It Was Homosexual Abuse

Yes, there have been cases of heterosexual abuse, but the overwhelming majority of the cases in the Church were of homosexual ephebophilia, not paedophilia as the media likes to claim.

From Crisis

By Austin Ruse

Leftists deny the mountain of demographic data that draws a strong link between homosexuality and abuse of minors in the Church.

The Catholic squad of the Sexual Left insists you agree that the priest sex abuse scandal has nothing to do with homosexuality. Nothing whatsoever. To say that the priest sex abuse scandal has anything to do with homosexuality is nothing short of “othering” and even homophobic violence. 

They say this over against a mountain of demographic data reported by researchers connected to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that draws a strong link between homosexuality and abuse of minors in the Church. But it’s not just the Catholic New Left denying this connection; even the report’s authors deny their own data. 

All of this has come to the fore again with the election of Archbishop Timothy Broglio as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Four years ago, Archbishop Broglio said, in an email, there is “no question that the crisis of sexual abuse by priests in the USA is directly related to homosexuality.” He reiterated this a few weeks ago when questioned by a reporter: “I think it’s certainly an aspect of the sexual abuse crisis that can’t be denied. I think it would certainly be naive to suggest that there is no relationship between them.”

But Archbishop Broglio is merely working from the data provided by John Jay College. According to their report, 100 percent of the perpetrators were male, and 80 percent of the victims were also male. 

Outrage from the Catholic New Left was immediate and vociferous. 

The heterodox National Catholic Reporter said the USCCB had elected an anti-Francis culture warrior. 

A leftist priest on Twitter said, “Catholic religious leaders who make the link between homosexuality and pedophilia know that there is no logical/rational link between the two. But it is an evil strategy to broaden the scope and the extent of the villanizaiton (sic) and hate of LBTQ folks.” 

A contributor to the Francisphile blog “Where Peter Is” said, “…the Catholic Church is obsessed with and tormented by homosexuality. It’s become very much a defining characteristic.”

I don’t know about you, but I cannot remember when I heard a sermon about homosexuality. The author continued, “Bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, and most altar servers are male. The Catholic Church is a *profoundly* homosocial environment. Of course, most abuse will be of men and boys. Theories of gay subversion of the priesthood are attempts to scapegoat.”

The always predictable Fr. James Martin wants us to believe that sexual abuse declined with greater numbers of homosexuals in the priesthood. But he was only quoting those “scholars” at John Jay. And the data does not bear out this silly claim. 

Fr. Paul Sullins, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at The Catholic University of America, looked at data gathered in a national survey by the Los Angeles Times in 2002. The data shows that before the 1950s, the percentage of homosexuals in the priesthood mirrored the percentage of homosexuals in the general population. By 1980, upward of 16 percent of the priesthood were homosexual. The number of abuse cases mirrored the growth of homosexuals in the priesthood. By 1980, upward of 16 percent of the priesthood were homosexual. The number of abuse cases mirrored the growth of homosexuals in the priesthood. Tweet This

The Catholic New Left uses various dodges to get around the quite damning data. They say that adult men on teen boys is not homosexual at all. They say it is a crime of mere access. Abuser priests chose teen boys because they were the only humans they had access to. If this claim seems absurd to you, it’s because it is. Some of them have compared the priest life to prison, where there are no women and some men act out homosexually. 

Do priests really have an access problem concerning women? Have any of these folks ever been to a Catholic parish? There are more women than men. There are more women than boys. Do parish priests have no access to women? There is a punch line I know, the setup of which I have forgotten: “Not bad for a priest in the suburbs without a car.” Even a priest in the suburbs without a car can do alright with the ladies if he is so inclined. He does not have to furtively fumble in the trousers of a teen boy unless he is so inclined, not because that’s all that’s available to him. 

The thing about the John Jay report and its authors is that they do not have the competence to determine that what motivated abuser priests was merely access. They are undoubtedly competent in gathering data, but it is strange that they would then ignore the data and conclude that the issue was access. This is passing strange unless they were working hard to protect the homosexual priesthood. 

There are other dodges they use to get around the data. First, there is the pedophilia dodge. Homophile priests and pundits have tried mightily to make this horrific situation about pedophilia in order to take the heat off of homosexual abusers. Pedophilia is about the sexual desires for a child who has not reached puberty. For boys, this is roughly 11. The overwhelming cases of abuse were perpetrated on males 14 and over. This is not pedophilia; it is damnable pederasty, something that has been celebrated in homosexual culture. 

Yet another dodge is “ephebophilia,” a sexual interest in those 15-19 years old. Oh no, they say, this is not about homosexuality; it is about something entirely different called ephebophilia. 

In my diocese, I am told the longtime vocations director would be quite direct with men enquiring about the priesthood. Among his first questions was about any homosexual experiences. This served as a warning that such attractions and behaviors are not welcome here. I served on my diocesan review board for quite some time. Though we had a few cases, it was nothing like other dioceses where the homosexual door swung wide. 

Certainly, clericalism has played a part in the scourge of priest sexual abuse. Unfortunately, too many homosexual abusers were protected by the institutional Church precisely because they were in the club. And perhaps this knowledge that they were protected encouraged even more abuse. But make no mistake, the abuse was almost entirely homosexual in nature; not access, not pedophilia, not ephebophilia.  

Does this data show that all priests suffering same-sex attraction are abusers? Not in the least. And we must show great sympathy for anyone who struggles with these desires. But it shows that anyone with a persistent homosexual identity might consider a different vocation.