From Fr Z's Blog
You’ve probably heard that a book is timed to be released simultaneously in several languages at the beginning of the Roman episcopal “sex summit”. Bishops from around the world are to meet to discuss important problems that scandalize and wound the Church so that they don’t have to talk about the real problem, that apparently, can’t be by them named.
The French author of the book is a homosexualist activist. According to Crux he claims some “4 years of research and interviews with over 1,500 individuals in 30 countries, including 41 cardinals, 52 bishops, and 45 apostolic nuncios.” One priest interviewed claimed that 80% of the clergy working in the Vatican are homosexual.
To which I respond B as in B, S as in S.
The number is, if you pardon the pun, preposterous.
To all these claims of a high percentage of queer clergy I say B as in B, S as in S.
What I will admit is that in chanceries, seminary faculties, academia, etc., the percentage is probably higher because of a kind of self-perpetuating nepotism. Think about it. Some homosexual bishop picks the pretty – or compliant – young guy to go to the NAC in Rome. Since they got the Roman experience, the pretty – or compliant guy gets preferment. And the cycle repeats. That went on for a long time. I think the cycle has been broken at the NAC, by the way. I hope.
So, this book is coming out. It is timed with the Roman summit as a kind of titillating bait for the gullible. The lib MSM newsies and the usual catholic media grifters are sure to plump up its sales. Cum canibus, after all.
Anyway, we are going to be inundated with all sort stories about homosexual clergy. Some of these stories will be filled with pathos and laments about the poor “gay priest”, so misunderstood, so conflicted.
Right on schedule Hell’s Bible, the NY Times, has a pathetic item that set homosexualist activist Jesuit James Martin all a-flutter on Twitter:
This is a wise, thoughtful, well researched and, in many ways, groundbreaking piece on the lonely but rewarding life of gay priests, with (a rarity) several priests going on the record. An excellent read to dispel stereotypes and prejudices. nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/…
312 people are talking about this
It’s “wise”.
Of course no suggestion in the Hell’s Bible piece of the link between clerical sexual abuse and homosexuality. Nope. Not at all. Just keep sweeping that 9/11 sized pile of rubble under the rug. “Oh no!”, the homosexualists cry. “There’s noooo connection! Shut up or you’ll start witch hunts!” The next thing they say is that connecting the two issues makes being “gay” more dangerous!
“The real problem is clericalism!”, they repeat. No one really believes that. It becomes plausible only when another thing is factored in: sodomy. The problem is #sodoclericalism.
Meanwhile, the “summit” in Rome isn’t going to talk about that.
The title of the NY Times piece was seriously irritating.
‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’Gay Catholic Priests Speak OutThe crisis over sexuality in the Catholic Church goes beyond abuse. It goes to the heart of the priesthood, into a closet that is trapping thousands of men.
No. NO. NO!
The priesthood is not a cage. It is not a trap. The door is over there and it is open. If it is so horrible, GET OUT.
But you can already hear the wails…
“Oooooo but I wanna staaaaay. It’s so rewarding making people feel good and being touched by their lives! (Because it’s all about me in the end, and how good I feel.) I don’t want to leave the priesthood. I want to stay and have everyone know that I’m ‘gay’! (Because it’s all about me.) Saying that I should leave makes me feel bad, and no one is supposed to feel bad. We should all be affirmed just as we are! (Because … you know.)“
Do I, Fr. Z, want you guys to get out?
Frankly, yes, if you are having sex with men, yes. GET OUT. If you are striving to live a holy life, and you are ordained, then get on with your priesthood and stop whining about it and stop rubbing it in people’s faces.
All you are really telling people is that you are not capable of having the proper nuptial relationship with the Church, which Christ Himself has and intends for His priests. If you have a strong inclination to something that is the opposite of a nuptial relationship, then interiorly your priesthood is short-circuiting.
I just had the image from a re-imagined Star Trek movie. The ship is going to crash if they can’t get the engines online. But the huge super-radioactive thingummy is out of alignment. No power. Everyone will die. Captain Kirk decides to try to re-align it by slamming his body into it again and again until it starts zapping correctly. Of course he sacrificed himself to do it. He dies. Too bad. But it isn’t that bad. The franchise is really big, so they find a way to bring him back, and he’s all the better for it.
I know, I know. It’s but a limping analogy. But there is a point. In that moment, it wasn’t about Kirk. It was about everyone, including himself even though he would be dead. He had to be who he was. Agere sequitur esse. In a way, that’s what we priests are doing: slamming our bodies into that thing in a highly toxic environment so that Holy Church has the essential life-force for our mission. That means being priest and victim.
Speaking of movies, sometimes friends bring up some idiot thing that this pop singer or that ahtlete has been up to. If I go to a movie, I don’t want to know about the moronic utterances of the actors on immigration or climate change or the 2nd Amendment. I just want to enjoy the movie or the game. When I see these celebrities moronically blurping in public, I want to say, like the book title tells it, “Shut up and sing!”
