LA Diocese misses the point of the entire scandal saying that people just don't understand Gay Priests - 81% of Scandal was Gay not Pedophile

LA Diocese Sponsored Conference seeks to understand "Blessing" of Gay Priests

I dislike this topic in general and avoid it like the plague. But it is amazing that these people still do not get that the "scandal" was about gays in the Priesthood, more than pedophilia.

See Article on John Jay Study

" Mr. Bennett, a review board member, blamed seminary officials and bishops for not flagging at-risk homosexual seminarians.
There are "many outstanding priests of a homosexual orientation who live chaste, celibate lives," Mr. Bennett said, "but ... more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature."
"There's an incredibly incongruity of a man of the cloth engaging in this type of conduct. How did they get into the priesthood?"
Seminaries, he said, allowed in "many sexually dysfunctional and psychosexually immature men," and did not prepare clergy to survive "particularly in our oversexualized society."

Compare this to what the Conference participants think.

"Said Father Martin. "In the absence of any healthy gay priests for Catholics to reflect on publicly, and with the only examples being notorious pedophiles, the stereotype of the gay priest as child abuser only deepens."

"As I see it, there are very many gay men who are good priests in the church today," declared Father Martin, who estimated the population of gay priests among the clergy as 25 percent. "The vast majority are healthy, hard-working, faithful, loving celibate members of the clergy. That is simply the truth. In order to grow as a people, we need simply to admit that truth."

Dr. Greer Gordon, said "catechists can also help people understand issues related to sexual abuse. "We have to assist individuals in coming into clarity about the pedophilia issue," stated Gordon. "Psychologically we know it's a fact that the majority of pedophiles are not homosexual; they are in fact, heterosexual…. The majority of pedophiles are not Roman Catholic priests."

Gordon urged catechists to use their instincts and be vigilant in protecting children from pedophiles, using as much resource information as possible. "We need to separate the issue (of pedophilia) from homosexuality," she said.

"Generally speaking, as catechists (and) pastoral leaders, it's important for us to try and deal with our own feelings of bigotry and bias around homosexuality…. There are homosexual people in our midst and some of these homosexual people do now, and have in the past, served this God in this church," said Gordon.

Workshop participant Patricia Mathews, 55, said the church is "opening up channels of compassion" by talking about homosexuality. As a relative of a homosexual family member, Mathews said she saw how the gay teenager experienced misunderstanding in school and at home. "Having sessions like this provides a venue for people to talk about their injuries," Mathews reflected."

Well then, there are fewer pedophiles than there are homosexuals in the priesthood, and most of the sandal that has cost the Church a billion dollars and the closing of churches and cut backs in services is a scandal of homosexuals not pedophiles. Archbiship Weakland didn't resign over a pedophile scandal but a relationship with an adult seminarian.

Lets get real. To quote a recent document:

Pro. N. 886/02/0
Vatican City, May 16, 2002

Most Reverend Excellency:

The Congregation for Clergy has sent this Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments your Excellency's letter, asking us to clarify the possibility that men with homosexual tendencies be able to receive priestly ordination.

This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, conscious of the experience resulting from many instructed causes for the purpose of obtaining dispensation from the obligations that derive from Holy Ordination, and after due consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, expresses its judgment as follows:

Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders.

I take the opportunity to send you my most cordial greetings.

Yours sincerely in Domino Your Most Reverend Excellency
Jorge A. Card. Medina Estévez
Prefect