Sex Scandals, Again

Last night, I came across a some posts about sex scandals in the Archdiocese of Miami. I am not going to link to it because I don't want to further smear the name of a priest who doesn't deserve it. The general idea is that while this priest was a seminarian, the openly gay head of the seminary made him "his boy," and would spend hours gawking at him and photographing him as he worked out in the weight room.

There is no evidence that the seminarian, now a pastor, has ever molested a child, sexually harassed anyone, or misappropriated church funds. He did not deserve to be "outed" as a gay man, if in fact he is. In fact, it may be that he was being sexually harassed. However, the tone of the article implies the former.

His name became known as part of an investigation conducted by a group calling itself Christifidelis. If what they report is correct, they acted properly in investigating and unearthing corruption at the top levels of the Archdiocese. Many of the people named were apparently guilty of flagrant wrongdoing, including sexually harassing seminarians and channeling church funds to lovers.

However, the priest I am referring to did not deserve to have his name made public. If indeed he is at fault in some way, this should have been handled privately with his spiritual director and his confessor. There is a fine line between an investigation and a witchhunt, and naming this man crossed that line. I believe James in his epistle exhorts us to confront people with their faults privately and with due humility because we too are fallible and liable to temptation. In their zeal to defend one tenet of Catholic teaching, it seems to me that this group violated another, more important one.

On the other hand, there is much about their report that addresses issues that should be made public. Apparently, the culture of seminaries in South Florida is so openly gay that straight men find the environment uncomfortable, if not hostile. Apparently, more conservative dioceses stopped sending their seminarians here for that reason. It is hard enough for a young man to embrace celibacy without being in the company of people who openly flout the requirement.

The members of Christifidelis should remember that many gay priests are rendering compassionate, sensitive pastoral care to their parishioners and Catholic life in Florida would be poorer without them. I don't believe that in the decade since my conversion that I have ever met an American-born man who entered the priesthood as a young adult and that was trained in this diocese who was straight. To the best of my knowledge, they have all been gay. (The exceptions are men who were born abroad, men who entered the priesthood later in life, and men who were trained in other parts of the country.) The diocese could not run without its gay priests. Chasing gay men out of the priesthood would result in the closure of churches and the denial of sacraments to the faithful.