tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017925699690446520.post3125620169436010829..comments2024-03-16T20:11:53.366-07:00Comments on Hepzibah: Grandpa BergoglioAlan McCornickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15532896902247434009noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017925699690446520.post-46893296152710046222018-11-17T14:24:10.104-08:002018-11-17T14:24:10.104-08:00In order to get my last bit past the "number ...In order to get my last bit past the "number of character censors":<br /><br />"In summary, Plante states what I find to be true way too often in the annals of conservative Catholicism: “Tragically, those with a homosexual orientation have a long standing history of being scapegoated and victimized in our culture and in many others cultures for centuries. Sadly, this group is being again victimized in the clergy abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. We need less and not more victims in this story.”<br /><br />For his full posting, see: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/41227Jimmy Machttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01156445623455211484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017925699690446520.post-38547987079625630622018-11-17T14:22:06.706-08:002018-11-17T14:22:06.706-08:00I'm a little late to this posting.
Blaming ho...I'm a little late to this posting.<br /><br />Blaming homosexual priests. is an old canard, which has been disabused by many, including Thomas Plante, PhD in a 2010 article in Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/201004/what-we-know-about-homosexuals-and-the-catholic-clergy-sexual-abuse). <br /><br />Let me quote some of his findings. The article is still online and available for all to see.<br /><br />“First, no research suggests that homosexuals are at higher risk of being sex offenders, committing sexual crimes, or having impulse control disorders that result in sexual crimes than heterosexuals. Sexual orientation, by itself, is not a risk factor for crime. Almost all of the professional medical, psychiatric, and psychological associations (such as the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Pediatric Association) have position papers that articulate this understanding. For example, the American Psychological Association stated in 1975: "homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, reliability or general social and vocational capabilities…(and mental health professionals should) take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness long associated with homosexual orientation."<br /><br />Second, sexual crimes against children are not merely an issue of sexual desire. Most men who are sex offenders struggle with a variety of co-morbid disorders such as substance abuse, impulse control problems, personality disorders, affective or mood disorders, brain injury as well as an inability to maintain mature, intimate, sexual or non-sexual relationships with adults. Often a sexual crime and behavior (violating a child) is more than just they can’t help themselves with their sexual attractions and desires. Many pedophiles are indeed sexually attracted to pre pubescent children but 80% of clergy sexual offenders violated a post pubescent teen and are not pedophiles at all (but are described as ephebophiles). Many report that teens are not the object of their desire but what was available to them at the time. Perhaps prison sexual behavior is a good example. Often heterosexual men find themselves engaging in homosexual behavior while in prison and return to heterosexual behavior once released. Abusing priests, especially during the 1960's and 1970's when most of these crimes were committed, had power, control, access, and trust with boys much more so than with girls.<br /><br />Certainly some homosexual priests did in fact abuse boys. But so did heterosexual priests as well as priests who were unclear about their sexual orientation and desires. I have evaluated or treated about 60 of these men during the past several decades and have found this to be true clinically as well as true based on research findings. Sexual crimes against children are much more complicated than merely an issue of sexual orientation. <br /><br />In my view, sexual orientation is a red herring in this debate. If we truly are interested in protecting children from harm and doing the right thing, we shouldn’t blame homosexuals but focus our attention on the various well known and established risk factors that are more likely to result in the sexual victimization of children and youth. These include a history of sexual and other victimization, impulse control problems, the inability to maintain satisfying peer/adult relationships, maladaptive coping styles, substance abuse, and several co-morbid psychiatric disturbances. Sexual orientation isn't one of them. There is quality research and state-of-the-art practice that can help us with this and those of us actively involved with this work from a clinical, research, and policy standpoint are using it. We must do so for the sake of our children as well as for the Church.”<br /><br />Jimmy Machttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01156445623455211484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017925699690446520.post-34483216118726856932018-09-14T08:31:10.586-07:002018-09-14T08:31:10.586-07:00Alan, I've been caught up in the incessant flu...Alan, I've been caught up in the incessant flurry of news stories about all of this and had not yet taken time to thank you for this wonderful posting — as I should have done long since. As I read it, I think — and you may find this odd — of Charles Marsh's biography of Bonhoeffer, which I'm reading right now. Before reading it, I had not known the extent to which Bonhoeffer was attracted to Catholic ritual and pageant, in his first trip to Rome and then in the time in which he lived in Barcelona as a Lutheran pastor. <br /><br />A lot of things about him and his work suddenly click for me when I read Marsh saying that Bonhoeffer's intellectual curiosity and his ecumenical openness to various forms of religious expression and ideas beyond his own cultural pale led him always to be reaching across the "approved" lines in his upbringing, culture, and church. He caused dismay for his parents when he chose not the eminent Harnack or Holl to be his dissertation director, but the cranky, eccentric Seeberg — because he himself did not want to be easily pigeonholed.<br /><br />I have not yet gotten to the part of the book that made waves by suggesting Bonhoeffer was gay and had a gay relationship. But I'd add that to the mix, as I think about his desire not to be pigeonholed, boxed in — and about his openness to many different kinds of ideas, different people, different religious persuasions and anti-religious ones. The only intellectual milieu that seems to have irritated him profoundly was the seminary life in New York in the time he spent there. He was dumbfounded at the glib, anti-intellectual optimism of the seminary students there.<br /><br />I hope you won't find it offensive for me to suggest you and Dietrich have some similar traits.William D. Lindseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07246026074693891965noreply@blogger.com