Monday, September 10, 2012

Fr. Scanlon on Sexual Abuse and Sam-Sex Attraction

"We owe it to generations of Catholics to get to the heart of the issue, and examine what kind of man would sexually pursue post-pubescent males."

Click here to read the article you're going to hear about sooner or later anyways.

5 comments:

  1. Father, I am incredibly interested in this issue and for a number of reasons. First, priests do leave the priesthood because they engage sexually or intimately with women. A headline example of this (but certainly not the only one) was Alberto Cutie's situation a few years ago. This doesn't get (probably rightfully so) the attention that the sex abuse scandal does, but Fr. Scanlon's argument would hold the same for priests who leave the priesthood to get married. That is, Priests get leave because they are sexually attracted to women, and have not properly formed themselves to deal with their dedication to celibacy. Such heterosexual inclinations are natural, and cannot be helped but how the priest acts on them is a matter of conscience formation. When a man leaves the priesthood to get married, he has not accepted a priestly formation.
    Please tell me if I'm wrong in what I'm about to say, because I am genuinely interested in the issue. I also know that the Holy Father teaches that homosexuals should abstain from priesthood.

    As I've understood it, if homosexual inclinations cannot be helped by the person experiencing them, then on their own they aren't sinful. Engaging in, or dwelling on homosexual activities and thoughts is certainly sinful, but is this not a matter of conscience formation? A man who experiences homosexual inclinations should form his conscience in a way that allows him to live a chaste life.

    So I get to my point:

    A man who experiences homosexual inclinations, and enters the priesthood is guilty of no sin. Surely him being around boys or other men is no more of a temptation than a heterosexual man being around girls and women. With a properly formed conscience there does not seem to be a reason why we should not trust these men if we truly believe they are not guilty of sin.
    Perhaps then at heart the problem is not that homosexuals have become priests, but that the Church has not engaged in properly forming these men's consciences in the same manner she does for heterosexual priests. There is a lot of emphasis on ensuring men can live a celibate life by giving them tools to deal with heterosexual attraction, but no such dedication to those who experience homosexual attraction.

    Is the solution to the problem to weed out men who we claim aren't inherently guilty of sin from priestly formation, or should men who do enter priesthood and have homosexual attraction be formed in a way that allows them to accept, and properly live as celibate priests. And then weed out those men who prove incapable of living celibate lives as homosexuals just as we do those who cannot live celibate heterosexual lives.

    If you turn Fr. Scalon's argument around and cite the problem of men leaving to get married, the solution would be to weed out from consideration men who are attracted to women, which would leave the priesthood with eunuchs.
    It's just a thought, and one I would love to hear your opinion on.

    On a side note I'm not entirely convinced that all homosexual inclinations are in fact something that is inherent and occur by no fault of the person experiencing them, though I do think this does exist.

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  2. a) there are no tools that the seminary experience provides that would help a man who experiences heterosexual attraction but NOT HELP a man struggling with same sex attraction

    b) much of the formation for priesthood doesn't seek to weed out people based on issues of overt sin, but rather on potentiality problematic dispositions/attitudes/philosophies.

    For example, it still happens (although more rarely) that a guy will be thrown out of the seminary for being "too conservative." It of course isn't a sin to be "too conservative" but nonetheless the guy is booted.

    "Difficulty relating with others" is another reason some are asked to leave the seminary, and it isn't a sin either, but it certainly can be a reason to be booted from the seminary as well.

    if the determination is made that a man is
    a) too fundamentally attracted to men
    b) too fundamentally attracted to things "traditional"
    c) too fundamentally unable to relate to others

    then the guy should be asked to leave the seminary. It isn't a matter of whether having an attraction is a sin or not.

    If, however, a guy will say he has experienced same sex attraction but doesn't view it as if it determines his identity, and if he's open to working on the issue by talking with the staff on such issues, then the diocese would probably admit the guy to the priesthood, just as they might admit someone who has "difficulty relating with others" if he were willing to work on it with some of the counseling and spiritual direction staff.

    The current Vatican guidelines, it seems to me, suggest that if you still see homosexual attraction as something coming from the very core or being of yourself, then you aren't ready to be formed in the seminary.

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  3. Father, thanks for clearing this up. It definitely makes sense that if you don't acknowledge the difference between yourself and your experiences then seminary probably isn't the place to be. Although I would ask that if a person does see homosexuality as a core part of his person wouldn't that be de facto sinful?

    Believe it or not, I can write a response thats short and pretty concise.

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    Replies
    1. Frank,

      I'd hesitate to say that believing your homosexuality is something that is fundamental to your identity is necessarily sinful because part of something being sinful is that the person has to be aware that they are sinning. With so many voices in today's discourse telling people their same-sex attraction IS at the heart of their identity, how much someone is responsible for believing that is debatable.

      Is it wrong to believe your same-sex attraction is part of your being: yes, but is it sinful...that will depend on what the person has been told and how they've been educated on the topic. As Jesus said, how will people hear the Good News if no one is preaching it?

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  4. Is the Sam-sex attraction title a pun?

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