A Tough Call for Conservative Anglicans: Openly Gay Clergy, or Closeted Pedophiles?
Big news for Christians today: the Catholic Church has announced a special deal to entice Anglicans who are unhappy with their church's acceptance of openly gay clergy to break from their church and "enter full communion with the Catholic Church."
It's sort of like when professional athletes become "free agents" and rival teams try to entice them away from their current team with lucrative contract offers. And just as in sports, the Pope's offer is geared primarily to wooing the "franchise players" -- bishops who could bring entire parishes or even whole dioceses onto the Catholic roster. The hope is that these guys will bring a lot more than their souls, like, for example, their church buildings and the land the buildings sit on.
Assets like these would come in handy for the Catholics, who have been paying out hundreds of millions of dollars settling lawsuits brought by Catholics who were sexually molested by Catholic priests when they were children. Just yesterday the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Del. announced it had filed for bankruptcy to limit its liability in a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits.
So now all those disgruntled Episcopalians have a choice to make: stay on the team that accepts openly gay priests, or bolt for another team run by closeted homosexual pedophiles. It's a tough call. The Catholics offer some real advantages. Since Catholic priests are technically in the closet, their parishioners can still pretend that their church isn't run by a bunch of queers. And there have been just enough lawsuits concerning sexual abuse of females by Catholic clergy to sustain the hope that not all Catholic clergy are homosexual. And then there is always the chance that one's own kid will get hit on by a priest. Those sexual molestation lawsuits are being settled at about one million dollars per child. That is serious money, and these are hard times. A guy can pay off his mortgage and put his kids through college with money like that.
The Anglicans can't match any of that. The mountains of media coverage of out gay clergy have made it impossible for Anglicans to feign ignorance of the sexual proclivities of the people teaching their kids Sunday school. And now that all those queer Anglican clergy can act on their sexual desires with consenting adults, don't expect many of those kids at Sunday school to cash in on sexual abuse litigation.
So, just how many Anglicans are there who are appalled at the thought of openly gay clergy but not particularly bothered by priests who are closeted pedophiles? Only time will tell...
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It's with a very heavy heart that I have decided that this last action of the presiding Pope has done me in for the Church. I am leaving.
They may be gaining some bigoted and misguided Anglicans, but they've lost this cradle-catholic and many members of my family.
Until the last couple of generations here in the west, the church had been for centuries the western institution most hospitable to many gay men. It was often all-male, rewarded the kind of people and language skills which many gay men appear to have in abundance, would stop your mother nagging about marriage & kids, and the outfits were as good as the army's. That's a pretty good deal, or was.
Only suddenly everything has changed. The opening up of better roles for gays in mainstream society has taken from the most inviting to among the most gay hostile environments. In fact, it's impossible not to understand the church's hostility to equal marriage except with this lense. If gays can marry, where will the church find priests when Poland and the Phillipines run out?
The closeted gays can have the homophobes. Archbishop Tutu should stay with the rainbow church. The Anglicans can counteract this by taking in the Druids and Buddhists.
"And now that all those queer Anglican clergy can act on their sexual desires with consenting adults, don't expect many of those kids at Sunday school to cash in on sexual abuse litigation."
Gay men do not prey on children when there are no available adults.
Mr. Ostertag should apologize and correct this assertion. It is a despicable, hateful lie.
It's sexual ignorance. It wasn't too long ago that public school systems promoted this.
Since your Bio doesn't list humorist I have to assume that your comments are uninformed rather than a badly executed attempt at humor.
To suggest that it is current practice for the Catholic Church to shelter pedophiles is completely bogus. Every priest that has ever been found to be in a child mollestation case has been retired from service. As a volunteer I am required to be fingerprinted, background checked, and go through an annual training on precautions regarding child abuse. My volunteerism? I lead the adult choir.
The cases that have made so many headlines are vitrually all from the 60's through 80's, when phychologists believed that therapy could condition people to reist imporper sexual attractions.
Statistics show that pedophillia is not radically higher among Catholic priests than clergy of other religions. The reason why there is so much attention to the Catholic Church is that they have a central authority assigning clergy to parishes so there are records and a central authority to sue. When there is a scandal among other churches there is a quick resignation, the elders of the former parish keep it quiet, and the former pastor applies at some other church. It's the same problem, but with nobody worth suing. There also isn't a huge difference in the occurence of pedophillia among clergy and the population as a whole.
DRaymond,
Yes you are right...The Catholic Church has instituted rules and regulations. I know of this because, for a while, my Mother who was all of 70 something taugh Confirmation Class for a few years.
I'm sure you have noticed the general level of ignorance about Christians here and especially about Catholics and our church.
But we must always try to forgive.
hey, we're all happy that the churches (all the churches, not just the ones in question) have started investing in actual procedures and regulations that actually treat pedophiles as criminals. Yay for the saintly christians!
But we can't help noticing that it took centuries to come around, and more importantly, billions of dollars in lawsuits to finally convince the organizations in question to think that they might not be above the law, let alone find the obvious moral high ground here.
But fear not! We also notice that nobody within the organization who have quietly let it continue in the past, compliant in the crime...decade after decade, has been prosecuted for these despicable crimes either. Nor ever will, it seems.
And how has the catholic church, to take just one example, responded to "correct" the problem? Why, to focus on the obvious! Lets try to remove gays from entering the clergy, because gay = pedophile.
Talk about missing the target! Have these people ever read a study on sexuality?
I'm truly amazed anyone can defend these actions by such organizations. If we were talking about international daycare companies involved in similar crimes, the entire lot of them would be bankrupt, in jail and the public wouldn't accept anything less. Somehow the title "church" gives a free pass to not only piss on the victims, but piss on a completely unrelated minority, all the while skipping away from the life in prison they so justly deserve.
A Tough Call for Conservative Anglicans: Openly Gay Clergy, or Closeted Pedophiles? I'm not even going to read the article with a headline like that;. So if gay men can openly date other gay men then naturally they'ii turn to children?
*sigh*
If you're not going to read an article, then by all means please feel free to comment upon it. I would hate for you to hide ignorant opinions away when they could be aired for all to see.
Sorry but that headline implies that gay clergy who aren't allowed to be open about it will naturally turn to sex with children. Frankly I've had enough of that crap.
Or, go to a church that doesn't require it's clergy to be celibate. Option #3!
Another intelligent idea? Shows how much you really know.
No, hoopesaz is on to something. People could always go to another Protestant denomination.
At least the churches are loving in some way or another, whether with kids or adults, not kick the curb. Not like US armies killing women and children in Iraq and Afganstan or Israeli armies killing innocent children in Gaza.
Zing!
You've hit it. Exactly.
Sorry, Bob. I see words but I don't see wit or currency here.
Can I lend you an eraser?
Sometimes, like after reading something like this, all I can think is,
"it's good to be an Atheist!"
Now I realize you are a pretty decent guy:)
Hey, I don't pick on people I don't consider worthy :-)
And, yeah, I admit, sometimes I pick on ya cause you're fun to challenge :-))
Thanks Bob, great blog.
A similar issue is rattling around in the Lutheran community. Perhaps the Pope will reach out to Luther's flock soon...
For years the idea of Christendom collectively rejoining has been not just a topic of lazy discussion over wine but of actual intent.
This is one of the more visible real steps.
And I applaud The Pope for doing so.
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