Catholic group spent millions on app data that tracked gay priests
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
[1] https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/martin-removes-priests...
A childhood friend who had attended a Mississippi boarding school transferred back to our school system in the second half of our junior years after having picked up a dope habit over there. He freaked out the first time he saw this particular teacher because the man had a habit of spending the weekend with the priests at the boarding school.
Also, the prohibition on homosexual relationships drives gays and lesbians has been the Catholic church's not so secret tool to maintaining an adequate number of Mass performers. I know 7 gay men from high school classes before and after my own. One is Baptist. One is an atheist. The rest are either in or are former members of the Catholic clergy. Why? Because the area I grew up in was exceedingly Catholic and conservative, and the priesthood has been seen by people as a good way to repress those urges, regardless of the ultimate outcome.
The evangelical culture wars are simply coming to Catholicism, because there is a large segment of the US Catholic population who have chosen to mix religion and political identification, and the results in the US will be absolutely catastrophic. Not only are young gay Catholics no longer willing to live their entire lives in the closet, but the church refuses to give up its weird fixation on the chastity of priests. People are following their own common sense, and it's causing parishes to collapse from a lack of human and material resources.
On one hand, you've got bomb throwers who see apostasy and want to root it out wherever they see it, and on the other hand you've got a clergy who preaches one thing and does another out of necessity.
When the organization as a whole only exists to enforce that morality code, it makes more sense that they would also heavily police internally as well.
Do remember that this particular morality code is an unfashionable one. There are other taboos that also cause a waste of resources by people seeking corrective action where no law is broken and no one is victimized. And those are cheered on because those codes are fashionable.
Sure, this is dumb through and through. But this scenario just has properties that lend themselves to headlines meant to stir people up.
Which ones?
Sounds exactly like the kind of thing one national political parties would have done to another prior to the fairly recent widespread acceptance of gay marriage.
These people are pillars of their community. To have them teaching other people and leading is just disgusting from their perspective.
Look, I support gay rights, I'm the furthest thing from catholic. But I understand how many communities find homosexuality unnatural and wrong. You should respect that and NOT join that community. Just like how Catholics shouldn't enforce their ideas on the rest of the world, you shouldn't enforce yours either.
> Look, I support gay rights
Not sure how you can support gay rights and also be ok with organisations spying on gay people (specifically because they're gay).
One can debate whether or not this practice should be illegal, but it's clearly wrong, even by the tenets of Catholicism itself. Why are they not also spying on straight priests using Tinder?
Also, wouldn't that be an extremely weird and creepy thing for The Vegan Society to do? I’m surprised you’d offer this analogy as a defense of the behavior in question.
“That would be spying on non-vegans…” Right, some of the signs are flipped, but the concept is still the same - an organization promoting a particular ethical standard is surveilling its members adherence to that standard.
“Weird and creepy…” Yes, certainly! But not against vegan rights, not discriminating against vegans, not “targeting vegans (specifically because they are vegan)”. I was responding to the claim that supporting gay rights is incompatible with tolerating this practice.
My reply is more referring to the intent of the parent comment. As in how is spending "millions" justifiable to root out gay people in a catholic organization.
Perhaps you can think of a justification for all this, but I haven’t seen a coherent one given so far in this thread.
Being a pedophile isn't against the law, only engaging on pedophiliac desires is illegal. Therefore I should be ok with pedophiles being leaders of our community and teachers. Right? Wrong.
Examining the technicalities of the rules is just pedantry. There is an obvious intent and overall meaning behind the rules.
>Perhaps you can think of a justification for all this, but I haven’t seen a coherent one given so far in this thread.
Thanks for being so polite. This is obviously against the rules here, you're saying it to trigger me.
The comparison with pedophilia is so obviously inappropriate (and liable to unnecessarily inflame emotions in the context of this thread) that it makes me question whether you're engaging with this topic in good faith.
