Catholic League: It Is ‘Not Helpful’ to Ignore Homosexual Roots of Abuse Crisis

The Catholic League has criticized attempts by the New York Times and others to downplay or even deny the homosexual roots of the Church’s clerical sex abuse crisis.

As the Vatican begins a three-day summit on dealing with clergy sex abuse, Catholic League president Bill Donohue said that “it is not helpful to the cause of eradicating the problem of sexual abuse in the priesthood to dismiss a conversation about the obvious.”

This begins with “talking honestly about who the victims are,” Dr. Donohue said. We know from numerous reports that “approximately 80 percent of the victims are both male and postpubescent” and therefore “the issue is homosexuality.”

“This does not mean that homosexuality, per se, causes someone to be a predator,” Donohue noted, “but it does say that homosexuals are disproportionately represented in the sexual abuse of minors.”

The gay-promoting New York Times said on February 18 that “there to be no connection between being gay and abusing children,” Donohue observed, while blaming “right-wing media organizations” for attacking “what they have called the church’s ‘homosexual subculture,’ ‘lavender mafia,’ or ‘gay cabal.’”

Pope Francis himself has spoken of a the “gay lobby” in the Church, Donohue pointed out, and it was a progressive priest, Father Andrew Greeley, who used the term “lavender mafia,” so blaming a vast right-wing conspiracy is disingenuous.

Moreover, “every honest observer who has examined this subject knows there is a homosexual subculture in the Church,” Donohue said.

A 2005 report referenced by Dr. Donohue found clear links between homosexuality and sex with minors substantiated by a series of independent studies.

“In fact, a number of studies performed over a period spanning more than half a century— many of which were performed by homosexuals or their sympathizers—have shown that an extremely large percentage of sexually active homosexuals also participate in child sexual molestation,” the article stated.

“This is not ‘homophobia’ or ‘hatred,’ this is simple scientific fact,” it said.

Assertions by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich that “male on male” sex abuse by priests is not the result of homosexuality but is a matter of “opportunity and also a matter of poor training on the part of the people” is demonstrably false, Donohue continued.

“Predator priests hit on boys not because they were denied access to girls, but because they preferred males,” he noted, and there is “no evidence” that priests inclined to have sex with minors “will choose the sex which offers them the greatest opportunity,” especially in recent decades with the arrival of girl altar servers.

“Let it be said emphatically that it is morally wrong to blame all gay priests or to bully someone who is gay, be he a priest or a plumber,” Donohue declares. “It is also wrong to call on all gay priests to resign: such a sweeping recommendation is patently unfair to those gay priests who have never violated anyone.”

At the same time, it is also wrong to ignore or deny facts that are essential for eradicating abuse.

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