All roads lead to Rome as Irish seminary gripped by Grindr scandal A group of Irish trainee priests are being packed off to Roma, after claims some fathers-in-training at their existing berth in the Emerald Isle had developed a predilection for gay hookup site Grindr. Catholic archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, has reportedly pulled the diocese’s three trainees from St Patrick’s College, …
And of course, would-be priests have always faced challenges when it comes to denying the pleasures of the flesh. Reaching way back when, we know of at least one seminarian who became so enamoured of their female instructor in liturgical latin that they packed in the whole thing, and decided to become a computer engineer instead.
where chastity becomes far easier because you have no choice in the matter as a computer engineer
"And of course, would-be priests have always faced challenges when it comes to denying the pleasures of the flesh. "
Henry VIII used the reports of lewd and corrupt behaviour in monasteries as a good excuse for dissolving them and confiscating their wealth. His peripatetic Commissioners did exaggerate some of their reports - but the kernel of the truth was undoubtedly there. The Catholic Church had great power in most European countries at that time - and with such power comes corruption and abuse at all levels.
I've been sharing a place with a gay couple; well it's saved me a few quid rather than live on my own, plus I get my washing done and meals cooked! But it is a real eye opener when you see some of the things going on.
This couple have a habit of inviting some of their friends over; pretty much just offering them a cheap holiday in the sun. One of these people was around last week, and he seemed to be finding a new conquest every other day, and it was getting a bit embarrassing seeing him with yet another bloke in the swimming pool.
On his penultimate day, he was accompanied by a fresh faced young chap that he had picked up locally on Grindr. It was only later that I found out this new paramour was a man of the cloth, running around in civvies.
"Nowt so queer as folk"!
"Part of the gay male culture is to indulge widely and enjoy hugely. "
A gay friend recently split up from a monogamous relationship of over 15 years. He found that Grindr was a revelation in how you now can meet other gay men. He did have a problem with under-18s who wanted a "daddy" figure - and he often spent a platonic "date" explaining to them the dangers of the world.
Wisely he established initial contacts by virtual media - then on mutually neutral ground with activities like meeting for coffee.
After a few months of experimentation he has now settled into a relationship with one person and hopes it will lead to a more permanent situation.
Pretty much like my heterosexual friends treat Tinder - although they tend to be more coy about how quickly things progress.
Although I'm not, It's a brilliant place for a night out.
A youngish man had become very drunk, he'd become separated from the group he was with and unable to stand.
I was nearby and heard some of the conversation about what to do with him, from ambulance to going through his contact list on his mobile, the latter was chosen all the while keeping him upright and lots of water.
They'd got through to a few of his friends and found out that nobody would be at the house he shared for a couple of hours, so they took turns making sure he was ok even some food till they got a call back and sent him off in a taxi by this stage looking a lot better.
Absolutely brilliant to catch some of what went on, they were superb!
"After the decades of abuse of boys maybe the priests have just realized that they and the Church will have less trouble if they the priests switch to older boys."
I once knew an Irish former candidate for the priesthood who jacked it in when he realised that he was gay. When he told the seminary the reaction was more or less "so what?" but he took his religion very seriously indeed, and went off to be a charity worker.
But he told me that he himself had been told about the Bishop who apparently said "Forty percent of my priests sleep with their housekeepers. Forty percent are homosexuals. It's the other 20% keep me awake at night."
And that is directed at Catholicism and most other religions - as Christopher Hitchens, religion is a system that forces good people to do bad things ("But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion") - and there's very little fouler than the abuse of children by these black-frocked scum under the protection of the church.
That quote predates Hitchens by some time. The rest of your comment is a little over the top, and I say that as someone who was raised in the catholic church and detests it. There are some very rotten eggs, but there are many more decent individuals than bad (note I refer to the individuals, not the institution). A statement that applies equally to some of the other major world religions you may have seen in the news recently.
@ Androgynous Cupboard
"many more decent individuals than bad"
Yes, I can easily agree with your entire post, and particularly the quotation above. All major religion is no more than the artefact of bad people who want to control the masses with tales of The Man In The Sky and the glories of the life to come - suffer subserviently to keep us in luxury and your reward will be all the greater. Yeah, right...
However, I reserve special loathing of the Catholic church because of their long history of actively protecting their "rotten eggs", moving them surreptitiously to another parish and letting them repeat their criminal behaviour. It is my personal opinion that Ratzinger, God's Rottweiler, resigned because he was about to be swept up in the tidal wave of revelations pouring out of so many countries. So many children he (and all popes) could and should have saved, and yet the protection of the power of the church outweighed their safety - pretty Christian, right? What would Jesus have said?
I have no personal axe to grind here. I had a happy childhood unmarred by religion (my parents sensibly introduced me to it but had no objection when at the age of 6 or 7 I gave it up as mindless meaningless nonsense). My anger comes from being a father and seeing so many weeping middle-aged men whose lives were destroyed by black-frocked scum.
One advantage of a CofE school and Salvation Army Sunday School is you can get a vaccination against religion by the time it comes to refuse to be Confirmed. At the same time you are armed with some useful phrases and stories from the King James Bible. You also get insights into a tribal adult world where "love thy neighbour" is not always the intent of the clergy or apparent pillars of the congregation. .
Unlike the RCC the indoctrination by the CofE is generally mild - so you tend to stay on good terms even after you declare yourself an atheist. Ex-RCC atheists tend to be far more troubled in that they have had to lose so much of their identity in their rebellion.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien's fall from grace was interesting. An apparently liberal thinker who appeared to embrace homophobic rhetoric to climb the greasy pole of the Vatican hierarchy. Leaving aside his abuse of young clerics under his authority - it would be nice to think he was aiming to be Pope to then reform their traditional abuses of human rights and equality. As it is he will go down in history as a hypocrite who caused much distress to families with gay children.
hah.. I beg to differ - although, everyone there is headless and anonymous because, well, yeah, most to them are mama's boys or priests - but grindr in Rome is massively busy. Then there's that gay sauna/bath-house built under the bishops residence (ok, I believe that closed during the gay purges of the last few years), but gotta say, that was fun in a oh-god-we-are-all-going-to-hell-forever kind of way.
The Catholic church for some reason demands chastity. To judge from schooldays, there are some chaps who are repelled by their own nascent inclinations, for whom it is no penalty to forswear 'girls', but who feel compelled to go out and do good in the world. How do you filter them for priesthood? Better to be honest with yourself, I'd say, but still it's a problem for Vatican HR. One I know was ejected 30 years ago (yes they did 'discernment' even then), and nowadays has great fun in life, and remains a kindly soul.
"The Catholic church for some reason demands chastity"
There's no mystery about it. Chastity means no offspring. No offspring means no-one with a right to inheritance. So any wealth an individual may have a accumulated during the course of spiritually tending their flock (and some are/were much better at the accumulating than the tending) ends up back in the church.
The church in question demands it of their priests, nuns, and monk types so they will be more "like Jesus". A quick look at the saints is an interesting read unto itself.
OTOH, this is the same church that doesn't believe in birth control and sex is only for procreation... which gets the number of members higher.
"The church in question demands it of their priests, nuns, and monk types so they will be more "like Jesus"."
I'm not a religious scholar, but I believe that those who are (and who are a bit less controlled by the church) have established that Mary Magdalene became Jesus' "companion"; which in those days meant the equivalent of "common law wife". Apparently, this is now pretty much accepted as true even by many of the hierarchy within the church.
I was also told that in a couple of the various writings that were eliminated from the Bible by the Council of Nicea in 325, there were also references that suggested that Mary M had also had a child before his death. (This was part of the back story used by Dan Brown for the "Da Vinci Code".)
This post has been deleted by its author
Isn't one of Poland's problems - and actually something of an argument against free movement - that it exports a lot of highly skilled people who prefer doing manual jobs in the West to unemployment and a rather repressive society in the East? Whereas Brazil has population growth, zero to negative net emigration, and is the largest population majority Catholic country in the world.
Free movement achieves many things, but it does encourage the young to bugger off rather than stay and fix their own societies. And no, I don't pretend to have the answers.
This post has been deleted by its author
Things are different now that a lot of those countries no longer codify Catholic dogma in their laws. As for Brazil they also have a ton of land and somewhat of a language barrier between their neighbors.
"And of course, would-be priests have always faced challenges when it comes to denying the pleasures of the flesh."
Given the current Royal Commission in Oz, and the Pell allegations, some seem to have more problems denying it than others.
A pox (and worse) upon the houses of kiddie-fiddlers regardless of their religion.
"But why do they need the religious part?"
It's tribal - childhood indoctrination and segregation makes the religion a major part of your identity. Many religions ostracise anyone who chooses to leave - enforcing a complete social break on friends and family.
The Catholic priests and nuns have traditionally been recruited from sons and daughters of devout Catholic families. Often from large families in economies where education and jobs are scarce - and the Church has a strong influence on government and laws. In many developed countries that supply of candidates is now drying up - as families are smaller and congregations are starting to question the Church's authority.
Historically in England the eldest son inherited the family farm/business. Younger sons could not afford to get married. They either stayed on to help raise their eldest sibling's children - or joined the armed forces or the Church.
There has been a suggestion in studies that an epigenetic effect in the womb can predispose subsequent sons to be gay. Evolution would fit that with the system of primogeniture inheritance - and the eldest sibling's children would potentially carry the same shared "gay" genetic inheritance.
Families tend to produce a succession of children following their parent's trade or profession. CofE clerics often come from a family of clerics. An elderly cousin is a vicar's wife. She was very put out to find that I am a long-standing atheist. She could not entertain the thought that one of her sons might have become an atheist. I didn't test her views on one of them being gay.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
