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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 2002)
fi. 2002 22 Aand The chunch's c r i s i s and calum ny, Pomland's Queen pamshionens pm Them parch in God bepone The Vaman by Tiaxrrhy Knause Pharos by Maury Davis • Editor's note: Individual names have been changed to preserve privacy. D uring the past year, the Roman C atholic Church in the U n it ed States has been violently shaken by tremors o f public lawsuits and the aftershocks of private doubts surrounding child sex abuse scandals. As allegations of misconduct among priests accrued, a number of church officials and laity publicly associated these incidents of pedophilia with homosexuality. More recently, a draft poli cy circulated in October by the Congrega tion for Catholic Education sought to prevent gay men from becoming priests because the church regards homosexuality as “objectively disordered.” Father Abraham, a retired priest, communi ty leader and gay man who lives with his partner in Northeast Portland, criticizes the actions of U.S. bishops in sweeping the real and long time problem of pedophilia under the rug. He also points to a com plex conspiracy of media frenzy, faulty extraction of suppressed memories and an opportunity to jump on a finan cial bandwagon as many ways actual incidents i may have be come distorted. "A lth o u g h my faith is not shaken,” Father Abra ham says, *“ makes me e x tre m e ly aware of how much more careful I would have to be to never be alone with someone under any cir cumstances. Even if a young boy or a young girl came in having an extreme problem at home, I would still have to make sure that some outsider was there. I can’t take the chance of being alone.” S is te r B e a trice , a lesbian nun from Southw est Portland, agrees the church has n o t handled the situation well. T h e prac tice o f offering forgiveness by saying “go and sin no m ore” and th en shuffling perpe trators to a new location w ithout treatm ent or disciplinary measures simply “poisoned the w ell” over and over again, creat- ^ ing a trail o f mistrust. Sister Beatrice recognizes that the institutional church exists in the same context as the rest o f the world. She notes how it’s often about power w ithin the hierarchy and the need for the organi zation to preserve itself th at leads church officials in search o f easy ways out o f jeopardy. And since the m ajority o f the alleged victims are boys, gay priests— and homosexuali ty in general— make easy targets for blame. Esther, a Port land lesbian and soon-to-be sister, has little confi- I dence in organi- [ zations to do the right thing when their status quo is threatened. A n entity such as the C ath olic Church “goes behind closed doors, turns out the lights and starts fumbling around in the dark looking for some answer that will make the questions go away. T he result is someone usually comes along, pries open the door, turns on a big old floodlight, and we find our leaders standing around with their pants down, so to speak.” As a result, Catholics have had to com e to terms with not only the harboring of sex offenders among the ranks of the clergy but also church leaders who seek to scapegoat gay priests and denounce homosexuality in the process. T h e notion of saintly leaders sudden ly revealing human flaws has led many parish ioners to question— and sometimes aban don— their trust in the church’s divine guid ance. But many queer C atholics in Portland are choosing to look beyond the institution, letting their conscience rather than the V ati can guide their day-to-day faith. Just Out recently invited comments from Father Abraham, Sister Beatrice, Esther and other queers among the more than 351,000 Catholics in Portland. Their thoughts coalesce into three significant points. the basis o f a com bination of homophobia, misinformation and not knowing anybody who’s gay.” W hen difficult and painful things happen, people becom e angry and scared, Esther remarks. “They jump to the first easy answer. It is certainly easier to look at something— such as a life of celibacy— not understand it and think that it must somehow be the cause or link. Or, look at someone who has a differ ent sexual orientation and— again, out of ignorance— point the finger. W hen people believe in their heart that homosexuality is a perversion, they can easily link this percep tion to the perversion o f pedophilia.” Queer-friendly St. Andrew parish in North east Portland held a forum last spring specifical ly to address the scandal. A formal letter was delivered to a June meeting of the American Do nor confuse homosexualiry Council of Bishops expressing concern that wnh pedophilia “homosexuality and pedophilia need to be clear ly distinguished from each other. And, it cannot he blaming of homosexuality in cases of be emphasized strongly enough that sexual pedophilia (or, in many instances, abuse is always about power rather than about ephebophilia, for sex. We feel that the those attracted to clerical culture of "When people believe in their heart secrecy contributes to teen-agers) is not lim ited to the abuse of power that homosexuality is a perversion, the C atholic hierarchy. which allows sexual A recent national abuse to happen.” they can easily link this perception poll published in Although the to the perversion o f pedophilia” USA Today claims C atholic Church 40 percent of doesn’t consider C atholics assume a homosexuality itself homosexual connection in the incidents o f a sin, homosexual genital contact is considered child sexual abuse by priests. sex outside of marriage and, thus, unaccept Sister Beatrice attributes the confusion able. Because marriage is not an option for with homosexuality to misinformation. “It’s a queer Catholics, how do parishioners— and the prejudice and a bias,” she says, “and if we’re significant number of gay clergy, for that mat looking for whom to blame, then it seems a ter— reconcile their homosexuality with a belief system that seems to be so anti-gay? natural conclusion to make, but it’s only on 1. T • — Esther
