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