The Elephant in the (Catholic) Room - David Torkington

David Torkington has a piece in "The Catholic Universe" entitled, "The elephant in the room that threatens to bring our Church to its knees".

I found it shocking:

"It is perhaps understandable that in the past gay men were attracted to communities of men as the safest and most desirable place to seek God. When I tried my vocation even before the Second Vatican Council, of 45 others, at least six were gay, although I only realise this with hindsight. At the time gay seminarians kept their heads down; they were there but they were latent. I know several who went on to become excellent priests.

A massive disillusionment after the Vatican Council led many tens of thousands of young priests and religious to leave the priesthood and religious life. The usual figure quoted is 50,000 but I think that is an underestimation. For obvious reasons the vast majority of gay seminarians and priests remained behind. When, in the sixties and seventies, celibacy in general became a taboo subject for the majority of the younger generation, vocations to the priesthood suffered. However, many gay Catholics continued to be attracted to the priesthood and the religious life.

When, in 1979, I was giving a lecture tour in South Africa I came across a seminary entirely populated by gay seminarians. I found the whole atmosphere sick and depressing. They openly admitted that for them, the vow of celibacy meant that this obliged them to refrain from sex with women — but it did not prevent them from having sex with other men. "

The Second Vatican Council affirmed: "The synod does not wish to leave any doubts in the mind of anyone regarding the Church's firm will to maintain the law that demands perpetual and freely chosen celibacy for present and future candidates for priestly ordination in the Latin rite."

"Just as later Rome forbade all talk about women priests, in the 1990s Rome forbade all talk about homosexuality. It was strictly forbidden. It was and has been the green light for homosexual males to flood into and take over many, if not most, seminaries. Later this happened to whole dioceses, with more and more homosexual bishops, archbishops and cardinals, many encouraging and promoting people similar to themselves with what now appears to be disastrous consequences.

One of the most conservative but highly respected Catholic moral theologians in the USA, Professor Janet Smith, has said that many dioceses in the USA are full of homosexual priests and many are run by them. In fact, she claims that well over 70 per cent of clergy in the US are gay.

I don't just mean 'gay' as friends of mine were gay and as many good priests have been and still are gay, but rather militantly gay: not celibate but pushy, pugnacious partisans with agendas hardly distinguishable from secular LGBT communities, which they wish to impose on the Church. This can be seen in parishes they have taken over in the USA. ...

The impression from 'on high' at present is that the sexual horrors which have depraved the Church for all too long are all but over, but that is far from the truth. If paedophilia is finally under control and dealt with, which I very much doubt then pederasty is all but out of control, especially in countries like the USA. "

I had not appreciated that level of homosexual dominance at all levels of the Catholic hierarchy. This is beginning to look unreformable.

I note that David Torkington is a conservative, 'mystical' theologian. His religious position would be considered out-and-out reactionary by most liberals (and by me). He expresses his own views thus:

"Let me be quite clear, sodomy was not only considered an abomination in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, too. If it was committed in the early Church it had to be admitted publicly and the offenders had to undergo the sacrament of reconciliation throughout Lent with all the appropriate penances. If they continued to offend after that they were permanently excluded from the Christian community.

Nothing has changed nor can it change - sodomy is a very serious sin and permanent offenders who are priests. bishops or cardinals are commiting a mortal sin and cannot administer the sacraments lawfully whether there has been an official condemnation from Rome or not. It would be the same if your parish priest installed a mistress in the presbytery.

Their seriously sinful actions ipso facto (by the very act of performing them) instantly separate them from the mystical body of Christ. They cannot therefore perform any of the sacraments lawfully, nor is it lawful for any of the faithful to approach them to do so. Parishes run by such priests are in effect under an interdict whether such an edict has been issued from Rome or not. They simply do not belong to us nor we to them despite all the external similarities. "

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My thoughts on reading this article were these.

1. David Torkington is surely not long for this world. No doubt the phones on the desk of The Catholic Universe's editor are ringing off the hook with calls from senior functionaries demanding his instant exclusion: 'incendiary charges offered anecdotally, without proof, leading to the Church being brought into disrepute'.

2. Torkington's 'Quietist' philosophy leads him to prayer and meditation as the solution. That's not going to cut much ice with the regional Churches and in Rome itself.

David Torkington's latest book (Amazon, Jan 2018)

3. Any student of public choice theory could tell the Vatican that its predicament flows entirely from the perverse incentives it set up. The Church will always have a disproportionate number of gay clergy - numerous psychological studies show that the traits align. The problem is one of balance .. and not placing theological barriers to powerful human drives. Saintliness is rare while hypocrisy is regrettably common.

The Catholic Church will not make the necessary reforms. Even the Church of England, as theologically light as it is possible to be, is rent asunder on these issues by the global schism between American and European liberals and African/Asian traditionalists.

We live in such interesting times.