BOISVERT & GOSS: Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Sexual Misconduct: breaking the silence

Breaking the Silence

Explores the issue of homoeroticism in Catholic culture and the controversy surrounding clerical sexual misconduct.

This timely and compelling collection critically analyzes the official Roman Catholic hierarchy's attitude toward homosexual clergy. Inspired by Mark Jordan's controversial The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, the essays-edited by Boisvert (dean of students, Concordia Univ.) and Goss (pastor, MCC Church) and written by leading scholars and religious practitioners-attempt to debunk the myth that gay priests are pedophiles and are responsible for the moral decline of modern Catholic values. In fact, this refreshingly positive assessment of gay American Catholic priests attempts to reverse the present atmosphere of suspicion and redirect the blame at hypocrisy while giving voice to victims. Hard-hitting, articulate, and characterized by a prophet's righteousness, these sound essays are essential reading for both clergy and laity trying to come to terms with the recent sex abuse scandals. A wonderfully enlightened read; recommended for academic and public libraries.-John-Leonard Berg, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Platteville

1. Celibate Men, Ambivalent Saints, and Games of Desire Donald L. Boisvert
2. Naming the Mechanisms of Self-Deception: A cAll to Liberation for Gay Roman Catholic Clergy David M. Mellott
3. Speaking Loud or Shutting Up: The Homosexual -Type Problem Edward J.Ingebretsen
4. Silencing Sodom Chuck Colbert
5. Anglican Bodies: The Gift of Heretical Liminality and the Risk of relaxed Vigilance Jay Emerson Johnson
6. Duplicity Writ Large Mary E. Hunt
7. Always a Bride, Never a Groom Robert F Goss
8. Pandora's Gauntlet: Curiosity Enough to Care and Hope Enough to Question Marie Cartier
9. A Welcome Voice Breaks the Silence in an Exclusively Male Clerical Tradition Lorine M Getz
10. Where Have all the Young Girls Gone? Mary Ann Tolbert
11. Breaking the Silence in Public: A Case Study Michael Kelly
12. Those Troubling Gay Priests Bernard Schlager
13. Lessons from our Neighbours: An Appreciation and a Query to Mark Jordan Karen Lebacqz
14. Neither do I: A Meditation on Scapegoating William Glenn
15. Catholicism and a Crisis of Intimate Relations Edward J. Ingebretsen
16. After Silence Mark D. Jordan

BOISVERT: Out on Holy Ground

Boisvert, Donald L.

Out on Holy Ground

Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality

(Pilgrim Press, 2001)

Catholic, Spirituality, Gay Male.

From Google Books:

"Is gay spirituality a genuine type of religious expression, or is it simply another example of identity politics? Since the onset of the AIDS epidemic that has disproportionately struck their community, gay men have published a wide range of materials, from autobiographies to theologies, that ask, What is gay spirituality as a religious expression in North America? The first book to weave together these various strands into an organized response, "Out On Holy Ground" culls information from diverse sources both within and outside religious institutions. Gay scholar Donald Boisvert presents his findings topically as theology, myths and symbols, rituals, and spiritual culture to paint a compelling portrait of gay spirituality as a serious cultural expression. "Out On Holy Ground" takes the conversation about gay spirituality to the next level so we can understand spirituality as a pivotal factor in the development of gay identity."

FRAWLEY–O’DEA: Perversion of Power

Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

"If one could have only one book on the sexual abuse crisis in the United States Catholic Church Frawley–O’Dea’sPerversion of Power would be the top choice. This book is a comprehensive summary and analysis of the data available at this time. She summarizes the John Jay Survey (2/27/04) commissioned by the United States bishops and used by them as the definitive word on clergy abuse and a justification for calling the disaster over. But O’Dea puts that claim and other clerical rationalizations, denials, and deceptions to the test.

She writes convincingly because she has a command of the facts plus the psychological and analytic skills to spotlight the vagaries of the complicated institutional and personal distortions and suffering at the heart of the catastrophic situation of clergy violating children and the vulnerable and the authorities in charge excusing, covering up, and participating in schemes that cheat believers and society of honest leadership and protection. As one reviewer summed up the book’s message, “there is no more hypocritical and perverse exploitation of power than the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.”

