2001 LETTERS
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Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

JANUARY 2001 LETTERS

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I like how gay activists confuse truth as stated in "No Accident: Gay Show at Mt. Miguel High" (November, 2000). It was stated in the article, "How can you object to young people who are living their truth?" Quite simply I object to the gay lifestyle because it is not of God. God tells us in the Bible that man and woman are to unite and be one -- not female to female or male to male bonding. Truth will set you free! God's truth, not man's interpretation of what truth is. To say that the gay lifestyle is of God is the opposite of God's truth and is a lie.

Craig Galik
Duquesne, PA


SULLEN, FOREBODING MEMORIES

"The Gay Priest Problem" by Paul J. Shaughnessy, S.J. (December, 2000) was outstanding!!

Even after all these years it is still difficult to fathom how the gay culture within the priesthood (and Church) has been able to gain such a foothold and power in every area of the Church; yet the "average" Catholic in the pew knows so little of it. Perhaps this article will be of assistance in educating those who are so ignorant or indifferent. I certainly hope so.

In 1980, I was introduced to a "progressive" formation program at St. Francis Seminary known as the Dwyer Program. No matter how hard one tried to obtain a satisfactory description of the program, one was always given ambiguous answers. As a result, students were more often than not left to their own devices in order to discern what this Dwyer thing was all about. The reality of that program hit home in my second year when the make-up in sexual orientation of students did a 180, and those who were heterosexual found themselves to be the minority.

The political, social, and theological culture of homosexuality within the seminary was not only dominant but oppressive and punitive to anyone who attempted to oppose it while choosing to remain in studies. I tried and paid a very heavy price.

By my third year of studies it was all too apparent that one (if not the main) objective of the Dwyer Program was to welcome gay students into seminary formation with open arms, and by doing so, begin to acknowledge and legitimize the gay priesthood; or in other words, bring it out of the closet. Rev. Vincent Dwyer and his disciples felt that they were on the cutting edge of the "priesthood of the future." Twenty years later I suppose those disciples take great pride in the inroads they have made.

There was little in Shaughnessy's story that I didn't already know (or experience), but that knowledge and experience could not minimize the sullen and foreboding memories and recollections of nearly four years spent in "homosexual formation" to the priesthood.

Name withheld
San Diego


WHEN PUBERTY COMES

I found Rev. Shaughnessy's article on gay clergy insightful, but unfortunately he did not probe deeper for the ultimate source of the problem. A half century ago I remember the nuns speaking of penance, self-control, self-denial, and self-mortification. These words are no longer in our lexicon, and the nuns are in the last stages of retirement.

We live in a materialistic world of previously unimagined comfort. Children grow up believing that constant entertainment and self-gratification are an inalienable right. When puberty comes, there is no basis for the control of nature's urges, and hence the problems of illicit sex have become rampant.

Those entering the seminaries come from a world suffering from these ills, and we should not expect miraculous transformations. The sexual orientation of our clergy is not the basic problem, rather it is the failure to control natural urges. The same problem pervades modern marriage, and hence the high rate of family dissolution.

Let us recognize the nature of the problem, for it resides in all of us.

Stanley Friesenhahn
Poway


FRIEND CHASED BY MONKS

Father Shaughnessy's historic article is laudable. Yet he certainly is aware of why homosexual clergy are a problem now. Since the eleventh century, when celibacy was ordained for the seculars of the Western Church, homosexuality has flourished among them. What has spotlighted this problem now is the new epidemic of STDs, especially AIDS.

But let us look at our brethren from the churches that originate with the Reformation. One can cite the rampant homosexuality in the Anglican communion. In England it seems to be taken as a common thing. Recently the Protestant Evangelical ministry, Focus on the Family, saw two of its prominent spokesmen cited for "indiscretions," one for visiting a homosexual pub, the other for an adulterous relationship. Homosexuals have been arrested and imprisoned for other felonious acts in Protestant churches in San Diego County. Kindly examine the archives of the local newspaper.

What is clear is that in any context, religious or otherwise, where homosexuals or homosexually-inclined individuals have the opportunity to sin, they will sin and sin fiercely. Father Shaughnessy does not spare even his own Society of Jesus. But, so what?

If we had all of the historical facts -- and only the Almighty does -- about the period, 1050-2000 AD, we would see that within the Western Church, homosexuals and promiscuous people of all sexual persuasions freely sinned, and sinned to the utmost. Indeed, when I was in graduate school, a good friend of mine told me that when he visited a monastery (Greek Orthodox) on an island in the Aegean, several monks became infatuated with him (he was about 20 at the time), and he had to run away to preserve his integrity, with the monks in hot pursuit. So much for the Eastern Church.

Why cannot the honorable Father Shaughnessy and the rest of the Western Church simply admit that celibacy is for the very few, extremely few, and repeal this stupid and insane ordinance for that is all it is. Let men who sincerely can practice celibacy go to the monasteries and cloisters, and let the seculars marry. If they will not do so, they certainly will BURN (1 Corinthians 7:9).

Name withheld
San Diego


ADOPT YOUR PRIEST

Having read part of your article "The Gay Priest Problem" by Paul Shaughnessy, S.J., I could not go on reading. The thought of these vile, disgusting creatures handling the Divinity of my beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, made me sick to my stomach....

The whole Catholic Church better get down on its knees and pray Our Lord rids His holy Mystical Body of this cancer within. If you suspect a priest in your parish of this abomination, adopt him. Pray for him day and night as if he were your own son. Every Catholic should do this, even for your good priests, for these anointed of the Lord are judged by Him on a much more rigorous scale than ordinary people....

Elizabeth De Cristofaro
Escondido

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