What an excruciating week for the Catholic Church. The de-frocking of former prominent American Francis McCarrick, the publishing of a salacious book on homosexuality in the Church, the summit on the protection of minors being held this week are some of the topics in the news.
The Vatican promised in October last year in regard to the McCarrick case that “Both abuse and its cover-up can no longer be tolerated and a different treatment for Bishops who have committed or covered up abuse, in fact represents a form of clericalism that is no longer acceptable,” However a founding member of the advocacy group Ending Clergy Abuse, Peter Isely, contended that Pope Francis is “facing resistance” from top Vatican officials as he prepares to convene bishops from around the world. He said. “Until there’s accountability, until people see bishops and cardinals who have been demonstrated to have covered up these crimes and let children be harmed suffer consequences and punishment, this is never going to be resolved.”
The problem of Vatican intransigence can be illustrated by the utterances of the German Cardinal Brandmüller who recently provoked anger and controversy when he claimed the Catholic church was not responsible for sexual abuse by its clerics. He blamed a “vanishingly small number” of homosexual clergy claiming it is “statistically proven” that there is a link between homosexuality and abuse.
Frederic Martel however claims in his soon to be published book ‘In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy’, that a great number of the clergy in the Vatican are homosexual and it is this that has lead to a culture of secrecy. He claimed that, especially since the time of Pope Paul VI, Vatican culture has not only covered up the homosexuality of cardinals and bishops but also led many of them to protect abusers of minors because they did not want their own sexual histories to be revealed. He goes on to claim that cardinals and bishops who make the strongest condemnations of homosexuality are more likely to be gay themselves: he describes this as part of their attempt to cover up who they really are. The Rev James Martin, a bestselling Jesuit author tweeted that the book is “bound to shift attention away from child abuse and onto gay priests in general, once again falsely conflating in people’s minds homosexuality and paedophilia”.
Our institute recognizes the need to explore the issues of current Catholic teaching in regard to homosexuality and is preparing a research project http://www.wijngaardsinstitute.com/gender-theologies-lgbt-catholics-questions/ The goal of this research project is to provide the Catholic hierarchy with a critical evaluation of the arguments behind official Catholic teaching on LGBT people and relationships.
For more information click here http://www.wijngaardsinstitute.com/wiki/gender-lgbt-catholicism/ |
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