My second post on Sully today

*I* not being catholic find myself surprised to defend the church from some one who was in it. Sully isn't happy holy mother church is banning homosexuals from the priesthood. Others have pointed out the painful reality that folks like sully don't want to acknowledge (that the priest sex abuse scandal is about abusive homosexual sex and not pedophilia.) So I'm not going to go into that in great detail here I am going to make a story. My story is going to explain the logic of why the church is doing what it is doing.I am not endorsing the Catholic church's position in any way shape or form I am pointing out the logical and reasonable nature of the position. This position isn't one of bigotry but one may feel church teachings set this problem up.... And *In the US* I'd disagree. US catholics regularly dismiss church teaching when it suits them. It is a problem of people feeling they have to be orthodox to the teachings of the church when no one else is. Thats what i view as a more root cause.

Take a young catholic boy
now for whatever reason ( genetics, nuturing, nature+ nuture, aliens with anal probes, etc) the young man is gay.
The young man is aware his feelings of attraction are different then everyone elses and different then what the church says is upright and godly.
The young man feels very bad about that and tries to repress his sexuality. But lets say the young man doesn't have a very good inner ability to repress.
So the young man goes through fits of homosexual outbursts then repression with a side order of depression.
And lets say this works around till he gets into high school. The young man being a very devoted catholic prays and prays for help in keeping his desires down. He decides to go into the church as a way to keep the genie in the bottle.He isn't alone as some one trying to keep the gay inside at the seminary as he finds a gay subculture there... a subculture that hides itself but makes him feel alive. He probably even has homosexual sex at these parties because of his pattern of sexual behavior.but he still tries to put that genie in the bottle.
Only, he doesn't. Now he is a priest so if he picks some one up at a gay bar or the like and gets caught his career is ruined. But unlike those whose career is ruined normally this has the added bonus of making him feel cast out of the community of god, shaming his family, and bringing shame and discredit on the church. So he picks from among his flock and among the weakest and most pliable to the church in his flock.

The Children

What would solve this problem? Psychological screening of canidates going into the priesthood. Some homosexuals are entering the priesthood for healthy reasons.

Why can't they screen people? Because hardly anyone wants to be a priest anymore.

So how can the church stop people who have compulsive and addictive sexual drives, who happen to be homosexuals, from being priests?

Ban all homosexuals from the priesthood and try to make it sound like a really good doctrinal position.

Sully of course could see this better if he wasn't (a) catholic or (b) homosexual.
Since he is Catholic he has a presentation in his mind of the Catholic church that is unrealistic to reality. And since he is homosexual, like most people I know who are homosexual, he won't address the fact the bulk of priest sex abuse -is- homosexual sex abuse.

Perspective, its a big flaw in Andrew Sullivan's presentation.