of the child sex abuse is probably poor handling of celibacy by some priests and that it was definitely facilitated by the Bishops who hushed it up and protected offending priests. Hence the most important reform would be to deal with the Bishops who facilitated the sexual abuse of children and to deal openly with the problems enforced celibacy can cause. However, doing this would make things difficult for the leaders of the church, which includes many of the Bishops who facilitated the abuse in the first place! Hence, the Vatican are using gays as scapegoats to save themselves from some uncomfortable home truths.

This is despicable enough because it is very un-Christian to abuse a whole swathe of the population like this but it is made infinitely worse because it does not actually resolve the serious problem of children having their innocence stripped away by being horribly abused by people who should be protecting them. The church officials are hanging gays out to dry and sacrificing children to save their own skins. This is utterly revolting.

Fuels Homophobia

Every gay person should be alarmed by the reasoning behind this ban and the language in the policy. We have all been branded as pedophiles and as being mentally ill. These kind of broad generalisations are always dangerous but are extra dangerous when they are made by an organisation claiming to be the voice of God and because they are using something as emotive as child sex abuse to justify their discrimination.

Makes no Sense and is Un-needed

Priests must be celibate, a major part of becoming a priest is to learn to repress the natural human sex drive. Homosexuality only defines your sexual preferences, nothing more, hence not having gay sex is no different to not having straight sex and giving up gay sex poses exactly the same challenges as giving up straight sex. To be a good priest you effectively have to become non-sexual, what difference does it make what sex you are not having!

This policy is utterly pointless because once you take away sex, gay people are no different to straight people and since priests are celibate and have mastered their sex drive it could be argued there is no such thing as a gay or a straight priest!

Bad for the Catholic Church

The catholic church is facing a crisis in the western world, they have far far too few priests and far far too few people filling the pews on Sundays. Why is this? Well, the Church’s out-dated views on Women priests and sexuality certainly don’t help and in places like Ireland the evil of the Church’s protection and facilitation of pedophiles also plays a huge part. Hateful policies like this only serve to drive more people from the church. Yet another negative message from an increasingly negative church that seems to be running to the past at an ever faster pace.

Letter to the Bishops

The letter to the bishops informing them of the witch-hunt that is about to begin removes all doubt about how this policy was intended. This cannot be seen as anything but a witch-hunt against all gays in the Catholic church. Congratulations Joe, you’ve taken your organisation of love back 5 centuries into an organisation of hate, more interested in persecuting gay people than dealing with Child sex abuse or the other real problems facing this world. I don’t think Christ would be happy to see his church persecuting people like this, I don’t remember any parables about excluding people or about discriminating against people but I do remember lots of bible stories about how much Jesus loved children.

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