Rod Dreher, editor of National Review Online writes: "Stephen Rubino, a New Jersey lawyer, says that of the over 300 alleged victims of priest sex abuse he has represented, roughly 85% are boys, and were teenagers when the abuse occurred. Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, an eminent Catholic psychiatrist who has treated scores of victims and priest-perpetrators, says 90% of his patients were either teen male victims or priests, or priests who abused teen boys." Because the victims are teenagers, this shows that the issue is not one of pedophilia as much as it is one of homosexuality.

Dreher goes on to say that the reluctance of bishops to call it a homosexual problem "arises, no doubt, partly out of a fear of antagonizing homosexual anti-defamation groups, who resent the stereotype of male homosexuals as pederasts. It's much safer to focus inquiry on the question of mandatory celibacy, or the issue of ordaining women...For journalists, to confront the issue is to risk touching the electrified third rail of American popular culture: the dark side of homosexulality....homosexual priests occupy positions of influence in the vast Catholic bureaucracy; and there seems little doubt that this is the case in the American Church."

Richard Sipe, a laicized priest and psychotherapist, after studying the issue for forty years and reviewing thousands of case histories, estimates that 30% of Catholic priests are homosexuals. He writes: "This is a system. This is a whole community. You have many good people covering it up. There is a network of power. A lot of seminary rectors and teachers are part of it, and they move to chancery-office positions, and on to bishoprics. It's part of the ladder of success."

Fr. Donald Cozzens, former rector of St. Mary's Seminary in Cleveland and author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood, puts the figure much higher (Donald B. Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, p. 101f). Confirming these results are the inordinate numbers of Catholic priests dying of AIDS - a rate much higher than that of normal male population. An extensive survey by the Kansas City Star revealed that, "there are at least 400 known deaths of priests from AIDS, and probably twice that number -- ranging from four times to eight times the rate in the general population." Two thirds of the priests interviewed said they knew at least one priest who had died of AIDS, and one third knew at least one priest living with it (January 2000: poll of 800 priests, Wills, p. 193).

Cozzens also reports of the "gay subculture" in many seminaries, and that the priesthood has become a "gay profession." Gay faculty and students put so much pressure on normal students that the latter are frequently forced to terminate their education and vocation. Supporting this, Thomas Fox, editor of The National Catholic Reporter, concluded from his interviews that, "In some cases there have been reports of predominately gay seminaries and homosexual climates within them that became so pronounced that heterosexual seminarians felt uneasy and ultimately left" (Sexuality and Catholicism, 1995, p. 177). Garry Wills states: "Gays themselves register the change. In a survey of 101 gay priests, those ordained before 1960 remember their seminary as having been 51 percent gay. Those ordained after 1981 say their seminaries were 70 percent gay" (Wills, p. 194).

Polls conducted by Richard Wagner (for a 1980 dissertation at the Institute of Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco) and James Wolf (Gay Priests, 1989) reveal the following statistics about homosexual priests: "...the Wagner respondents averaged 226 partners in sex...22% of them had over 500. Half of the Wagner sample, but three quarters of the Wolf one, knew they were gay before ordination. Those who knew by then that they were gay had experienced sex in the seminary, and some of their superiors knew it. They were allowed to proceed to ordination, perhaps (this is not clear) by complying with the judgment that this was 'just a phase' or a lapse...About a third of the priests' superiors know they are gay -- the same number whose parents know" (Wills, p. 195).