The same goes for a “gay” (how I hate that word) priest who bares his soul in public about his attraction to men. Talk about selfish! Why dump that on people and make them bear it? I don’t want to hear about the inner struggles of an oppressed gay guy “trapped” in the priesthood. Shut up and be a priest! You’re a man, right? Even if you have a disorder, be a man. If you have be on the Cross 24/7, shut up and stay on the Cross. That’s where priests are supposed to be. When Christ spoke to the Father about allowing Him not to drink of the chalice, the Synoptics say He was sequestered in the Garden. During His Passion, Our Lord didn’t whine in public about what His tormentors were doing to Him. “I’m soooo conflicted! I’m soooo misunderstood!”
You must not commit scandal by blurting all this out in public and confusing the faithful about your ministry and about the Church’s God-affirmed teachings and authority!
The Cross is your path to salvation and a place in heaven, because of faithful suffering.
I sincerely believe that people with same-sex attraction, if they strive to be chaste and bear their subsequent suffering, will have a very high place in heaven. The greater the burden and suffering, the greater the graces and reward.
Again and again over the years, this has been my position. For example HERE. I have tremendous respect and admiration for people who strive – and therefore suffer – when overcoming their sinful inclinations, whatever they may be.
Support of homosexual persons is obligatory for true Catholics. However, also obligatory is the whole truth, which necessarily includes the explicit and clear renunciation of same-sex acts, which violate human dignity and do great harm to individuals and society. Charity seeks the true good of others, at the expense of self-sacrifice.
On the issue of homosexual priests,
- No, I don’t think there are many as some claim.
- No, I don’t think that men with homosexual inclinations should be admitted to seminaries.
However, if they are ordained, and they have taken on the frightening burden of responsibility that comes to those to whom much has been given, then, Yes, if they want to live a continent life and not commit public scandals, I think they should strive with courage and suffering to be the best priests they can be: as all the others must as well in their vocations.
Priests are human beings, after all. I think the same about homosexual men who are husbands and fathers.
If for some reason you got to the altar through the laying on of hands and the prayer of the bishop, you are a priest forever. You have to figure out what to do about that. You will be a priest forever in Hell, too, if you misuse what God gave you. “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
I remember reading, decades ago, a chapter from the pen of a saint about men who determine after ordination that they made a mistake, or they connived to get ordained for less than proper reasons. They didn’t have a true vocation. It’s a conundrum: If they are ordained, they had a vocation… in a sense. Could such men be saved? Must they leave the priesthood? Again it was decades ago, but I remember how the saint – maybe Joseph Cafasso? – essentially said, “Man up. You’ve made your choice. Conform yourself to the choice. You have to conform yourself to priesthood. Suffer and go forward and you can get to heaven.”
Getting to heaven is the overriding goal. And, by comparison, life is really short.
Tick… Tick… Tick…
“But Father! But Father!”, the worldly weak-kneed moan, “All the talk about suffering and sacrifice is triggering me! You are making me feel bad and that’s against Vatican II. Priests – of every gender – are for people! They are supposed to be affirming and nice, not mean like YOU. You’re mean and you hate people because YOU HATE VATICAN II!”
The priest is a priest “for people”, yes. We hear that so often today it has become like the meaningless bump of a needle stuck on a record… an image that dates me, for sure. Yes, the priest is “for people”. The priest is, however, even more fundamentally for himself. A principle reason why a man says “Yes” is because He wants to do God’s will, without which he puts his own eternal salvation at risk. Saying No! to God has produced bad results in the course of salvation history. Read the Old Testament. Every affliction of God’s people results from their saying No to God’s will.
The priest must confirm himself to the altar to which he is inextricably bound. Priesthood is for sacrifice. Talking about priesthood without mentioning sacrifice is pointless, which is precisely what a lot of chatter about priesthood is today. These days, priests are all about making people feel good about themselves. NO. Priesthood is – first and foremost – for offering sacrifice. Priests of Jesus Christ, the true Priest, are simultaneously the one raising the offering and also the sacrificial offering himself. His whole being is now guided by being priest and victim.
This is the sort of realism that lead Augustine of Hippo to rough up his congregations when they went wrong because he wanted them to get to heaven. Whether they listened or not, he didn’t want to lose heaven for himself by neglecting to preach the hard stuff. It was his vocation to preach whatever it took to get them to heaven. Then Augustine, as priest/victim said, “Nolo salvus esse sine vobis… I don’t want to be saved without you.” That is the work of the priest/victim. He would do what it took to help them to heaven, even if that meant making them temporarily angry with him. He put them before himself.
But…. whining about being a misunderstood gay. ME ME ME! It’s all about ME!
Fail.
So, men, shut up and sacrifice. If you can’t, there’s the door.
Finally, you men out there who are in this “should I stay or should I go” situation. Before anything else, review yourself. I would ask: Do you have a devotion to Mary? Do you include devotion to Mary, Queen of Priests in your life? Should you, perhaps, before you do anything rash – like a) whine about the priesthood and your gay-ness or b) quit the priesthood because of your gay-ness – give Marian devotion a shot?
Ask Christ’s mother, your mother, to help you.
Thus the rant endeth.
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