If you do have a point to make, could I ask you to please find a way to make it without reference to pedophilia, which has nothing to do with gay priests using hookup apps to talk to other adult gay men.
Not necessarily. Depending on the state, it's technically pedophilia/rape when a 18 year old female has sex with a 17 year old. Let's say the 18 year old is a virgin and kind of innocent while the 17 year old is a big burly guy and has already had sex with dozens of people. In this case, many states classify 17 year old male as the one getting raped.
The technicalities here literally mask the intent. Intent is what matters here and the circumstances here make the intent less clear in such a way that the technical law can't fully articulate true justice.
But you don't need me to explain this. You are fully aware of what I mean here. When a homosexual man becomes a teacher for an all boys school something is wrong. When a homosexual man joins an organization against homosexuality something is also wrong. It makes perfect sense for organizations to spend money to get rid of these people.
>The comparison with pedophilia is so obviously inappropriate (and liable to unnecessarily inflame emotions in the context of this thread) that it makes me question whether you're engaging with this topic in good faith.
I throw this right back at you, your response is not in good faith. You're trying to start something here. I think you're very intelligent and attempting to deliberately turn this conversation into a witch hunt against me.
It is also not inappropriate from many peoples perspective including the people in the article. Homosexuality from the perspective of many conservative and religious groups is Just as deviant as pedophilia. From this reasoning, it makes sense why such a group would form to weed out homosexual priests. Unfortunately, the technical wording of the catholic rules on this matter doesn't govern their intents and feelings about it, and thus they act on their feelings rather then the rules themselves.
It's not about whether the existence of these groups is right or wrong. It's whether these anti-homosexual groups exiling a homosexual who joined their group is right or wrong.
I'm sorry to say, it's right. Those people shouldn't have joined in the first place. If you're not supporting and acting for the principles of this group you shouldn't join. Bottom line. The intent of the action is right, the intent of the people joining the group IS NOT.
I also flagged your post. Despite me giving you a good faith answer, I still consider your answer as someone who is obviously trying to start a witch hunt and get me banned. You are not acting in good faith; you have an agenda and your answer is manipulatively hiding that fact. This type of behavior is a hundred times more vile and insidious then someone who is just trolling (and I'm OBVIOUSLY not).
I recommend we end the conversation here before it gets out of hand. Good day.
Edit: This sentence here was ADDED to your response AFTER I made this reply:
"If you do have a point to make, could I ask you to please find a way to make it without reference to pedophilia, which has nothing to do with gay priests using hookup apps to talk to other adult gay men. "
Again, even if Catholics somehow see homosexuals as being deviant in a way comparable to pedophiles (and I hope that most don't!), homosexuals clearly don't present the same danger to others that pedophiles do. This is why the analogy fails for me, and I'd rather you found another one.
I have no interest in 'getting you banned', by the way.
Edit: On closer reading, I am surprised to find this sentence in a comment from someone who earlier claimed to be a supporter of gay rights:
>When a homosexual man becomes a teacher for an all boys school something is wrong
I think perhaps we are now seeing your true point of view.
Except if you read ANY of the paragraphs you'll see that it's relevant. Many Catholics view homosexuals in the same way they view pedophilia (with disgust) and don't want homosexuals in leadership positions. I'm sorry this analogy is apt and you know it from your other comments. Live with it.
>I have no interest in 'getting you banned', by the way.
Then don't accuse me of not commenting on good faith. Don't point fingers. Accusations and attacks on someones character as if they're in violation of the rules here can get people banned.
>I think perhaps we are now seeing your true point of view.
What view? That homosexuals are the same as regular human beings with ulterior motives and incentives? What? you think I should just assume that if someone is gay then he's a paragon of moral goodness? If a man who loves sushi goes to a place that exclusively sell sushi it is reasonable to assume he wants sushi. It is reasonable to question that act.
