The Celibacy Heresy: Mass Sex and the Catholic Church

by Bennett Stevens 

The American public has been spoon-fed a bad Reader’s Digest version of a worldwide sex scandal that is far more pervasive than either the Church or the Mainstream Media Complex (MMC) is willing to admit, investigate or report.  This largely suppressed scandal involves tens of thousands of priests and a shocking array of sin and sex crimes that threatens to topple one of the "great" illusory pillars of the modern Roman Catholic Church—the Law of Celibacy.   

But before I get into all that juice, let me first try to clarify, rectify and amplify what little the MMC has reported on. 

Up front and for the record, pedophile priests are only responsible for a small fraction of the sex abuse occurring within the Church. The fact is that some 90% of what has been labeled pedophilia isn’t pedophilia at all, but hebephilia; defined as sexual obsession/expression with pubescent boys and/or girls ages 11 to 14. This is not a case of semantics, but of major behavioral differences, not to mention accuracy. Moreover, hebephile priests are predominantly gay, and the preponderance of the sex abuse cases scandalized in the MMC involve gay priests and teenaged boys.   

This raises a number of questions the MMC refuses to ask, not the least of which is why man-boy hebephilia is so prevalent within the Catholic Church. Three main reasons that come to mind are:

1. A powerful homosexual subculture within the Church of which man-boy hebephilia is a significant, and in some notorious seminaries even a promoted extracurricular activity.  Many a seminarian has been recruited as a young teen and brought into a seminary where gay sex is prevalent, then either led into voluntary sex or simply abused.  If abused, his own sexuality, even if he considers himself straight, can be scarred and stunted, thus making later expression along the same lines a probable outcome. 

2. In attempting to live unnaturally as a celibate and suppress normal desire, normal desire undergoes a mutation into the forbidden and focuses on availability and opportunity. The excitement generated in the mind leads to action, action to release, and release to guilt. Rinse, lather, repeat.

3. Tacit Church permission. If caught, about the only price to be paid for centuries was a transfer, if that. In other words, ass-jack enough of your flock and you got rewarded with a fresh new flock.       

Many would have us believe the percentage of hebephiles in the Church is roughly the same as within the general population. The reality is that the Church fosters a much larger percentage, at least double, probably triple and possibly quadruple that of the general population. 

But even hebephilia is a small fraction of the whole. 

Mass Sex

There are several aspects to this unseemly whole actually, which among other things makes structuring this rant a real pain in the ass.  But the Big One, the one that leads most directly to the origin of the problem and poses the biggest perceived threat to the Church, the one that has thus far been kept from belly-flopping into the mainstream—is hiding in plain sight.  

Why it’s none other than . . . . drum roll please . . . .

Adult-Adult, HETEROsexual sex!

That’s right folks, mostly regular old man-woman sex, only with a white collar on the nightstand and a crucifix swinging devilishly between a pair of blaspheming breasts. (Assuming the missionary position.) 

There are more priests involved in illicit sex with women than with men, teens and children combined!  Alleluia for that. 

To illustrate the surprising scope of sexual activity and abuse amongst Catholic clergy in America, the 1990 Doyle-Moulton-Peterson Report, headed by Canon lawyer Fr. Thomas Doyle cites the following round numbers: 

Of 47,000 American priests . . .

12,000 sexually involved with adult women

6,000 sexually involved with adult men

3,000 sexually abusing minors 

These numbers do not include paternity suits (Deadbeat Fathers for fathers) numbering in the thousands, priest-nun rape, impregnated nuns, and multiple incidences of forced abortion. 

So where’s the outrage? Where’s the cry against The Great Mistake of “celibacy,” and for the sanctity of marriage to return to the priesthood? 

Where the hell is the blithering, blathering, palavering MMC? You mean to tell me the above isn’t sensational enough to strap on the great media milking machine? What gives? Have we been so Clintonized in this country that only the most heinous acts of sexual desecration (of which priest-nun rape presumably no longer qualifies) gets our attention?       

As shown above, approximately 21,000 of 47,000 (45%) American priests are involved in sexual relationships of one brand or another. Way to go, Clergy! Three cheers for the efficacy of celibacy! 

CELIBACY I

The Law of Celibacy, or “the gift from God” as the Church is fond of calling it, was made part of Roman Catholic canon around the years 1200-1250.   It became so for a number of reasons, but its main purpose was to end the threat of married priests and their unchecked penchant for nepotism which was eroding not only the overall efficacy of the Church, but the homosexual power structure within it. Slathered up with religiosity, the gift of celibacy was ushered in and the scourge of nepotism cut off at the source.  The sex, of course, went on as usual, the difference being that straight priests had to go the way of their homosexual brethren and head underground with their sexual exploits, even if they be married! 

Celibacy as law and sex as sin fueled a new scourge that took hold and spread throughout the Church like a young seminarian’s butt-cheeks. With most priests naturally unable to live up to the law, and the law broken in various forms by so many compelled to hide their transgressions, a multi-faceted culture of sex and sex cover-up gradually became institutionalized.      