This book is of lasting value because it reports an epic crisis in context, makes it understandable, and challenges the fundamental misconceptions that produced the calamity in the first place and keep structures in place that will repeat another crisis if not adequately met with the insight and experience even now available. The author provides a vade mecum for those who want to understand abuse of the vulnerable and protect children from the domination and abuse of dangerously powerful forces"

- Richard Sipe

GREGOIRE, Lucien: White Light, Dark Night

The Revolutionary Life of Pope John Paul I

A biography of the "Smiling Pope", John Paul I, including discussion of his support for gay adoption, civil unions.

"The only existing biography of the 33 Day Pope. It is the record of his struggles as an impoverished child, as a revolutionary priest, as an outspoken bishop, as a compassionate cardinal and as a beloved pope. It is the record of his philosophies, and of his hopes, and of his dreams, for mankind. For twenty years as a bishop, he was a rampaging locomotive running about the courts and Parliament of Italy demanding equal rights for oppressed peoples. In 1967, faced by an orphan population of two million in Italy, it was his lobbying in Italian Parliament that made it legal for single persons to adopt children. An opposition member challenged, "That would make it legal for homosexuals to adopt children," Bishop Luciani, responded, "Until the day comes that we can guarantee equal human rights and dignity to the tiniest minority, we cannot truthfully call ourselves a democracy." His intentions concerning bastards, women, homosexuals, etc. was quite evident in his acceptance speech, ." . . we must rise up the courage within us to set aside the convictions of our forefathers and together we will muster the strength to lift those restraints that have been unfairly placed by doctrine upon the everyday lives of many innocent people . . . for God-given human life is infinitely more precious than is man-made doctrine . . ." On the evening of September 26, 1978, he called together the Vatican cardinals. He told them "The Church's ban on contraception is the driving force behind disease, poverty and starvation in third world countries and abortions in first world countries." . . .He told them one thing more. "Mother Church is about to cease to be the cause of many of the world's problems and rather will begin to be the answer to them." "

On his homepage, J.S. O'Leary quotes from Wikipedia on JPI, noting that the "White Night, Dark Light" is their source:

Sexual orientation

In 1941, he wrote a thesis, Strategy of a Strange War (currently in the Apostolic Library), in which he discussed human sexuality after observing the sexual behavior of Italian prisoners. He concluded that sexual orientation was essentially unchangeable, and that it was not uncommon for heterosexual male prisoners to engage in same-sex acts, thus illustrating a distinction between sexual behavior and sexual orientation. During his time as Patriarch of Venice he became particularly outspoken on issues of sexuality, and controversially advocated greater tolerance and acceptance in the Church for gay men and women.

LGBT adoption

He permitted the adoption of children from orphanages in his diocese by homosexual couples reasoning in a letter to a colleague, "that we have found that homosexuals will take handicapped and less than healthy and attractive children. Most importantly they will take bastards." It was his lobbying in the Italian Parliament that made it legal for single persons to adopt children in Italy, directly accepting that this would include homosexuals. In a letter to his mother he bemoaned that "There is something terribly wrong with a society that thinks one's sex is what makes one a good parent".

Gay civil unions

Before his death Pope Paul VI even permitted Luciani to address the Vatican cardinals on the possibility that the Church might encourage homosexuals to enter into long-term loving relationships. This received a poor reception, but in conclusion he stated that :

"The day is not far off when we will have to answer to these people who through the years have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose human dignity has been offended, their identity denied and their liberty oppressed. What is more we will have to answer to the God who created them".

(However, J.S. O'Leary then describes this source as "of doubtful value", without explanation.

Wikipedia cites a source of doubtful value: Lucien Gregoire, White Light,Dark Night, London, 2007.

Still, as the only existing biography of a Pope who in his brief tenure signalled by any standards a markedly different direction on homosexuality to that taken by his successors, we should consider this evidence seriously, even as we weigh the it with care.)

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JORDAN: The Silence of Sodom

Jordan, Mark D.

The Silence of Sodom

Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism

University of Chicago Press, 2000

322 pages

Catholic, Catholic Church, homosexuality, gay male

This is one I immensely enjoyed reading. It is scholarly, but also immensely readable and indeed fun, even if it has a serious message. It is one I expect to re-read and dip into frequently, and have no hesitation in recommending.