If that man went to a food court that happens to have sushi then it's reasonable to assume otherwise. But such is not the case when a gay man becomes the leader of a boy scout troop. He may have good intentions, but it is highly highly reasonable to assume he does not.
>Edit: On closer reading, I am surprised to find this sentence in a comment from someone who earlier claimed to be a supporter of gay rights:
I support gay rights in the same way I support human rights. I don't give you or gay people special treatment. If a gay person commits a crime he's a criminal. Your statement here is trying to put me in a box. It's like you're saying that If someone can even just assume that a gay person could have the proclivity of doing something unethical then how could that person be a supporter of gay rights? Impossible!
This portion of your comment is unreasonable. Girl Scout troops welcome male leaders, including heterosexual male leaders, without any insinuation of pedophilia or child sexual abuse.[1] There is no evidence that child sexual abuse is more of an issue for homosexual males than it is for heterosexual males,[2] and therefore no legitimate reason for you to suggest that homosexual male leaders of boy scout troops are more problematic than heterosexual male leaders of girl scout troops.
[1] Example: https://www.girlscoutsni.org/en/our-council/news/2016/dads_w...
[2] Written by a professor who specializes in the area of clerical sexual abuse: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/10/22/no-homosexu...
There is a reason to suspect a single heterosexual male joining a girl scout troop for the same reason you'd suspect a single male joining an all female yoga class.
There's a degree of common sense here that's being deliberately ignored. If a pedophile who's never acted out on his desires becomes a scout leader it is completely logical and wise to question his intentions as it is to question the intentions of a male girl scout leader or a gay boy scout leader.
You have to look at circumstance and evidence and nuance. You can't just build simplistic logic of "this exists and therefore the following must be completely true". No. Life is much more complex such that if your own child was part of a troop and ANY person who matches the profile of the characters described above MUST be questioned for the safety of your child.
Gay male leaders can also have son(s) or family in boy scout troups. The Boy Scouts of America stopped prohibiting gay individuals from becoming members in 2013 and stopped prohibiting gay scout leaders from holding memberships in 2015.* The majority of homosexual males are not pedophiles, just as the majority of heterosexual males are not pedophiles, so your reasoning is faulty. There is no legitimate reason to view homosexual males with any more suspicion than heterosexual males in scouting.
* https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/dont-clap-just-yet-bo...
https://www.them.us/story/illegal-for-catholic-schools-to-fi...
If you absolutely insist on making this a discussion about pedophilia (even extending your unpleasant insinuations to gay men who are boy scout leaders), then I’m calling it quits here. The subject of the article is gay priests talking to other adult gay men on dating apps. Even if a significant number of mainstream Catholics think that being gay is equivalent to being a pedophile (which I doubt), then that is still no reason for the rest of us to make such an association.
I suggested no such thing, it's just more manipulation from you. This is what I suggested: I suggested that it's extremely strange for a gay man to be teaching at an all boys school and it's highly reasonable to suspect that his intentions are unethical.
If I could read the mind of such a teacher and I can see his intentions are good, by god I will fight for that teachers right to work there. Barring that I can only make the best logical judgment given the information that I have and that judgement is either the teacher leaves or I put my kid in another school/classroom.
>If you absolutely insist on making this a discussion about pedophilia (even extending your unpleasant insinuations to gay men who are boy scout leaders),
I never insisted on such a thing. I am simply clearing my name on the accusations you continue to pile on to me one after another. You accuse me of using pedophilia as some sort of deliberate inflammatory weapon, all I did was point out that I AM NOT. There is no insistence that we continue the conversation along those lines.
I want a discussion but apparently I can't have one because your attitude is combative and accusatory. It's characteristic of activists of gay people and many many activists nowadays. They use accusatory tactics of boxing people into horrible labels like "racist", "misogynistic". It's largely an effective tactic, but it's so effective that many times it's used as a mechanism to gain power and dominate others.
