DISQUS

wildhair · 2 months ago

Richard Sipe has a post on his site for September 11, 2009 titled: “Are American Bishops Gay?
http://www.richardsipe.com/

There is much information in this article to support the contention that a sizable number of American bishops are gay. Sipe goes on to say that this is a legitimate issue to raise and discuss publicly.

I think what Sipe says has relevance to the discussion now going on in Maine and the very public opposition of the Catholic bishops there.

Here is only one quote from the article. For me it sums up why the American Catholic bishops do not have credibility when they take public positions opposing gay marriage.

“…the homosexuality of bishops is neither an easy nor obvious starting point to open a discussion about Roman Catholic sexual teaching and practice. But my years of observation and research convince me that this is the Achilles‟ heal of the Catholic sexual teaching and clerical celibacy.”

Until the American bishops can talk openly about their own sexuality and sexual orientations, they don’t need to be giving advice to the rest of us about what we can do and not do.

WDL · 2 months ago

Wildhair, thanks for the information about Richard Sipe's statement. I hadn' t seen it. And I agree with him and you: given the bishops' current strategy of attacking the rights and humanity of the LGBT community, the bishops' own sexual orientation deserves public attention.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see the kind of public discussion of that issue that we'd like to see. I don't really have any information at all about the orientation of most bishops. I do know of one bishop who is, I've been told by people whose word I trust, gay and who has had a lay partner for much of his life as a priest.

This bishop is, unfortunately, often outrageously homophobic in his actions. He has done serious harm to some people close to me, who were unfortunate enough to be under his authority at various points in their lives.

I suspect that if a significant proportion of bishops are gay, many of them are, like this man, closeted and self-hating, and therefore often projecting their own inner dramas of self-loathing out onto openly gay people.

Another factor that I believe militates against open discussion of these issues is the longstanding conspiracy of silence in the mainstream media about preventing public disclosure of information re: bishops' sexual identities. Much institutional and financial power leans on the media to keep the lid on information that would out individual bishops.

Meanwhile, you're absolutely right: the refusal of the bishops to permit frank discussion of any of these issues, including the disconnect between official Catholic sexual ethics and what lay Catholics actually believe and practice, radically undermines their credibility as moral teachers.

khughes1963 · 2 months ago

It reminds me of Mike Signorile's account of the efforts of the Archdiocese of New York to prevent the late Cardinal Spellman from being outed.

WDL · 2 months ago

You're right, Kathy. In fact, that's a story I had forgotten about until you reminded me of it. I have heard stories about several other bishops (and a cardinal) from people I think are credible sources, but to my knowledge, none of the information they have shared with me has ever been made public. And so I have no way of knowing for certain whether they have accurate information about these bishops.

In my experience, some of the closeted gay priests I've known have also been some of the most homophobic, so that makes me think that some of the really homophobic bishops also may have some stories lurking in their closets.

khughes1963 · 2 months ago

True enough. I think the "orthodox" Catholics would blame the messenger if any bishops were outed. Some made these sort of comments about John Cooney's book "The American Pope" to Bishop Fulton Sheen's biographer, even though I think Cooney's book was an honest attempt to look at how a modern American prelate (Spellman) came to power and in some cases, abused his power. In the end, Cooney backed out of discussing Spellman's sex life, although it seems to have been an open secret that the Archdiocese put successful pressure on New York Times Books (Cooney's publisher) to remove the material about Spellman's sex life from the book. I have to say that I would be very interested in getting my hands on an advance reader's copy of the book, and I am not even certain if they exist.

I've seen outing done with some (male) politicians in secular settings. I've also heard of one conservative Catholic who ran a pizza parlor during the day and used the internet to find gay priests who were using the internet to find male companionship and to report said priests to their bishops. There, I think the effort was to get gay men out of the priesthood. What drives me crazy is this using gay men as scapegoats for the sexual abuse issues (which are really abuses of power) and the don't ask, don't tell mentality about sexual issues. I give the Episcopalians credit for at least openly debating the issue honestly, as they did with Bishop Gene Robinson. We Catholics ordain gay men and pretend we aren't doing it.

WDL · 2 months ago

Kathy, I like your conclusion very much: the key issue here is honesty. When we refuse to have honest conversation about these issues, and when we invest everything in keeping pretense alive, is it any wonder we create a sick system that often fosters sickness in those who are ordained?

khughes1963 · 2 months ago

It is the lack of honesty that proves claustrophobic and catastrophic. Is it any wonder why we have recent incidents like the Roman Catholic bishop in Nova Scotia and the priest in Pennsylvania both caught with child pornography on their computers?

WDL · 2 months ago

Kathy, claustrophobic and catastrophic strike me as two very good ways to characterize the effect of the lack of institutional honesty. I'm struck by the response of many institutional-minded Catholics to the abuse crisis--the claim that the media have invented it as another way of beating up on the church.

That strikes me so false and so lamentably self-serving. It's a non-response that leads to further dishonesty with further catastrophic consequences--as you say, consequences well-illustrated by those two recent cases.