Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities

Gay Priests and the
Sexual Abuse of Minors
A Complex Mental Health Issue

Please note: In light of recent media reports that gay men may soon be barred from Catholic seminaries and not be admitted to the Catholic priesthood, CPCSM has created this web page to provide a forum where enlightened articles, in agreement with the scientific findings and opinions of the vast majority of medical and mental health professionals, can be viewed by persons wishing to hear from experts who have been dealing with the complex issue of gay priests and the sexual abuse of minors.

Are Gay Priests Living a Lie?
By Paul F. Morrissey, O.S.A.
America, April 1, 2002

Paul F. Morrissey, O.S.A., is an Augustinian priest and director of the Austin Center for Counseling in New Rochelle, N.Y. He is the author of Let Someone Hold You: The Journey of a Hospice Priest (Crossroad, 1994), which won a Catholic Press Award and the Christopher Award.

"Gay priests are living a lie,” declares Garry Wills in his book Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (Doubleday, 2000). As a priest-psychotherapist who has spent 25 years conducting workshops, support groups and retreats for gay priests and religious men and women, this statement and those who make it frighten me. It turns gay priests into easy targets. We need to foster dialogue about this reality, not create scapegoats. In the chapter entitled “A Gay Priesthood,” Mr. Wills writes:

What is wrong about gays and lesbians as priests or ministers? Nothing is—as other denominations are realizing when they ordain them. But that does not make the presence of gay “celibates” in the current Catholic priesthood a healthy thing. They may claim that they are “celibate” by their own private definition of the word. But they took a public vow of celibacy, and the aim of any oath is communicative, is a contractual commitment. Both sides of the contract must agree on its terms. Gay priests are living a lie. It may be imposed on them by a senseless rule. Yet they uphold the resulting structure of deceit. People are fooled by them. One reason pedophiles have been given access to children is that Catholic parents were under the misunderstanding that priests refrain from all sex. In the surveys made of them, the gay priests say they must be careful to keep others from learning of their secret. Every move they make is gradated to keep some people at least in the dark.

When Mr. Wills says gay priests are living a lie, he may in fact have in mind only those gay priests who are not celibate, but his statement is so sweeping that it indicts all priests who might understand themselves to be gay. In the paragraph quoted above, he groups together gay “celibates” (his quotation marks indicate his doubt about their use of this word) and all other gay priests. The result fuels the presumption, already in many people’s minds, that those who describe themselves as gay are sexually active. Otherwise, what is the point of Wills’s accusation? Yet being gay is primarily an emotional orientation as deep and mysterious as heterosexuality. To reduce either of these to sexual acts alone cheapens the gift God created in our sexuality. . . .

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Understanding Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gay Priests Are Not the Problem
By Michael R. Stevenson, PhD
Angles, September 2002

Michael R. Stevenson, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Ball State University where he serves as the Director of the Diversity Policy Institute. As a Senior Congressional Fellow (1995-1996), he served as a science advisor to Senator Paul Simon (D-IL). In 2000, the American Psychological Association recognized him for outstanding and unusual contributions to the science and profession of psychology.

According to new reports, at least 225 Catholic priests, including four bishops, quit or were suspended between January and June 2002 due to allegations of sexual misconduct, primarily with adolescent boys. During the 1990's, the Catholic Church in the United States spent well over a half billion dollars in jury awards, settlements, legal fees, and assessments and therapeutic expenses responding to claims of sexual abuse by priests. In spite of this history, few have attempted to fully understand the problem. Instead, church officials, misinformed in their understanding of the present crisis, were quick to point an accusing finger at gay priests rather than focusing on more glaring problems with church officials' response to reports of abuse. In fact, news coverage of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has done more to link gay men with the abuse of children than any story in decades.

In addition to blaming gay priests for the scandal, some high-ranking church officials and media personalities have advocated banning gay men from the priesthood, even if they remain celebate. Blaming gay priests for this scandal will harm all priests, regardless of their sexual orientations. Given the lay public's inability to disguish gay priests from other priests, all priests will be treated with growing suspicion.

More importantly, unless church officials develop a more informed understanding of the roots of the sexual abuse problem, they will be unable to formulate and implement an effective intervention. . . .

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Priest Pedophiles
By Melvin C. Blanchette and Gerald D. Coleman
America, April 22, 2002

Melvin C. Blanchette, S.S., is the director of the Vatican II Institute at St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo Park, Calif. Gerald D. Coleman, S.S., is president/rector of the seminary. Both have written extensively in areas of priestly formation and human sexuality.

Called by U.S. News and World Report an “unholy crisis,” a horrible shadow has fallen over the priesthood with the revelation that a Boston priest, John Geoghan, molested scores of children, including a 4-year-old boy and seven boys in one extended family. This scandal intensified with the revelation that his bishop knew of Geoghan’s problems and gave him further parochial assignments.

This lamentable action, and too many others, have cast a pall over the priesthood, the church and the credibility of bishops who are entrusted with the care of their flock. Numerous bishops have written apologies of profound sorrow and regret for priests who have abused children, many stating that there is now “zero tolerance” for priests who sexually abuse: they will be dealt with by civil and ecclesiastical law and will be removed from ministry.

America (3/4) extensively quoted Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who expressed “profound sorrow” for the sexual abuse of children by priests. Bishop Gregory acknowledged “the more than 40,000 wonderful priests in our country,” but realizes too the “shadow” that has been cast on the church by the crimes of a few. Kenneth L. Woodward commented in Newsweek two years ago (3/4/00) that a major problem now exists for the future of priestly vocations because of “the alliteration of priest and pedophile.” In the same issue of Newsweek, the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley acknowledged that while priesthood does not make a priest a pedophile, it allows a pedophile to have access to children, especially aggravated when the priest himself is emotionally a male child. There is a perfect match. . . .

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