QTC strong recommendation

From the back cover:

"The past decade has seen homosexual scandals in the Catholic Church becoming ever more visible as the Vatican's directives on homosexuality become ever more forceful, begging the question Mark D. Jordan tries to answer here: how can the Catholic Church be at once so homophobic and so homoerotic? His analysis is a keen and readable study of the tangled relationship between male homosexuality and modern Catholism."

"Jordan gives readers with open minds a better appreciation of the intrinsic homosexual fixation, as well as homoerotic imagination, of the Roman Catholic church. His scholarship deserves serious consideration by faithful Catholics in America."

- Chuck Colbert, National Catholic Reporter

"Jordan knows how to present a case, and with apparently effortless clarity he demonstrates the church's double bind and how it afffects Vatican rhetoric, the training of priests, and ecclesiastical protectiveness toward an array of closet cases......this book will interest readers of every faith."

- Daniel Blue, Lambda Book Report

(See also the Wild Reed, "Officially homophobic, intensely homoerotic".)

Reviews on-line:

Bob Minor, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas (Reviewed at "Other Sheep")

Chuck Colbert (in The National Catholic Reporter, reprinted at "Other Sheep")

Contents / Synopsis

Acknowledgements

The Pope

Converts: Imagination, Bureaucracy,

Silence.

In this introductory chapter the author imagines a scenario in which the Pope unexpectedly realises the wrong that has been done by the Church to homosexuals over centuries, and decides to correct this wrong. He (the Holy Father) then asks “What is required for the thorough correction of the teachings?” In the rest of the chapter, Jordan attempts to answer this question, and outlines the plan of the book.

CHURCH WORDS

In the first full section, Jordan examines “the church’s bureaucratic speech about sexual morality”. His thesis here is that there is little point in attempting to ‘argue’ about, or demonstrate the error of, Catholic sexual teaching.instad, we shuld analyse the rhetorical style. This is because that style is not about rational argument, but about a kind of rhetorical bullying – substituting repetition from assumed authority in place of reasoned debate.

Teaching by Threatening

Bureaucratic Morals

CHURCH LIVES

In his second section, Jordan looks beyond the words of the Church on male homosexuality, and looks instead at the actual practice of the Church – which presents a very different picture. In doing so, he finds that “in its institutional arrangements, in fragments of history, and in unspoken but widely known features of clerical culture” lies an “enormous churchly science of male homoeroticism, a long institutional experimentation with it.”

Living Inside

Memoirs of Priestly Sodomy

Reproducing “Father”

Clerical Camp

CHURCH DREAMS

In his final section, Jordan considers strategies for hope for gay Catholics in the Church now. What, he asks, are the real choices open to them while they wai for the Church “to begin articulating mature teachings about their lives?”

Reiteration, or the Pleasures of Obedience

Repentance, or Schools for New Speech

Notes

Works Cited

Index

KUNG Hans: The Catholic Church

A Short History

The renowned theologian and historian presents a landmark history of the Roman Catholic Church, from its origins to the present day, that discusses the role of the papacy, the schisms that split the church, and the role of the Catholic Church in the twenty-first century as it confronts issues of women's rights, scientific development, and more. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

POMFRET: Since My Last Confession

Pomfret, Scott:

Since My Last Confession

Arcade Publishing, 2008

288 pages

Catholic, gay male, Church practice, Gay Marriage, Memoir

"From same-sex marriage rallies to pedophile priest scandals, 'Since my Last Confession' maps with matchless humour the full spectrum of the gay catholic experience- from one end of the rainbow to the other. Listen in as Scott learns a thing or two about love and compassion from Father McSlutty. a promiscuous gay priest; Jezebel, Scott's ultra-Catholic sister-in-law; Father Bear-Daddy, the Shrine's hirsute holy terror; and the three Hale Marys. Then join Scott on his brave crusade to convince his arch-nemesis, Cardinal O/Malley, to invite him to serve at a weekly Mass.

Along the way, you'll learn how to detect a gay Catholic, how to get excommunicated from the comfort of your living room in three easy steps, why the sabbath should be on Friday (Sunday is for brunch) , and what a nice erotic writer is doing in a mean church like this. "

- From the cover flap.

"A heartbreaking cry of pain and a delicious howl of laughter, Since My Last Confession is a complete delight. Trying to make sense of the insane, hypocritical and murdersously ironic stances the Catholic Church takes - often articulated by gay, sexually active, priests - Pomfret isn't a recovering Catholic - it's the benighted men who ahve so sadly mismanaged the roman Catholic Church who are going to have to recover from this funny, heartfelt and insightful memoir."