Activists like you don't want to engage in meaningful discussion, you just want to dominate. To achieve these goals what you do is misconstrue your opponents intention, you throw away all nuance and deliberately try to simplify your opponent and his actions so that he or she will fit into the box you want him in. When you successfully do this then you execute your main weapon of calling him "racist", "sexist" or any other horrible term that carries a history too horrible to justify using such words with such frivolity.
So what I'm doing is I have to continuously CLARIFY what I am saying. I have to reemphasize the nuance behind what I am saying so that I protect myself from being nailed onto that label. You literally attempted to do this to me earlier.
>Even if a significant number of mainstream Catholics think that being gay is equivalent to being a pedophile (which I doubt), then that is still no reason for the rest of us to make such an association.
I never said the "rest of us" have to make that association. I am simply saying why it makes sense for Catholics to want to root out their leaders who engage in homosexual behavior. Personally, I don't care if a gay man is elected mayor but it makes sense to me why a catholic doesn't want a priest to be gay. I am also saying it's justified for such priests and leaders within the catholic community to be fired.
Your suspicions are unreasonable. As I mentioned before, heterosexual male teachers are not automatically viewed with moral suspicion in all-girls schools (second example: https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/the-perils...), so it is unreasonable to automatically suspect that homosexual male teachers in all-boys schools are unethical. You are applying a double standard to homosexual males that society does not apply to heterosexual males.
There's nuance in this you're not seeing.
Those teachers may be married and/or have daughters. A single male SHOULD be questioned.
> You are applying a double standard to homosexual males that society does not apply to heterosexual males.
Again simplistic logic. A double standard does not preclude it from being true. You have to see motive. Your link isn't evidence for anything. Can you read the minds of those teachers? Do you know if anything happened behind closed doors?
By virtue of once being a young single heterosexual male with no children I know how these men think. A high school teacher at an all female school is not only fighting external forces of how he's perceived but the internal forces of his instincts. If an attractive female HS student makes a move, the temptation is real.
Typically for males, though, the consequences of such violations are a hundred times more severe then if a female did it so you tend to see female teachers violate this rule more regularly.
Homosexual male teachers may also be married and/or have sons. Your entire line of reasoning is invalidated by your refusal to consider homosexual males in the same light as heterosexual males.
No, that is incorrect. There is nothing wrong with all-girls schools having heterosexual male teachers (example: https://girlsschools.org/advocacy/blog/2017/01/10/all-girls-...), so there is nothing wrong with all-boys schools having homosexual male teachers. You posting this sentence undermines your claim that your comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia (two things with wildly different acceptance rates among Catholics and among people in general) was in good faith.
Catholics do enforce their ideas on the rest of the world, as many Christians in positions of power do. Especially in the US. Especially recently, with the surge of extremist anti-LGBT and anti abortion laws, all predicated philosophically on Christian doctrine. People who find homosexuality unnatural and wrong should not be respected, or simply let be, any more than virulent racists or anti-Semites. Tolerance for the intolerant only leads in the extermination of the tolerant.
This is awfully hyperbolic, I cannot take it seriously because it comes across as an indictment of tolerance and an endorsement of intolerance as a moral imperative. Granted, I'm sure the implication is that it would be a 'righteous' kind of intolerance, but it is rooted in absolutism nonetheless.
It's a very simple concept, described by Karl Popper in a single straightforward paragraph, commonly referred to as the Paradox of Tolerance. It's one of those lessons that came out of the aftermath of the Holocaust, which for some reason people go through great pains to refuse to comprehend.
That's fine - should you ever find yourself as part of a demographic that some other group wants eradicated, feel free to defend to the death their right to organize and recruit and argue for that, and tolerate their hatred as much as you like. In fact, just out of principle, make sure they have access to as many platforms as they want and can gather as much political power as possible. Maybe even try to engage them in debate, despite the unequal power dynamic between truth and lies (particularly in the modern ecosystem of engagement-driven social media and manufactured reality) - sunlight is the best disinfectant after all.
