On ‘gay lobby’ debate, Pope again offers critics the sound of silence

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

March 3, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Whenever there’s a big Vatican shindig, it’s never just one experience. It’s almost always a tale of multiple events, depending on one’s angle.

To offer just a partial list, there’s the event as it’s experienced by those actually taking part; the public face that the Vatican’s PR machinery tries to apply; the way the event is covered by the media; and the circus that unfolds around the event in protests, parallel meetings, news conferences, snarky tweets, polemical essays, and so on.

Analyzing how these differing perspectives coincide, and where they diverge, usually reveals a good deal about where things stand in terms of the politics of the Catholic Church at any given moment.

Such was again the case with the Feb. 21-24 summit on clerical sexual abuse convened by Pope Francis, and perhaps nowhere is that clearer than discussions of homosexuality, gay clergy, and whether a supposed “gay lobby” within the Church’s power structure has anything to do with the abuse scandals.

Beginning with the statistical fact that a 2004 John Jay report in the United States found that 81 percent of abuse cases involved interaction between priests and minor males, there’s long been an active discussion as to whether homosexuality has anything to do with the crisis.

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