Do you not wonder why there has not been more outrage by bishops and cardinals, and by the Pope himself? Could it be that this is a problem they have long (for 800 years) been intimately familiar with? Could it be that a good percentage of them are sexually active in their own right? Could it be as simple as wide-scale institutional and personal self-preservation; a desperate need to keep the lid on brazen mass scale hypocrisy?  Golly gee willakers, Wally, I think it could!  

On the eve of the bishop’s policy conference in Dallas to address the “pedophilia” issue, a Dallas Morning News investigation revealed that 103 of 170 Roman Catholic diocese bishops and all eight archdiocese cardinals had been somehow involved in covering up sex crimes and proliferating the problem. Naturally, the bishop’s conference did not directly address their very own conspiracy of silence concerning these crimes, which for the most part continues. 

Nor did the conference delineate the homosexual-driven problems within the Church, namely man-boy hebephilia and an alarmingly high incidence of HIV/AIDS.  According to the Kansas City Star, AIDS has claimed the lives of some 400-800 American priests and infected untold others. Now how on earth has this managed to go so unreported in the otherwise HIV/AIDS-trumpeting MMC? 

Nor did the conference address the Big, Dirty Secret concerning the high number of priests involved in adult-adult sexual relationships. 

Finally, the conference avoided any serious discussion of celibacy and its adverse effects on the psycho-sexual behavior that has seeded the very sex abuse they were ostensibly there to find solutions for.  Their simple solution to a very complex problem: zero tolerance (sort of) for priests caught sexually abusing minors. Never mind the rest of the titanic iceberg.    

But we know they know. A report drafted for the 1999 Australian Catholic bishop’s conference and leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald states that sex abuse by clergy is a “direct result” of the unequal treatment of men and women in the Church. The report went on to blame the male celibate culture within the Church for a “denial of the feminine” that helps to foster a climate that more easily leads to abuse.  It says further that it was evident from the responses of certain offenders that the offenders believed sex with minors was a loophole that “did not violate the rules about adult women vis-à-vis celibacy.”

Rape on the Cross 

If the problem is bad in America, it’s even worse beyond our stunningly self-obsessed and fabulously myopic shores.  How about this little book of revelation: Priestly sex abuse and scandal, including nun-rape, is nigh next to endemic and ongoing in no less than 23 countries. You’d never know it relying on the MMC.  I seem to be missing the crack reporting about all the white collar criminal sinning going on in Africa, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Cyprus, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, Venezuela, and the Pope’s own Poland.  Where oh where, for example, during the Pope’s recent return to his beloved homeland, was there even a mention of the Polish Catholic sex scandal?  The worldwide sex scandal? All better now? 

Hardly. The systematic raping of nuns by priests in scores of Catholic communities around the world (including cases in the U.S.) is ongoing and being swept as quickly as possible under already bulging Church rugs.  

Sex between priests and nuns in some diocese is so common that nuns are forced to take birth control pills! How’s that for screaming hypocrisy? But other, more traditional priests, it should be noted, apparently remiss to break with Church law in such an unseemly manner, properly use no birth control at all while going about their raping. This helps to explain why the record for the most simultaneously pregnant nuns in a single Catholic community stands at an impressive 29.  

To avoid the obvious embarrassment of pregnant nuns waddling up to be counted, many of these more traditional priests have found their answer under the veil of forced abortion. Yes, forced abortion.  In one notable case, a botched procedure resulted in the death of a nun, and the good Father who first raped and then in effect killed said nun, later had the gall to preside over her requiem mass! 

In an unnamed diocese in Africa (Reuters, March 21, 2001) a Mother Superior had complained to her bishop that parish priests were continually sexually abusing her nuns.  Finally, after 20 of them became pregnant and she demanded a stop to it, the bishop did what any good bishop would do—he demoted her.  Perhaps he even called her a jealous old party-pooper because nobody was bothering to rape her.   

The plight of nuns is particularly bad in Africa because of the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS.  The good old days of priests doing up prostitutes are mostly over, as most of them are now HIV positive. What to do but seek safety in virgin territory? Clearly, changing times call for changing habits, so why not bend a nun or two over a pew or two and save a few collection plate dollars in the process? Better yet, why not kill a couple of more birds by racking the good sisters up inside the confessional, dutifully hailing Mary all the while?  “Forgive me Lord, for I am sinning! I’m sinning! Holy Christ, am I sinning!” 

CELIBACY II

The Vatican steadfastly denies that celibacy is part of the root cause or even has anything at all to do with priests having sex, which of course is an absurd claim that flies in the face of the most basic common sense, and yet still goes unchallenged by the MMC.  Denying that the official repression of sex within the Church has nothing to do with the inevitable and often reprehensible expression thereof, may be the most asinine blanket denial I have ever heard.  And not eating has nothing to do with getting hungry, and with satisfying that hunger.    