- Michael Bronski, author Pulp Friction

"An extraordinary mixture of sheer love, tender-heartedness, cussedness, and hilarity that delivers in spades."

- James Alison, Catholic priest, theologian and author Faith Beyond Resentment.

Reviews:

My own review at Queering the Church

User reviews from Google books:

User Review - Josh Kilmer-Purcell, best-selling author of I Am Not Myself These Days

Scott Pomfret is the patron saint of devilish wit. With unabashed introspection that borders on the sacrilegious, Since My Last Confession artfully demonstrates a heartfelt faith in God and humanity that, frankly, the world could use a lot more of. Really a great read.

User Review - Philadelphia City Paper

With a wicked sense of humor . . . Pomfret mines his religion for all that it's worth. And, as any semi-practicing Catholic can attest, there's plenty of material. . . . Of course, there are many serious moments, too.

ROBINSON: Confronting Power & Sex in the Catholic Church

Robinson, Bishop Geoffrey.

Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.

Reclainming the Spirit of Jesus

Bishop Robinson was the lead person in the Australiuan Bishops' response to the scandal of clerical abuse in that country, an experience that he found harrowing. After his retirement from active ministry, he found the freedom to write this reflection on his experience and conclusions - in which he found that part of the problem lies right in the heart of the institutional strucutures of the Catholic church, with its unremitting insistence on compulsory celibacy, and overly centralised, hierarchical power strucutres which fail to implement the clear directives of Vatican II.

This thoughtful and thought provoking book goes right to the heart of the problem, and is strongly recommended.

"Drawing on his own experience in responding to abuse, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in this explosive work methodically offers a critique of the church's use and misuse of power, from the pope proclaiming infallibly down to the preacher claiming a divine authority for every word spoken from the pulpit. Going back to the Bible and, above all, to the teaching of Jesus, he presents an approach to sexual morality that is profound, compassionate, and people-centered. He stresses the priority of the hierarchy of holiness over the hierarchy of power. He offers nothing less than a vision for a church of the third millennium--a church that wants to see in its members the responsibility appropriate to adults rather than the obedience appropriate to children and wants to help all people to grow to become all they are capable of being. You will love or hate this book but not be able to remain neutral."

SIPE, A.W.R: Sex, Priests and Power

Anatomy of a Crisis

From every corner of this country and from countires around the world, reports of sexual abuse, exploitation, and ongoing sexual misconduct by Catholic priests have appeared in every major newspaper, magazine, and TV and Radio talk show. What was first denied by church officials finally turned into a deluge of overwhelming evidence played out in legal settlements and courtrooms. Richard Sipe startled the world in 1990 with his controversial book,A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy, which presented evidence of sexual activity by almost 50% of the Roman Catholic priesthood. In this book, Richard Sipe examines the continuing sexual crisis facing the Catholicm Church today. Has the storm of publicity and controvery caused the church to acknowledge any of the accusations? Will the church accept statistical evidence or alter the way in which it trains its clergy? How has it come to grips with reforming or retraining abusers? Has it acknowledged the spread of AIDS among its ranks?Why does the church oppress women and react with hostility and fear towards them?Sex, Priests, andPower: Anatomy of a Crisisaddresses these and other questions. The book substantiates its conclusions with many vivid and chilling stories of sexual abuse by clergy against children, women, and members of its own ranks... * Father James Porter victimized 200 children between 1960-1972 while an active parish priest. * A 52-year-old priest, under the guise of family friend and tutor, sexually abused two sisters for two years. They were ages six and eight at the start of the abuse. * A priest who teaches high school seeks out a sophomore student for a homosexual liaison. After two years he ends the relationship in favor of a new sophomore love interest. The priest has honed this continuing pattern of sexual exploitation to perfection. Not simply satisified with exposing the epic crisis, Richard Sipe analyzes the structure underlying the church's celibate/sexual system andpoiints out unsolved problems with the current teachings. He calls for an honest, open discussion of sexuality and celibacy within the church and offers a refined description of the practice. Sex, Priests, and Poweris an invitation to exorcise the demons that threaten to engulf a mighty institution. Richard Sipe argues convincingly for an honest examination of the power structure of the Catholic Church and a thorough search for the factors that diminish and distort religion.

Reviews:

by Anson Shupe, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne