Publicly acknowledged to be gay and a practicing Catholic, Andrew Sullivan's recent column in New York Magazine's "Intelligencer" rates a read by any thoughtful and conservative-minded Catholic [a shrinking breed that likely included Mr. Sullivan not that long ago], be they straight or gay --- it is an in depth study of the Catholic Church's problems in dealing with: homosexuality; so-called "traditional doctrines and rules" about homosexuality; specific teaching and rules concerning priests and [their possible] homosexuality and/or homosexual tendencies; and the internal and external politics of it all
Even if you aren't Catholic --- or --- if you are a Catholic that doesn't care about what's going on inside what you see as a merely formalistic Catholic Church --- the information that Mr. Sullivan is passing on is useful in seeing how the Catholic Church is being "deconstructed" from within and without in these revolutionary times --- whether Andrew Sullivan is an agent of that "deconstruction" or a defender against it remains to be seen and evaluated, in these parts
Sullivan starts off his main text with this: ".... We have no reliable figures on just how many priests in the Catholic Church are gay. The Vatican has conducted many studies on its own clergy but never on this subject. In the United States, however, where there are 37,000 priests, no independent study has found fewer than 15 percent to be gay, and some have found as many as 60 percent. The consensus in my own research over the past few months converged on around 30 to 40 percent among parish priests and considerably more than that — as many as 60 percent or higher — among religious orders like the Franciscans or the Jesuits.... This fact hangs in the air as a giant, unsustainable paradox. A church that, since 2005, bans priests with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” and officially teaches that gay men are “objectively disordered” and inherently disposed toward “intrinsic moral evil” is actually composed, in ways very few other institutions are, of gay men.... The massive cognitive dissonance this requires is becoming harder to sustain. The collapse of the closet in public and private life in the past three decades has made the disproportionate homosexuality of the Catholic priesthood much less easy to hide, ignore, or deny. This cultural and moral shift has not only changed the consciousness of most American Catholics (67 percent of whom support civil marriage for gay couples) and gay priests (many of whom are close to quitting) but also broken the silence that long shrouded the subject.... Five years ago, Pope Francis made his watershed “Who am I to judge?” remark after being asked about a flawed gay priest. 'A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality,' Francis went on. 'I replied with another question: 'Tell me, when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love or reject and condemn this person?" We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being.' In the final draft of the 2014 Synod on the Family, Francis included explicit mention of the 'gifts and qualities' of homosexuals, asking, 'Are we capable of welcoming [them]?' These sentiments won 62 percent of the votes of the synod bishops — just shy of what was necessary to pass, but still evidence of a sharp shift in tone in official Catholic teaching.... They also triggered near panic on the Catholic right...." (See "The Gay Church -- Thousands of priests are closeted, and the Vatican’s failure to reckon with their sexuality has created a crisis for Catholicism" by Andrew Sullivan, 1/21/19, New York Magazine/ Intelligencer/ Catholic Church [http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/gay-priests-catholic-church.html]).
