PHILLIPINES
The Manila Times
By Manny B. Marinay
MY sinister gay friend J.L. was raised Catholic but left the Church after former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—the new Pope Benedict XV—issued a letter to the bishops on the “pastoral care of homosexual persons.” Benedict described gays as “intrinsically disordered” and homosexuality as a “tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.”
I think most of us who are gay and Catholic will never forget when Ratzinger’s letter came out. It was so disconcerting in its breadth and depth of condemnation.
For the gay community, Ratzinger or Benedict is the most outspoken, vicious and venomous opponent of equal rights for homosexuals in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy. ...
The slew of sex-abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church did not surprise many freethinking homosexuals given the church’s intensely male-dominated hierarchy and extreme antiwoman, antisex orientation. The Catholic Church has a history of cover-up, lies, and hypocrisy on the subject, resembling that of any mega-corporation anxious to avoid prosecution, safeguard its considerable assets and calm its stockholders.
The Church’s implacable secrecy has imperiled children and youth by entrusting them to priests with long histories of sexual abuses, moving these sexual predators from parish to parish rather than letting accusations come to light. Denial has also caused those who suffered abuse to endure lifelong pain and confusion—a double victimization. And the church’s attempt to blame homosexuals for this sordid situation constitutes a blatant, self-serving lie.
Countless studies demonstrate that nearly all pedophiles, defined as people who desire sex with pre-adolescent children, are hetero-sexuals. Both the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association attest that less than 1 percent of homosexuals are pedophiles. Simply stated, homosexual men desire sex with men; pedophiles desire sex with children without restriction to gender.