In 1982 the thoroughly footnoted and indexed book titled The Homosexual Network: Private Lives and Public Policy, authored by Catholic priest Enrique Rueda, documented the spread of homosexuality throughout the Catholic Church. Rueda also tells of the growing network of support groups, counseling referrals, newsletters, and organizations of homosexuals and pro-homosexuals in the Catholic churches of America. He reports that in the late 1970's a key staffer at the Office of Public Affairs and Information at the U.S. Catholic Conference/National Conference of Catholic Bishops was a leader of the Washington, D.C. homosexual movement, as well as president of Dignity/USA (the radical pro-homosexual clerical group). As for the NCCB, its originator, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, was himself accused of homosexuality. The three cases against him, and three other bishops, were quietly settled out of court. Francis Cardinal George, who replaced Bernardin in Chicago, although showing no signs of deviant activity himself, has sanctioned "gay masses" and has a "gay ministry" in his diocese. This only encourages the gays to think that their lifestyle is acceptable by Church standards. Bishop Robert Lynch, the former general secretary of the NCCB recently admitted that, after he "crossed the boundaries" of professional relationships with a male member of his staff, he also paid off the victim with $100,778 to keep him quiet about harassment charges (The Tampa Tribune, March 23, 2002).

What is also disheartening are some of the attitudes of individual Catholics. Newsweek reports that fully half (51%) of Catholics say they would attend a church with an "openly gay" priest; 44% are in favor of gay marriages; 39% would accept a gay priest in a committed relationship; and 56% are in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children (May 6, 2002, pp. 25, 29). If true, these statistics are appalling.

Quoting Louis Vitullo, 57, a Chicago lawyer educated in Catholic schools and a regular churchgoer: "I think what I'm interested in is a good priest, and I don't think a good priest is determined in any way, shape or form by his or her sexuality." Even William Donohue, the staunch pro-life defender, found himself indirectly defending gay priests when interviewed by Newsweek. Donohue stated: "I think the issue for them is whether he can live up to his vow of celibacy. I'd take a chaste gay priest any day over a promiscuous straight one" (May 6, 2002). Perhaps Donohue was caught in an off-key moment, nevertheless, his comment is totally irresponsible. Donohue poses the issue as if we only had two choices: (a) homosexual priests who don't engage in sexual acts, or (b) heterosexual priests who do engage in sexual acts, and thereby implies that we may have to choose one or the other -- the very argument that gay priests and their advocates use to justify themselves. For example, Mark Jordan, a professor of religion at Emory University and a gay Catholic states: "If there were no homosexuals in the priesthood, we would soon cease to have a functioning church" (Newsweek, May 6, 2002, p. 26). Obviously, the right choice is a heterosexual priest who refrains from all types of sexual activity. According to Michael Rose, there are plenty of those men available, but they have been systematically eliminated from Catholic seminaries by the homosexuals entrenched in the faculties. The bishops in charge of these seminaries, in the majority of cases, turn a blind eye to the decay.

Added to this is the plethora of books, written by Catholics, which have condoned homosexuality, attempting to base much of their adovcacy on the so-called "silence" of Scripture in condemning it. John McNeil, a Jesuit priest, wrote The Church and the Homosexual (1976), claiming that all the passages in Scripture which seem to condemn homosexuality can be explained in various ways which are not condemnatory. One of the more popular is that the only sin of the homosexuals in Sodom was their inhospitality toward the visiting angels (Newsweek, May 6, 2002, p. 26). This slanted interpretation has actually been around for many years and somehow survives even in the midst of its absurdity. I remember hearing it when I was a college student at GWU back in the late 70's. The homosexual guest who proposed the interpretation received instantaneous laughter from the rest of the class.

Recognizing its absurdity, some gay apologists have tried a different approach. McNeil's book was followed by the work of gay Catholic scholar John Boswell in book titled: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980). Boswell attempts to make a case that rape, not inhospitality, is the sin of the day at Sodom (pp. 92-99). Why? Because this explanation helps him neutralize the distinction between males and females. If the men of Sodom are merely seeking sexual satisfaction and are thus indiscriminate as to who their partner will be, then, as the reasoning goes, homosexuality cannot be the focus of the passage.

Never mind that the men of Sodom refused to have sex with Lot's daughters and demanded that the men be given to them. Boswell thinks he has a way of escaping this dilemma. He points to the incident in Judges 19:22ff in which the owner of the house, confronted with the same demands Lot faced in Sodom (i.e., to have sex with the male visitor), offers his virgin daughter to the men instead. Because the men take the daughter and rape her, Boswell concludes that the only sin involved here is rape. Of course, he fails to mention that the rape of the daughter, although certainly a sin, was merely an inadvertent event in contrast to their actual desire to have homosexual relations with the male guest -- an act outrightly condemned by the owner of the house as an "evil thing" (Judges 19:23).

