Most cardinals at the Vatican are gay, says Catholic academic

Most cardinals at the Vatican are gay, Catholic academic assumes

This story would have so much more meat if it wasn't a pure assumption. If he was able to provide percentage or names that can be proven, now that could shake up things in Vatican. But just saying that they most are gay - what can you do with that information?

It’s not like they’re going to take a survey—no one would answer it honestly

[Quote] . If he was able to provide percentage or names that can be proven

You put the bar way too high

Well, duhhh . . .

Do you guys remember the poster that used to come on here and talk about the priest he was secretly dating. Fascinating stuff.

BREAKING****BREAKING****BREAKING

Bunch of old men in stretchy cassocks.

No thanks.

Apple is asking for $12.99/month (!) for news so I can’t read it.

Perhaps Francis's view on LGB is based on his life, along with Benedict's.

How do you say DUH! in Latin?

It's not a sin to [bold]be[/bold] gay, it's just a sin to have sex outside of the bonds of Holy Matrimony. Right?

Correct R11. Any sex act that isn’t procreative is sinful. This includes masturbation and any sex using contraceptives. Most everyday Catholics don’t even abide by this so it’s all quite silly.

Proshreative shrex

Someone watch the conclave and count the cookie sniffing faces.

Other Christian denominations do not have this "issue" to this extent. The Vatican could easily make the priesthood more attractive to straight men by allowing priests to be in relationships. marry, and have kids, but it refuses to do so despite being well aware of this.

I’m starting to think a lot of closeted gay guys went into priesthood over the centuries knowing they would feel and molest teenage boys. Probably a bunch of Kevin Spaceys.

Interesting if true.

They’re ALL gay. Seriously. All of them.

For more DETAILED information about the malignant hypocrisy at the center of the Catholic Church, please read IN THE CLOSET OF THE VATICAN by French journalist Frederick Mertel. Brilliant, damning but compassionate writing.

R15 - True - but that's why going into the priesthood is so attractive to young men who don't feel sexual urges for women and mistake it for having a higher calling.

For clergy in denominations where they CAN get married - there is a societal pressure for them to get married. It's still the same. There aren't that many unmarried clergy of other denominations - and if you're single and without a woman for too long, people get suspicious that you're gay and your career won't go far.

As far as the sexual abuse - I have to think there's a point where they go - ah shit, I'm in this now and I'm gay, what do I do? Then they go through all the mental gymnastics about it and their own fear and loathing and something completely evil comes out of it.

I'll say it until the day I die - being in the closet creates MONSTERS. You see it all the time. That internal conflict and loathing really fucks up your head. Closeted gay men and women can be the most cruel, manipulative and evil people on the planet.

And here we are - with these sick closeted gays now in charge of selecting a Pope. You better believe they're going to go full conservative to hide behind.

[quote] Correct [R11]. Any sex act that isn’t procreative is sinful. This includes masturbation and any sex using contraceptives. Most everyday Catholics don’t even abide by this so it’s all quite silly.

I don’t think that sex within a heterosexual marriage has to be procreative. As long as the couple is not preventing procreation it’s not a sin, even if they can’t have children.

Gay people have no sanctioned way to be sexually alive. That’s not “silly” and it’s behind a lot of the animosity toward gays.

In the 80s I know a few gay men that came out to their Italian families and all three of them (not related in any way) were told they should become a priest

[quote] How do you say DUH! in Latin?

Stultus es

R20 - what burns is that if those are the rules, why isn't the Catholic church out there condemning blowjobs, cunnilingus and straight anal sex as much as they condemn gays?

The whole position of the Catholic Church on gays is so insulting - it's not a sin to be gay, just to act on it. It's just another example of the rhetorical splitting of one idea so the Catholic Church comes out on top as being moral. But it's not. It's just a way to justify the bigotry and double-standard.

r11, technically no Catholic is supposed to have extramarital sex of any kind, but the church accepts that people are going to break the rules, which is why they have the rites of confession and absolution. Priests, monks and nuns take a vow of celibacy (which means, no marriage, not no fucking) to prevent them having legal spouses and legitimate children legally entitled to money and property.

