Will the Pope Make the Crisis Worse?

This article originally appeared on Beliefnet in March 2002.

As America's eight stunned and chastened cardinals meet with Pope John Paul II this week, a consensus already appears to be growing among church leadership about the roots of the problem. According to several recent statements, the problem is not celibacy, secrecy or ordination of women. It is homosexuality among clergy.

"Homosexual students were allowed to pass through seminaries. Grave mistake," said Monsignor Eugene Clark, Cardinal Edward Egan's stand-in at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday. "It is a disorder and...should prevent a person from being ordained." In March, Vatican spokesman Joachim Navarro-Valls said ''people with these inclinations just cannot be ordained.'' Last week, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the influential conservative journal "First Things," said that most of the priest sexual abuse cases involve men having sex with teenage boys and young men. "We call that a homosexual relationship."

And the Pope's statement on Tuesday seemed reaffirm the traditional Church view. "[People] must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life." Earlier in the week, he pointedly ruled out discussion of celibacy as an issue but said there may well be a problem with seminaries. "Seminary formation is very important, for the convictions and practical training imparted to future priests are essential for the success of the church's mission," he said in a statement. For the most part, when church leaders talk about reforming the seminaries they are talking about the need to screen out priests with sexual problems.

The problem is that the solutions being discussed--screening out gays--could well make matters worse.

Before one understands the perils of this solution, it's important to test the premise. Is the Catholic clergy increasingly gay? Apparently the answer is yes. No statistics are truly reliable, but several studies have been done over the years that place the figure at between 10 and 50% of the priesthood. The most reliable statistic is believed to come from a study by A.W. Richard Sipe, in his 1995 book "Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis," who writes that 30% of priests have a homosexual orientation, far higher than the percentage in the overall populations.

Two years ago, the Kansas City Star reported that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests across the United States were dying of AIDS-related illnesses, and hundreds more were living with HIV, the virus that causes the disease, according to medical experts, priests and health statistics. Though the actual number of AIDS deaths is difficult to determine, it now appears priests are dying of AIDS at a rate at least four times that of the general U.S. population.

"At issue at the beginning of the 21st century is the growing perception, one seldom contested by those who know the priesthood well, that the priesthood is, or is becoming, a gay profession,'' writes the Rev. Donald B. Cozzens, then rector of a Catholic seminary in Ohio, in ''The Changing Face of the Priesthood,'' a book published in 2000.

Continued on page 2: »