Who Does the Rome Gay Priest Scandal Really Hurt?

I guess this will hit the American shores soon. A little trouble is brewing in Rome. I am a little underwhelmed by this scandal. Shocking they found three gay priest and found they were having sex!! It is the pictures and the lurid details that give it the yuck factor.

The best piece and take on this can be seen at Politics Daily. See Rome's Gay Priest Scandal Makes Everyone Look Bad

Now I have seen this publication called a mainstream conservative weekly. You can go to the link and read the story and see the lurid pictures. (You can use google translate to get it in English). I am not linking it because for a mainstream publication it has a nice bit of nudity of women so gosh I don't want to offend anyone. But the link is there in the above linked piece..

First it makes journalists look bad. As he says:
Secretly filming priests -- or anyone -- in their private lives, and especially while having sex with a "honey pot" apparently brought along for the purposes of entrapment, is so far beyond the pale of journalistic standards that it makes Andrew Breitbart look like Walter Cronkite.

Indeed.

Of course it hurts the Church of Christ needless to say..

But as he points out does it not hurt other people. That is gay Priests and Catholic ins general that have some level of Same Sex attraction.

? We can divide that group into two categories. Those Priests laity that have some level of Same sex attraction but are chaste and then those that want to go HEY VATICAN homosexual acts are ok get with the times. Quit being homophobes.

So if a someone that is trying to take a stance that the Catholic Church should recognize homosexual conduct should be recognized as Holy well does this piece help? It seems to make the case for what Benedict has been doing and demanding as formations in Seminaries.

Panorama offered a fig leaf by saying that it would not reveal the priests' names or any other details about them, but that may not be protection enough for the men.

In fact, the Diocese of Rome, which is headed by the Bishop of Rome, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI, is undertaking an investigation to uncover the identity of the clerics and says it will "rigorously prosecute" anyone else who has engaged in conduct "unworthy of priestly life," which pretty much means gay priests.

Indeed, the response by church officials in Rome is another disturbing element of the sordid tale, though it is hardly a surprise given the Vatican's ham-handed media strategy during the past months of new sexual abuse revelations -- reactions that have more often than not worsened the scandal and the image of the church and the pope.

After the Panorama expose' was published, officials of the Vicariate of Rome (churchmen who oversee operations of the diocese for the pope, who is usually busy tending his global flock) issued a statement calling on priests like those cited in the magazine article to come out of the closet and leave the priesthood.

Priests who are living "a double life," said a statement from the Vicar of Rome, "have not understood what the Catholic priesthood is and should not have become priests" in the first place.

"Consistency demands that they be discovered. We do not wish them ill but we cannot accept that because of their behavior the honor of all the other priests is dragged through the mud."

Under Pope Benedict, the Vatican has taken strong measures to try to weed out gay men from the priesthood, whether they are sexually active or not. Part of this is in response to the sexual abuse scandal, which many in the Vatican -- and the rest of the hierarchy -- believe is due to the behavior of homosexual priests.

Now let me put that statement put out by the Diocese of Rome translated in English in full .

The magazine Panorama, in its issue of July 23, out in newsstands today, has a long article entitled 'Le notti brave dei preti gay' (Happy night of gay priests), in which the writer claims to have spent some time with gay priests and recorded their activities with a hidden camera.

The purpose of the article is obvious: to create scandal, to defame all priests on the basis of a statement by one priest who claims that 98 percent of all the priests he knows are homosexual, and ultimately, to discredit the Church.

In the process, it purports to put pressure on the part of the Church that it calls 'intransigent, and persists in not looking at the reality' of homosexual priests.

The events narrated in the article can only bring pain and concern to the ecclesial community of Rome which knows its own priests - those who do not live a double life but 'one life only', which is happy and joyful, consistent with their vocation, dedicated to God and the service of their fellowmen, committed to live the Gospel and bear witness to it as a model of morality for everyone.

There are more than 1,300 of them in 336 parishes, and in oratories, multiple works of charity, various institutes of consecrated life and in other ecclesial organizations working in the universities, in the world of culture, in hospitals and on the frontiers of poverty and human degradation - not only in our city but in far lands and in difficult situations.

Those who really know the Church of Rome - where hundreds of priests from all parts of the world also live as students - know that the overwhelming majority do not in any way live a 'double life'. Few priests do not understand what it means to be a Catholic priest; and fewer still those who have decided that they should not have been priests at all.

They know that nothing forces them to remain priests. Consistency requires those who have had a change of heart to come forward. We wish them no ill, but at the same time, we cannot accept that their behavior results in smearing the honor of all other priests.

In the face of this, we adhere with conviction to what the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome, has repeated often in the past months: 'the sins of priests' call on all of us to a conversion of the heart and of our life, to be vigilant and not to "poison Christian faith and life, undermine the integrity of the Church, weaken its capacity for preaching and witness, and besmirch the beauty of her face".

The Vicariate of Rome is committed to pursue strictly, following the norms of the Church, all behavior that is unworthy of the priestly life.

Now lets be clear here. The Church is not on a witch hunt as to Priesst that have some level of same sex attractions. The Church is focused on behavior!!! not orientations.

Even under the new guidelines of Seminary formation the Church is sophisticated enough to realize there is are differences in levels of same sex attractions a person might have and then DEEP SEATED same sex attractions that might present a problem in the future.

In other words the Church realizes that is is tad simplistic to put everyone into categories of Straight and Gay and label a person just by certain levels of attractions they might have. In other words the Church does not view one same sex encounter some guy had in youth with a friend as making someone "gay".

So when we are talking double lives the Church is talking about Priests described in this article or are in regular unchaste relationships. I am afraid that will get lost.

However I have to think if you are on the side of the argument that the Catholic Church should legitimize Same Sex sexual acts and relationships this article will not help in the end.