WHY I NEVER!!!!

Priests could marry at one time. The rule was changed to stop church wealth flowing out to heirs.

R26 - that and also favoritism and nepotism in appointing their children to high roles in the church.

R24 - yeah but that's the whole problem with the Catholic Church - do what we say, but you don't have to abide by our bullshit non-sensical stuff IF you do things for us. It's an effort to control people's sexuality and guilt them into it with their condemnations - except that they also provide an out if they do do it.

Are the same absolutions and confessions provided to get gays off the hook for having gay sex?

The idea of 'sin' and original sin was created by the Church for control. That's not a matter of debate - it's fact.

[quote]Other Christian denominations do not have this "issue" to this extent. The Vatican could easily make the priesthood more attractive to straight men by allowing priests to be in relationships. marry, and have kids, but it refuses to do so despite being well aware of this.

Partially true. The Anglican church has a high percentage of gay clergy despite the freedom to marry women

[quote]Most cardinals at the Vatican are gay, says Catholic academic

Men who like to dress up in fancy gowns, spend all their time with other men and exclude women, and tell other people what to do like a gaggle of bossy bomttoms are gay?

I'm shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED.

One look at the outfits tells you everything you need to know. The NYT had a photo of Cardinals at a past conclave and I can assure you no two wore the same lace on their rochets.

It’s really just dawning on someone that the Roman Catholic Church is the gayest thing ever?

The gayness of Catholicism illustrated nicely

The Vatican is where young gigolos go to make their fortune.

What gay men call Intercourse, is Anal masturbation.

I have a theory

Catholicism has been inordinately been shaped by gay men, but gay culture has also inordinately been shaped by Catholicism

Abracadabra is filled with Catholic imagery

Priests are just naturally gay. Just lean into it, and everyone stop whining about the silly trauma of it all. A group of men living together and not cluttering up their lives with a lot of fraus and urchins is really the best arrangement, all things considered.

Don't mess with the formula. Just accept what God has ordained, a super gay priesthood.

I was waiting for you to crack that one, Miss Marple.

[quote] The Anglican church has a high percentage of gay clergy despite the freedom to marry women

Well, Anglican rituals [italic]are [/italic] Fabulous.

Che sorpresa!

This is blasphemy!

Google image search "Catholic ordination" and you'll see a massive amount of gay face.

90% of nuns I’ve met are lesbians, too.

Back in the old days in Catholic milieus, if you were a smart and ambitious young man or woman who couldn’t rely on family wealth, the priesthood or becoming a nun would ensure that you got an education, room and board for life and a well understood and respected position in society - and you might well sacrifice your hopes for a family of your own in order to “take the deal” and join the clergy.

By the mid-twentieth century in the western world, there was a dramatic change in the standard of living. There were now plenty of ways for men to move up in the world and join a growing and increasingly secure middle class and women’s opportunities grew as well, though not equally - but you didn’t have to be a nun (or even unmarried) if you wanted to be a nurse or a school teacher anymore. So, in addition to increasing secularism, there was way less of an economic/social carrot to dangle to get young people to feel like they had a calling to become a priest or nun. But as homosexuality was still very taboo, the clergy became very over represented with gay people who wanted to hide out from their sexuality.

Now that gay people and relationships are very accepted and we’ve grown even more secular as a society, you don’t even have the well of gay guys who want to make their mom’s happy to draw on from anymore - most of our moms would rather go to their son’s gay wedding than have him end up in the Vatican some day. That’s why such a huge percentage of priests and nun under like 70 are from the developing world now.

I used to work at a monastery as a lay person; I just happen to live in a nearby neighborhood, and it was a a peaceful, easy part-time job. There were many priests (gay and straight) who were genuinely pious, holy men dedicated to prayer and service.