I'm sure it'll all work out OK.
>"That's fine - should you ever find yourself as part of a demographic that some other group wants eradicated." How do you know I'm not?
>"In fact, just out of principle, make sure they have access to as many platforms as they want" Just having a platform, or being on lots of platforms, does not guarantee an ideology will succeed or spread substantially.
>"Maybe even try to engage them in debate, despite the unequal power dynamic between truth and lies" Refuting lies is difficult, but it is still worth doing. I think its better than giving up and using force.
I will remind people that being LGBTQ puts one at high risk for ending up homeless. Connect the dots here: "If you are LGBTQ, we will actively interfere with your employment in ways we won't do for straight people." Can anyone see how that impacts one's ability to keep a roof over their head?
I wish the world would stop being so homophobic. This is a church that covered up for priests who molested children and moved them elsewhere so they could get a fresh start -- and thereby hurt more children -- but it thinks it desperately needs to know who is gay.
smh
That being said, they should be (and seem to be?) looking at data from all kinds of dating apps, not just gay ones. Any priest or seminarian has no business using those, gay or straight. Priests are public officials who care for a large flock and failing in their vows affects and scandalizes whole communities, thus its important that they take their vows to heart.
The real issue here is employers buying up location data and probably other available intel to spy on and control us outside of work. Regardless of what you think about someone else's job, we should all help each other to avoid the oppression this enables.
Preaching the will of organization that condemns them while actively pursuing the condemned interests on public profiles? It seems to me its got to be some sort of mental gymnastics to be choosing that career and sticking with it. Do these people believe that they are intrinsically bad? Do they just not believe what they're preaching? Do they think their niche is the one exception to their faiths belief system?
They believe that everyone experiences this kind of struggle, but in different ways depending on the person, and that failing at it is inevitable. They believe there is a way for things to be OK even though you fail.
They also believe in an ethical framework where you determine what is right or wrong based not on your own assessment of the pluses and minuses but by following guidance that comes (through scripture, church tradition, etc.) from a higher power whose wisdom is greater than your own.
And they also believe there's some kind of grand plan behind everything, and that the way they fit into this grand plan is to be a priest. They have at some point come to the conclusion that they are supposed to be one, that it is their vocation.
Or at least, within their faith, these beliefs are what is commonly accepted as the right way to look at it. An individual person may or may not actually think or feel exactly like this. Sort of like how one person may become a doctor because they like helping people and someone else may become a doctor because they don't want to disappoint their family.
So from their perspective, being hetero-celibate and being homo-celibate is an equal sacrifice.
A major cited driver of a lot of the abuse was that exact line of thinking. Good intentioned people who knew they had bad desires would enter the Priesthood as a framework to not act on those desires, but then they see other Priests being sexually active and just give in.
It also built a network of secrecy - very fine line between covering up your bosses' non-abusive (but in your mind still morally wrong) affair and asking him to cover up your abusive (but in your mind, only equally as morally wrong) activities.
In general, it's one of the arguments for normalizing non-abusive fetishes in the general populace. The more secrecy there is generally, the more truly bad stuff gets covered up.
There is a very clear delineation between temptation and sin in the Catholic world.
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Matthew 5:28
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Anyway, the point is, most American-influenced "logical" people take an implicitly Protestant perspective, that religion is all about consistently following consistent doctrines. The Catholic perspective on this kind of thing is more flexible and quite strange by comparison but tolerating hypocrisy around sexual behavior is definitely not new.
The Catholic perspective is not tolerating hypocrisy, it is a knowledge that we are all sinful and broken. I know what the right thing to do is, and if you ask me I will tell you what the right thing to do is, but often I won't do it. I'm not a hypocrite -- I know I'm wrong, I'm weak and a coward.
