May 24, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Los Angeles Times op-ed writer Robert Scheer has distorted the truth about the Catholic Church and homosexuals, says Catholic League president William Donohue.
In his recent column, Scheer says the Catholic Church is “one of the most sexually repressed institutions in human history” that is responsible for a “horrific drumbeat of child molestation revelations” led by a new Pope who is “a longtime leader of vicious church attacks on ‘evil’ gays.” Scheer also accuses Pope Benedict XVI of scapegoating the media.
“Scheer is wrong on all counts,” says Donohue.
“It is not the Catholic Church’s emphasis on sexual reticence that gave us the scandal, it was morally delinquent priests who jettisoned the Church’s teachings on sexuality,” he says.
Regarding child molestation, Donohue points out that 81 percent of the victims were male, and the majority was postpubescent. He also said 100 percent of the abusers were male, “thus making this a homosexual scandal, not a pedophilia scandal.”
Donohue also corrects Scheer’s statement that the Pope had said that homosexuals are evil. “What the Pope said when he was a cardinal is that homosexual behavior is ‘intrinsically evil,’ thus reiterating Church teaching,” states Donohue.
Donohue adds that the Church’s position on homosexuality is shared by the world’s major religions, such as Judaism and Islam.
“Not only has the Pope not scapegoated the media, but as recently as Good Friday he drew attention to the ‘filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely’ to God,” Donohue says.