Priesthood in Crisis Dropped by Amazon.com for Uncovering Gay Sex in Catholic Church

By Jean Paul Zapata
Gay Star News
May 26, 2013

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/priesthood-crisis-dropped-amazoncom-uncovering-gay-sex-priesthood260513


A priest’s book that exposes a ‘powerful gay mafia’ in the Catholic Church has been axed from online retailer Amazon

Amazon.com has dropped from its website a book that reveals alleged gay sex cover-ups in the Catholic Church.

Priesthood in Crisis, written by Father Matthew Despard of St John Ogilvie church in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, accuses the Catholic Church in Scotland of concealing a ‘powerful gay mafia’ of priests who engage in sexual acts with other men.

Despard says he warned Church leaders of what he saw, but nothing was done. The book is a personal account of the abuse and bullying the priest allegedly endured after rejecting sexual advances of other priests and fellow students.

Since its release earlier this year, the book became a best-seller online, ranking 125 out of 1.9 million books available for download to portable reading device Kindle. The book is no longer for sale on that website.

According to Scotland’s Daily Record, Father Despard said: ‘I noticed it was no longer for sale on Amazon and have been in touch to ask them why. I am awaiting their response and I don’t know anything more about it.’

Amazon said: ‘This book is not available on Amazon.co.uk. All titles must adhere to our content guidelines’ that include a prohibition on pornography, offensive material and ‘items that infringe upon a person’s privacy.’

The release of his book comes on the heels of former Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s excommunication from the Catholic Church after he was found guilty of sexual misconduct with male priests. Some of the incidents O'Brien was accused of dated back almost 30 years.

Despard said in a statement earlier this year: ‘The Catholic Church here in Scotland, and I am ashamed to admit this, has justified itself to Catholic papers by telling lie after lie, denying charges that are true, and claiming they have been defamed when the facts reported in the press are quite simply true.

‘So much of the problematic state of the priesthood stems from the junior seminaries, where training took place cut off from the world, that were laws unto themselves, where abuse became so rife that many had to be closed.’