(Former Catholic but not a theologian or anything. See discussion here on how canonization is not a declaration of virtue: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm)
Isn't that a contradiction? I thought Protestants were all about grace over works (wasn't it Martin Luther who called James The Epistle of Straw because of it's emphasis on works?). Consistently following consistent doctrines would be works.
If you're convinced that you're not one of the elect, and you've given up, then you've failed to have faith, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Getting faith doesn't guarantee you're one of the elect, but not having it guarantees that you're not.
So an attitude like yours might work anyway, if you happen to be one of the elect, but the odds aren't in your favor.
> Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.
I don't understand the psychology either, but people compartmentalize and rationalize. One line of thinking might be that everyone is a fallen sinner, even priests, and so long as they repent and guide their flock in the right direction, they will be forgiven.
It is worth noting I attended Catholic school in the South, closer to the border, so the church reflected more Mexican practices in Catholicism than say one in New York. I've learned from some folks that where you're taught makes a drastic difference.
The only place I was subjected to guilt, shame, and remorse in a negative context was in my home by (Catholic lay) relatives (and mass media). They were in a "cultural Christian" demographic, raised in utterly secular households, and though they practiced the faith vigorously, didn't really believe or follow it at home, except by coincidence.
By contrast, at school I experienced respect and encouragement from women in authority, and church was full of good news, and loving, joyful men and families. Surely my experience is also not in isolation.
When the Catholic abuse scandal broke, I was confused because my priests (and religious sisters) were nothing like that, but abuse by lay volunteers is real too, and it wasn't until 2019 when I put 2 and 2 together in that regard.
So yes, A LOT of unpacking!
The organization itself is still rooted in angry, spanish inquisition style purity tests, and they openly push those views anywhere that isn't too progressive. For example, the same catholic church has pushed misinformation and propaganda all over africa to discourage condom use.
Seminarians do not take vows of celibacy. Seminary is by design a time of testing a vocation. Additionally, I would like to see the data backing your “most gay priests” assertion.
That you have a few “sins” to struggle doesn’t change your identity or your relationship to it, and besides — everyone has some “sins” they struggle with. As a priest, of all people, you would know that.
As a whole, secular society sees sexual preference as an inflexible identity around which other things like religious affiliation or occupation might pivot. But the converse works just as well for an individual’s view of the world and is of course what many well-established traditions espouse.
Catholicism, in particular, leaves room for living people being imperfect and inescapably bearing “sins” throughout their lives. It’s a core part of the theology. It’s what you do with it that becomes your profession of faith, and committing to the priesthood makes sense as a emphatic way of doing something about yours. (Which suggests that the preisthood can easily collect especially troubled “sinners” seeking to overcome their troubles… who maybe don’t always do a great job of it)
I suspect these gay Catholic find themselves in a similiar situation. They probably do not share much in common with the secular world.
Lots of people will immediately call this hypocrisy but they just have not put that much thought into it. There is more to life than sexual preferences.
Catholic Church is not condemning homosexuals. Why it should? According to Bible they were created by God, so they are good by definition. CC is condemning homosexual sex, in the same way as it condemns pre-marriage sex or killing other people. All those acts are done by people created by God, but given a free will to do the things that are wrong from the Church perspective. And that can be forgiven thanks do a deal that Jesus made with God.
As far as priests are concerned it does not matter much if they are gay or not as they should not maintain sexual relationships anyway.
I think most rational people would see through that, it's pretty flimsy.
Where is the inconsistency? A heterosexual man is called to chastity as well. If he acts against this by cheating on his spouse I don't think the CC would be 'condemning an intrinsic quality' he was made with.
The teachings of Jesus should piss everyone off in some way or another.
But it should be stressed that this is no way a consequence a specific teaching that targets people with same-sex attraction.
The root cause of the trouble is the fact that the Catholic Church has consistently taught something that is always counter-cultural, difficult, and even quite radical. Namely that the only proper place for sexual intimacy is within a life long bond between one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children.