Some were less pious--gay and straight. Some were friendly, some kept to themselves--same as in real life. However, from my observation--and no one tried to molest or have sex with me--it just didn't seem natural to me for them to be denying the chance to express themselves sexually. But, just like anyone in the outside world, they maybe have sexual feelings or express themselves sexually for a period of time in their lives particularly when they are a bit younger. But as you age and live without sex--especially as you get older--many people including priests are able to live healthy lives without the focus being one of sex. I saw plenty of priests having dinner together, interacting with each other non-sexually or hanging out in the communal recreation/relaxation room watching the baseball game on TV--I mean, they are often still guys at the end of the day.

Yes, some people might be ready to explode without sex, but when you're living a celibate life especially in a religious order, you truly do learn to live without sex. Yes, some may masturbate from time to time, some may even have sex with each other--who knows? But when you're living apart from the general population, sex becomes less important and/or even nonexistent. And then as you get older, the sexual desire normally diminishes or even goes away. This doesn't mean their sexual orientation (gay or straight) goes away, but many of them can live without the actual act of sex. It's probably not normal for most people, but it's normal for some.

And water is wet, OP.

Enough about the old men. Tell me about the Swiss Guard.

R43 - I think you'd be surprised what went on at night after 10pm. It IS unnatural and really weird. It's inhumane - and NONE of them actually adhere to it.

If true, then they’d probably trend conservative in the upcoming conclave’s selecting of the new Pope, similarly to how most of our country’s closeted gay Republican conservatives did in voting for Trump.

The Catholic priesthood is filled with homos, but that Martel book is French nonsense, filled with innuendo and unprovable assertions overlaid with coyness about how the author came by his information. One part DaVinci Code and one part Rex Reed.

And all the nuns are lezzies!

R46. Believe what you will. I am simply relaying what I observed after working there for several years. I readily said some were sexual beings, some were not--gay and straight. And as they got older, sexual feelings diminished or went away it seemed. Keep in mind also, this was a monastery, so the priests there were a bit more isolated from the population at large compared to the average parish priest who is out in the community and where sexual temptation may be greater.

I doubt that NONE of them are celibate r46, and partly it might be a matter of age. But some of us really are less sexual than others. It's not impossible to think that some people could just not care all that much, though even they probably jerk off.

But of course, I'm sure there's also sex going on there. Some people like it, undoubtedly inside monasteries as has been true for nearly 2000 years.

R35 Is that why there's so much pedophilia in the Catholic Church?

Thank you for linking to Apple News, OP.

Isn't it a tale as old as time, that priests of all religions are gay and fuck each other and the children of their followers?

depends on the religion no doubt r54. Plenty of religions don't have a priesthood. Others don't have celibate priests or unmarried priests or even just temporary priests that otherwise go about their lives like everybody else. We all tend to have very narrow views of what religion is and just naturally assume it's always and everywhere been the way we do things.

Once upon a time, impoverished Sicilian twinks headed north to the Vatican to seek their fortune.

Look at YT videos, not all but most are certainly gay, I was shocked at the ones who fathered children and it was covered up of course, and the children put up for adoption, the children are just now finding out, mostly crooked ashamed gay and a few crooked straight bastards.

The above-mentioned Frédéric Martel writes in his excellent book about the rampant use of Grindr in the Vatican and describes how many priests residing there regularly "order in" poor young illegal immigrant men/boys who are selling sex to survive.

I wonder if Grindr has ever crashed at the Vatican like it did at the Republican convention

It's estimated 60% of priests are gay. Which Orders have the most?

Sixty percent sounds like an accurate estimate. How do the hetero priests feel about being in the minority and surrounded by rampant homosex, I wonder.

R60, the Franciscans, for sure!

Don't get me started on MONKS!

And Holy Water is wet...

The Catholic Church has a revolting record of covering up all sorts of crimes, no just pedophilia.

From my days in college, away from the family, I developed a taste for closeted Catholic Priests.

Dominicans are greasy little bottom piggies. Tend to be swishy.

Franciscans and Dominicans are lovely verse men, predominance of bears. But the cook and garden.

Jesuits are a special kind of do-me tops. They can be a self loathing kind of rough trade, but their saving grace, if you are intellectual, is that they are well-educated.

Some of the best post-fuck convos about history, life and existence I have had with them.