Prior to Boswell's book was Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (1955) by Anglican Derrick Bailey. The major claim of all three books (McNeil, Boswell, and Bailey) is that St. Paul's condemnations of homosexuality were not directed at the homosexual orientation itself but against heterosexuals committing the "perversion" of homosexual acts! In other words, those who already admitted they had an orientation toward homosexuality would not be sinning if they followed through with their inclinations because they were being true to their calling. They would paraphase St. Paul's wording in 1 Corinthians 7:18, 24 as: "Was any man called as a homosexual? Let him not become a heterosexual....Let each man remain with God in that condition in which he was called." The only ones sinning would be the heterosexuals who became homosexuals and thereby deserted their original calling. As one with any common sense can see, this kind of interpretation is as perverse as the sin they carry. We should expect nothing more from such perverted "exegetes."

Of the explicit commands in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13-14 against "men lying with men," Boswell, followed by Robin Scroggs (The New Testament and Homosexulity, 1983) claim that since the context is condemning the mixing of diverse objects, these are purely ritualistic prohibitions germane to the cult of Israel, but have little to do with the non-ritualistic context of New Testament times. This, of course, is as absurd as the above interpretation. In Leviticus 18 there is no "ritualistic" context. From the beginning of the context (Lev. 18:1) till the end (Lev. 18:30) there is no "ritual" mentioned. All the prohibitions in Leviticus 18 refer to prohibitions against any illicit sex. That these laws are not merely "ritualistic" commands for the cult of Israel is made very clear in verses 24-25 as Moses indicates that the surrounding nations, who did not have the "ritual" laws of Israel, had already been judged for the same sexual perversions:

"Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants."

The same is true of Leviticus 20:1-27. There are no cultic ritual commands in the text. Each command deals only with illicit sexual behavior. The only command that deviates from this is that which condemns the use of "mediums and spiritists" (Lev 20:6, 27), but that applied to all peoples. Identical to Leviticus 18:24-25, we have the same indication in Leviticus 20:23 that the surrounding nations, which did not practice the rituals of Israel, had already been judged for engaging in perverted sexual practices, including homosexuality. In other words, the prohibitions of illicit sex are not confined to Israel. They are universal in scope.

Scroggs might also have something to do with the current trend among certain Catholic bishops to separate male pedophilia from male homosexuality. Coming to the New Testament, Scroggs posits that the traditional reference to homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9 is really a condemnation of pedophilia. Appealing to the ancient Greek philosopher Philo, she writes: "...Thus it is clear that when Philo reads the general laws in his Bible against male homosexuality he is thinking entirely about the cultural manifestation in his own environment [pederasty]" (The New Testament and Homosexuality, p. 88). Of course, she doesn't explain why she considers Philo the only authority on the subject, nor does she admit that even though Philo is adamant in condemning pederasty it does not mean that he would have given a free license to homosexuality. Needless to say, Scroggs' logic is typical of homosexuals who are looking for the slightest loophole in Scriptural injunctions in order to give themselves social legitimacy.

Unfortunately, Scroggs tries the same exegetical tricks with the most formidable passage in the New Testament against homosexuality, Romans 1:24-32. She again claims that the issue is pederasty, not homosexuality. For the added difficulty of lesbianism mentioned in Romans 1:26 ("For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural"), Scroggs claims that this refers to female pederasty, "because Philo spoke of pederasty in his Contemplative Life" (Scroggs, p. 115). Again, why Scroggs deems Philo as the final authority on the meaning of Romans 1 she does not say. The mere fact that Philo mentions pederasty as a sin among the clergy is enough for Scroggs to conclude that homosexuality simply never entered the mind of St. Paul as a sin against God. These convenient applications and dismissals permeate the literature among homosexual and lesbian authors.

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