Not surprisingly, nobody, and I mean nobody, in the MMC has nailed this thing yet, and let me tell you; it isn’t that difficult a thing to nail.  Father Spin and pre-spun blowhards like Catholic League president William Donohue who are owned by the “company” all try to lock in and narrow their argument to the pedophilia script, saying that it is a sickness that has no relation to celibacy.  They have some unproven psychological data to back this up, but even if true, pedophilia is in large part a red herring. It is a fraction of a much larger story that has very much indeed to do with celibacy, or again as the Church calls it, “the gift.” The gift that keeps on giving, apparently, evidenced by a plethora of pregnant nuns, aborted babes, thousands of paternity suits and legions of sexually abused youth, some of whom will feel compelled to pass their abuse on, creating still more gift givers. And let’s not forget about those hundreds of dead priests given the gift of AIDS.    

It is quite clear to the mentally functional among us (an increasing minority) that it is the ill-conceived law of celibacy and the doomed attempts to live up to it which lay at the root of the larger problem, right there with the not-so-subculture of sex and sex cover-up, both gay and straight, that has risen alongside it for the last 800 years. The fact that the repression of sex in any community leads either to other forms of twisted expression, or more often to twisted forms of sexual expression, has been well known for thousands of years.  When it isn’t twisted, well, show me a clergyman who has never engaged in illicit sex, or at least pounded his little padre into submission, and I’ll show you a eunuch or a saint. You simply cannot vow such a powerful natural force out of existence, and it is only the most rare of souls who can ever truly transcend it.  For the Church to expect young men to defy nature cold turkey, and to continue on with its “gift from God” charade is not only childish and absurd, but as we have seen, extremely harmful.  

The sexual subculture within the Church has various factions, the least pervasive and most heinous of which, the pedophiles and hebephiles, are the only ones finally being punished. Not only do they need to be, but as they are relatively few in number and only about a third of them have been exposed—they can be.  Sacrificial wolves. Then the Church figures the spotlight will be off and the lid put back on the can. To admit and address the Big, Dirty Secret involving nearly half the clergy is simply not an option, as it could well strike a blow from which it could never recover. Or worse still, it might force the Church to grow the hell up and actually make some serious changes for the better. No, no, mustn’t have any of that! Better a sick institution than a dead or even a recovering one, they seem to be saying.     

And guess what? The obvious Vatican strategy of cover-up, spin and flat-out lies seems to be working rather well, doesn’t it? One way or another, they have managed to get the MMC to drop the ball.  Just not hot enough anymore. The MMC’s collective ADD (Attention Dollar Disorder) can only milk to death one or two big stories at a time for a limited time, depending.   It never occurs to them that the public’s attention span would be much longer if actual investigative journalism were to be conducted instead of just regurgitating the same old pabulum over and over again ad nauseam.  Anyway, as well as the strategy is working, one senses a collective sigh of relief and a great wiping of the Vatican brow. 

And a return to business, almost as usual. 

“Take your pill and spread ‘em Sister!” 

“Best hurry on with those robes your Excellency, my husband comes home early on Tuesdays.” 

“Oh Monsignor, you’re such a queen!” 

“Billy! Bishop O’Sodomy is here to see you!” 

Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, doesn’t it? And the Pope, when he offers the Vatican review of the American Bishop’s “solutions” today, will likely criticize them as being too strict! And the bulk of the mass sex problem will continue, and continue to be ignored.  

One might want to think twice before dropping another dollar in the collection plate of one of the richest and most deceitful “corporations” in all the world. It might be helping to pay for Sister Theresa’s birth control pills, or her abortion, or the good Father’s loophole-brication. You are definitely paying to support the world’s original white-collar crime syndicate.     

“Oh, but the Church does so much good!” you cry. 

Yeah. This is admittedly a bit of a stretch—these days—but so does the Hezbollah. 

P.S. For your reading pleasure, I addend this rant with a brief priest classic from the Irish Times. (Underlines are mine.)        

GALWAY — A former Franciscan brother who went to confession to confess that he had been sexually abusing young boys was himself then abused by his confessor, a Franciscan priest, a trial in Galway heard. Robert Keoghan, 50, of Waterford, pleaded guilty to 8 charges of indecently assaulting 8 boys aged between 9 and 16 on various dates between 1969 and 1972.

Keoghan, who is currently serving an 18-month sentence for two similar offences, told the court that after a complaint was made by the father of one of his victims, he was sent on a retreat by his superiors. While on this retreat in the early 1970s, he went to confess his abuse. The confession, he said, took place in a room and not a confessional and his confessor sexually abused him.

The judge said he was "flabbergasted" to hear the accused had been sexually abused while in the process of making a confession. The court had heard earlier that Keoghan was sent to a Franciscan seminary at the age of 13. He was illiterate and from the moment he entered the seminary he was systematically abused by other brothers, most of whom were in their 20s.

The judge imposed a term of 2 years in prison, to run concurrently, on all 8 charges before the court.  Irish Times, 2/20/00