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In Reply to: Re Catholic Church & Abuse posted by Rocky on August 16, 2002 at 23:46:08:
One of my largest clients is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. I end up with access to some of the top Priests and lay people in the Diocese. As a result, there are a lot of lunches and dinners where things become more casual and we have some fairly interesting and detailed conversations.
I would absolutely agree with what you have to say regarding the number of offending Priests being small compared to the number of active clergy.
I am also happy that Cardinal Mahoney adopted a zero tolerance policy for the L.A. Archdiocese that had much stronger wording than the one adopted by the US Catholic Bishops Conference.
One thing that has been made an issue of here in the US is that the vast majority of victims here have not been children. They have been adolescents. Teenage boys to be exact.
Being a hetrosexual male with a degree in Theatre, I had very interesting teen years. There is a very high concentration of homosexual males in Theatre, expecially in the Hollywood area where I did most of my performing. I definately developed very accurate "gaydar". This skill has stayed with me years after parting ways with the entertainment community in order to make a living.
The one place I found my gaydar going off as often as it used to at cast parties was while walking the halls of the Archdiocese.
I meet a huge number of gay Priests. I'm not talking about slightly effeminate men, I'm talking about Liberace, should have been born a woman, Judy Garland loving flaming queens.
I have to wonder if we are calling them Pedophiles, when they are really something else? There are few if any children under twelve, and almost no girls reporting.
I'm not trying to say that this isn't a terrible crime. But, I'm wondering if they might be trying to fix the wrong problem?
In a recent column in "The Tidings", which is the official newspaper of the Archidocese of Los Angeles, there was the following statment:
"A few priests have privately observed that, if this were actually to happen [expulsion of gay Priests], the Roman Catholic Church might lose two-thirds of its priests under the age of 45 and some bishops as well. At the same time, many of its seminaries could be emptied of all but a handful of students."
Full article at:
http://www.the-tidings.com/2002/0405/essays.htm
