Blaming and smearing gay men as cause for pedophile priest problem

The Slowly Boiled Frog
October 30, 2018

https://bit.ly/2yEawFi

Dorothy Cummings McLean

“Conservative Catholics are desperate to assign blame for abusive priests on evil homosexuals.”

Dorothy Cummings McLean, a prolific Catholic writer from Scotland, is very upset. She is dismayed to note: Jesuit-run America mag runs article denying link between homosexuality and clergy sex abuse. I give her some credit for a proper explanation:

The Jesuit-run publication America has carried an article by a professor-psychologist who claims that homosexuality is not the "root cause" of clerical sexual abuse. The photo accompanying the article contained an angel with a rainbow in the background.

Dr. Thomas G. Plante, a professor of psychology at the Jesuit Santa Clara University and an adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, had his article published on October 22 in which he states that sexual orientation is “simply” not a factor in the clerical sex-abuse of minors.

I have written about Dr. Plante before. He is the Augustin Cardinal Bea, S.J. professor of psychology at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit Institution. In his book, Mental Disorders of the New Millennium, Dr. Plante wrote:

In other words, boys are targets of opportunity for horny men who are supposed to be celibate.

Plante did not appear to understand that men with deep-seated homosexual attractions are already de jure, if obviously not de facto, barred from admission to seminaries. This teaching in the Catholic Church is not new and has been backed by Pope Francis.

I think that Dr. Plante understands this problem perfectly well. He has a named chair at a prominent Jesuit university and he also has a prestigious secular position at Stanford University's medical school. Plante has said that they are not gay. McLean (with no medical or counseling training) essentially responds: “But they are gay.”

Plante said that readers need to be clued in on the “psychopathology of sex offenders and pedophiles” to understand the issue.

It was one of many times in which Plante skirted the fact that the majority of underage victims, at least in the United States, have not been pre-pubescents who are of sexual interest only to pedophiles but adolescent boys.

This woman should read her own quote: “sex offenders and pedophiles.”

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report clearly identified the 78% of abuse cases it scrutinized as examples of “homosexual predation”. However, despite this finding, Plante wrote that “the research data on the topic makes clear that sexual orientation alone is not a risk factor for pedophilia or for committing sexual crimes against children or teens or anyone. Sexual orientation by itself is irrelevant to child sexual abuse behavior or risks.”

The acts are homosexual which does not mean that the people are homosexual. Jerry Sandusky, for example, is a straight married man who had sex with vulnerable teen boys.

Later on:

Blaming homosexual men for sexual abuse of minors is not the solution, Plante counsels. He also reminds readers that only a small percentage of people select children and teens for sexual abuse, and most of them are heterosexual, married and “noncelibate” lay people who “tend to exploit members of their own family.”

Plante's interpretation of the data may not provide the full picture.…

This first [John Jay College] study reported that 81% of victims within the fifty year period under scrutiny were male. Of all the victims, only 22% were under the age of 10. Of the remainder, 51% were aged between 11 and 14, and 27% were aged between 14 and 17.

One more time: Yes, men were having sex with boys, many of whom were teens. The acts are homosexual in nature. Dr. Plante, who has the applicable education, training and experience, is familiar with scores of peer-reviewed studies of pedophiles and pederasts. While they may commit homosexual acts, they are not homosexual. McLean has an MA in English literature. She is ill-equipped to debate Dr. Plante.

Conservative Catholics seem desperate to assign blame for abusive priests on evil homosexuals. It is as if they are trying to confirm the catechism which states that gay men are “objectively disordered.” That is religion, not evidence-based science.

Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons recently wrote in LifeSiteNews that his professional opinion “as a psychiatrist with forty years of clinical experience is that the cause of the abuse crisis is rooted in psychological and spiritual conflicts in bishops and in priests, specifically a narcissism and a profound weakness in male confidence which inclines them to homosexual predation.”

Fitzgibbons is not a board certified psychiatrist (or any other specialty). He is a professional Catholic whose opinions are not consistent with any of the science. He does no research and, at his own websites. he references “studies” that are not peer-reviewed while claiming that they represent science.

Fitzgibbons has asked for Pope Francis to stop the cover-up.

“The Pope should acknowledge that the worldwise sexual abuse crisis is caused by clerical homosexual predation. The logical response: encourage priests and seminarian to lead chaste lives.”

What about the vow of celibacy? Is that not sufficient encouragement? I do not know the cause of the Catholic Church's problem with abusive priests. The Church had a policy of moving these pederasts and pedophiles to new parishes where they could abuse more kids. Step one would seem to be to immediately dismiss any priest who rapes a child and to refer him for prosecution. He belongs in prison.