Priests in gay clubs further embarrass Catholic Church

Catholic priests in Rome are said to be making nocturnal visits to gay bars, further embarrassing a church enmeshed in one of the biggest sex scandals in ecclesiastical history.

According to Euronews.net, “Alleged homosexual encounters involving three clerics are captured on camera in an undercover report by the conservative Panorama magazine.” Panorama, which is owned by the Italian prime minister and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, says the church has reacted by asking gay priests to come out of the closet and then leave the priesthood. “Homosexuality is a sensitive issue for the Roman Catholic Church,” says the report, “which regards any sexual activity outside marriage as sinful. Hence the scandal triggered by an expose entitled ‘Gay Priests’ Nights on the Town’.” Meanwhile, a report in the Straits Times estimates that the number of gay men in the US seminaries and the priesthood could “range from 25 per cent to 50 per cent, according to a review of research by the Rev. Donald Cozzens, an author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood.” This is in spite of the fact that, in 2005, in his first major policy statement as Pope, Benedict XVI “issued an instruction barring actively gay priests from seminaries. The Instruction said men ‘who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’ cannot be admitted to seminaries. The only exception would be for those with a ‘transitory problem’ that had been overcome for at least three years.” However, there is no satisfactory evidence of a so-called “cure” for homosexuality, though many so-called ex-gay groups have claimed there is. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, comes under mounting criticism for the Pope’s alleged complicity in covering up priestly sex abuse. And campaigners against his visit to the United Kingdom in September are outraged that the UK government has stepped in to foil a plan to have the pontiff arrested for crimes against humanity. One law for some Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said the law would be changed to require the Director of Public Prosecutions to consent to any arrest. It would be a diplomatic disaster for the British government if such an arrest did take place, but the move will draw criticism that there is one law for some and another for the rest. A Downing Street petition organized by the human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was pulled by the Prime Minister’s office long before it was due to expire, in a move to prevent embarrassment to the British government during the lead-up to the Pope’s visit. Tatchell was furious and said: “This looks like an attempt to prevent the petition from embarrassing the government by gaining a large number of signatures in the run-up to Pope Benedict’s visit to the UK in September. “The Prime Minister’s office originally agreed that the petition would remain open until the Pope arrived in the UK. But his officials declared it closed on 6 June and only informed me of this decision yesterday. The petition had been frozen since early April, on the grounds that the general election was imminent. It was never reopened. During the short time it was online the petition gathered 12,339 signatures,” Tatchell added.