Talk:Homosexuality in the Roman Catholic priesthood

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Contents 1 Abuse and Homosexuality 2 Catholic church condems homosexuality? 3 Cleanup Needs 4 Rewrite 5 Study results

[edit] Abuse and Homosexuality

"Nonetheless, the church has been rocked by several child abuse scandals and this has led to an impression amongst the general public that a many Catholic priests are in fact homosexual."

I find this quote strange. What does child abuse have to do with homosexuality?--StenBH 07:48, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

You are correct that pedophilia is a particular condition not necessarily associated with normal homosexuality (or heterosexuality). However the sentence concerns the common impression. The fact that many of the abuse victims were male (albeit often sexually immature) has led to a perception that many priest's inclinations are towards men, even if the reality is that their preference is for boys. As worded, I think the sentence is probably correct, although it is always dangersous to write about what "many people think" unless there has been an opinion poll. Thanks for speaking up. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:15, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I find it offensive to equate paedophilia with either homosexuality or heterosexuality. Your sentence tacitly supports an ignorant view that paedophilia is an inevitable consequence of repressed homosexuality. It is also offensive to the vast majority of Roman Catholic priests who are dedicated to the welfare of their parishoners and who regard the sexual abuse of minors with absolute horror. (I am not a Roman Catholic.) Adamm 16:20 May 22, 2005

I've edited it. It is the fact that the abused have mostly been boys and the abusers priests, all of whom are male, that has created this impression. Michael Hardy 23:54, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Catholic church condems homosexuality?

"due to the Catholic Church's condemnation of homosexuality." is in the article

that's not catholic teaching, catholic teaching is respect to homosexuals, but chastity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fantrl (talk • contribs) 16:19, 17 June 2005 (UTC)

Yes the Catholic Church condemns homosexuality. You cannot "respect" a person as a theoretical entity and reject the person that they actually are. It's just an absurd oxymoron. Don't feed into Magisterial bs. Carolynparrishfan 13:13, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh that's ridiculous. Even if you think it's wrong they(as I'm not in the hierarchy) feel it's a disorder, right? Well they feel alcoholism is a disorder too I presume. So if they said "we love alcoholics, but we believe they should totally abstain from alcohol". Or they could believe "we love schizophrenics, but we believe their delusions are unreal and should be treated." Now considering homosexuality a disorder can be offensive, but ultimately there's nothing inconsistent in saying "we love someone with X disorder as long as they don't act on it." Added to that this article is extremely biased. At times I think Catholicism and Scientology get roughly equal treatment here.--T. Anthony 08:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Nonetheless, it is misleading to say that condemnation of homosexuality is not a Catholic teaching. First, the practice of the Church normally does not reflect the theoretical "compassion" that is mandated in various Vatican documents. Also, the documents themselves can be fuzzy on this. Regarding "fag bashing", the CDF says that "the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase" (Homosexualitatis problema, s.10).

Besides all of which, when I hear that "Church X doesn't teach condemnation of homosexuality" as a semantic issue that sounds like it is a gay-positive or at least -tolerant church, which the RC is decidedly not. It is not that it is an untruthful statement, but it is very open to misinterpretation.Carolynparrishfan 12:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't say Catholicism is tolerant of homosexual behavior and certainly not that it's gay-positive. I just don't think it's as bad as you or many others present. Many other Christian denominations specifically say homosexuals are diseased people who should be cured or imprisoned. (Coptics, many Southern Baptists, etc) Plus Wikipedia is intensely biased on almost any issue referring to this faith.--T. Anthony 03:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

All minorities claim at some point in time that they are persecuted or discriminated against. Roman Catholics have been both persecuted and persecutors. I fail to see any point in adding up past scores, or who's been more sinned against than sinning: it's our future kindness to one another that counts, whether or not you believe in God. It astounds me that with children nay, anyone, starving to death in the world we have so many people worrying about what gays get up to in the privacy of their own homes.adamm 07:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Needs

Hi everyone-- this article needs some major cleanup. It's full of POVs, unsourced claims, and possibly some original research. I think we should create some new headings and start finding some reputable sources of statistics. Wikipedia standards define factual information as that about which there is no dispute. Unfortunately, just about everything here is very gravely disputed. Let's try to improve the article. Pianoman123 05:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Solid facts are difficult to come by I'd gather. Latin-rite priests tend not to discuss their own sexuality in any respect as it's rarely relevant. I'd favor just eliminating this myself unless we do Homosexuality in the Buddhist monastery, Homosexuality in the Anglican priesthood, etc. I think it'd be better to have an article titled say Catholic views of homosexuality, in the tradition of Quaker views of homosexuality or Anglican views of homosexuality, than merge this into that.--T. Anthony 10:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

I've tried to deal with these concerns, creating a Lead section that acknoweldges the controversial nature of the subject within its context. I've also removed unsourced or non-NPOV material to streamline the article and remove Weasel Words. The article still needs some work to give it clarity as well as being in line with WP:V. This is a highly controversial article that needs sources: page numbers included. Jpe|ob 06:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Study results

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. This article has been tagged since March 2007.

Many more statistics on the prevalence of homosexuality in the RC priesthood can be found at [1]; there are good references for this page which should be easy enough to chase down. -- Beland 18:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)