The Catholic Church teaches that gay sex is an act of 'grave depravity' and that same-sex attraction is 'intrinsically disordered'. How is that not a specific teaching that targets 'people with same-sex attraction'?
The point is that the identical moral reasoning process is being applied consistently to all people, namely, sexual activity is to be avoided outside of a marriage open to children. Gay people are not being targeted by some sort of religious moral carve-out.
The Church specifically teaches that gay sex is wrong in a way that straight sex isn't, entirely independently of whether it occurs within or outside marriage.
In the case of the article we're commenting on, we have an example of the Church (or a closely associated organisation) specifically treating gay priests differently to straight priests, despite the fact that neither are permitted to have sex with anyone.
It's abundantly clear which group is being targeted here. It's not "people who are having sex with no possibility of having children", or "people who are having sex outside of marriage". It's gay people. And they're being targeted because the Catholic Church teaches very explicitly and specifically that gay sex is wrong.
If someone cheats on their spouse the problem is a betrayal of trust between two people. It's part of a complex web of obligations, urges, and everything else that happens in a relationship.
It's not nearly as simple as someone expressing their sexuality.
Only in the past ten years, under Francis' papacy, has rhetoric from the Catholic Church towards homosexuals began to soften. While that's certainly a great thing, that doesn't mean that the views shared by aged bishops, priests and general members of the church have changed as a result of that. We still see signs of that condemnation across the world regularly. They may be changing, but the damage is still present and still happening - it will take a long time for that to disappear, if ever.
>Why it should?
I'd say we should ask every priest, bishop and pope who has criticized homosexuality why they felt they should. I really don't understand why you would ask that rhetorical question when there are centuries of proof of them doing exactly that.
Dougal: But Ted, preaching against one thing in public, while secretly doing it in private, that's hypocrisy!
Ted: No Dougal, I don't think so. Hypocrisy is just not something the Catholic church does, if we do something there's usually a good reason for it. Hypocrisy is something more for the common people, and you should strenuously preach against it!
Dougal: Oh OK, thanks for clearing that up Ted.
*My imaginary Father Ted episode, if it was still running.
I've known quite a few priests. Most are intelligent and well educated. Its pretty common for them to do a lot of work that probably would translate to secular roles. For example, there's a lot of overlap in managing a parish or diocese and managing a business or division of a corporation.
The difference is that these “monitor” groups don’t care about the priests on Tindr because their biases.
"Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
Original sin is a deprivation of these positive qualities. Mary, for example, preserved in holiness, not simply cleansed of it. Holiness is our natural state, and so baptism returns us to that preternatural holiness that Adam enjoyed when he walked with God in the Garden.
Its hard to argue the same for gay priests who only occasionally get laid as a result of their choices.
I'm sure some of them do. People can think they are terrible people while continuing to pretend they aren't in public.
In my experience it's quite easy. You quickly get resigned to the fact you're broken and will never be able to change. Once you accept that as truth, it's easier to just ignore it.
Hard words but true. No mental gymnastics needed, just a bad conscience.
Now mind you: there are priests who have homosexual desires but try to live their celibacy, albeit not always successfully. These are not hypocritical, they are just human. But they do not tend to visit grindr.
Now, imagine doing it for a dogmatic scripture held dearly by many millions. Sure, the Catholic Church is on the wrong side of history when it comes to gay rights, among other things, but if some people find peace and meaning in its voluminous scriptures, then there is still a leadership role for those priests. That might explain the cognitive dissonance.
"Well I don't really care that much about actual religion but job is safe and pay is decent..."
But how long until these insane people just start trying to target other people. Getting this data, writing some scripts and start sending emails like "Did you know your employees are using XYZ" in an attempt to get people fired?
Catholicism cannot and should not be reduced to a bunch of sexual thou-shalt-nots. Despite some Catholic organizations (like the one in the story) being vehemently anti-gay, the church’s actual teaching is far more nuanced.