Pints With Aquinas - 121: The Homosexual problem in the priesthood, with Dan Mattson

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

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G'day there! What is up? Pointed around the bar table by my good mate, Dan Mattson, to discuss the homosexual problem in the priesthood. So, you know, we got to address this. Dan Mattson is an awesome dude, one of my favorite people. He wrote the book, Why I Don't Call Myself Gay. And he just wrote a book, an article for First Things called Why Men Like Me Should Not Be Priests. He's an awesome dude, I tell you that. He's getting a lot of love, but a lot, a lot of

hate from people who are misunderstanding him and who just hate church teaching, let's be honest. All sorts of crazy stuff is ensuing in the church right now and I want you to know that we're going to begin addressing this on Pines with Aquinas, at least over the next week. It's not going to be something that we're going to do ongoing, hopefully, but I have set up some interviews with the following people. Are you ready? Maybe you've heard of them.

Raymond Arroyo from EWTN. Matt Walsh from... I don't know why I've decided to start hitting that cup. The Daily Wire. I'm going to be chatting hopefully with Patrick Coffin from The Patrick Coffin Show, as well as Sam Guzman from Catholic Gentlemen, just to discuss all this craziness that's taking place in the church.

Oh, I should probably point out too that I'm back on the internet. Hi, what's up? Some of you know I took a month off the internet, which lasted 24 days exactly. So yes, I did end up caving in and running back to the internet. Anyway, that's a story for another day. But yeah, just to kind of be honest with you about that, I said I'd be off for a month.

I was off for 24 days. And then someone hacked pintswithaquinas.com, had to deal with that. And then I was at church, and the priest told us about the sex abuse scandal and read a letter from the bishop, and I literally had no idea what was going on. I looked at my wife, went, what? And she was like, oh, right, you're not online. And anyway, we'll save that story for another day. I don't know about you, but I have not prayed for another Pope the way I have prayed for our current Pope. We need to be praying for him, and we need to be demanding transparency and investigations into these claims that have recently come forth. Anyway, we get into all this stuff in the interview so i'm going to shut up

and uh ask you to enjoy it enjoy it see that was me asking you here we go Who's in your house? in a funny way, I'm actually repentant of it. The priest said something to me. He said, two drinks for a gentleman, three drinks for a pig. And so I thought, well, bloody hell, all right, that's a pretty good... And so I've decided, well, that's all I'm going to do, no more than two drinks. So I want you to know that I have saved my drink, even though it's late at night here, just for you. So I'm drinking some bullet bourbon here. Well, I appreciate you, your virtue being demonstrated by waiting until you can share it with someone, because that's one of the keys, isn't it? Drinking should be a social

experience for the most part. G.K. Chesterton, what did he say? He said, we thank God for bourbon and a beer and burgundy. And I would say bourbon by drinking, not, not drinking too much of that. Right. Right. Amen. Yeah. What are you drinking? I am drinking a fantastic, uh, IPA from Bell's brewery. I'm in Michigan. This is Kalamazoo, Michigan, where this came from two hearted ale. Uh, it's named after a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Nice. About the Two-Hearted River in the upper peninsula of Michigan. And so I'm drinking a little bit of hometown beer.

I like it. It's a fantastic beer. It's been named a few times the best IPA in the world. And it's an hour away from where I live. That's cool. You know, one of my dreams is to sit with you in a pub and have a beer. Well, that's a dream of mine. I'm not just saying that, dude.

I would love, we need to get into a nice, good Irish kind of pub. No TVs. You, me, your beautiful brother, who's an amazing priest. Yes, he is. He's a good man and he likes a good IPA or he likes a good Guinness. We should do it in Ireland. Well, God knows we need a drink tonight, because we are recording this on the 27th of August, and quite literally all hell seems to have broken loose, or at least come to light within the Catholic Church.

Why don't you give us your impressions on what's been happening over the last couple of months? Well, it really is a painful season in the church, but I think it's, somebody said that we're entering one of the darkest points in the church's history. I saw that on social media. I said, no, no, I think the storm clouds are starting to break and we're starting to see the light. You know, there is a severe mercy in these revelations that, you know, the Holy Spirit, he's the one who's ultimately in charge of the church. Think about Pope John XXIII. He said he was praying, you know, everybody knows the story. He said, I'm going to bed. It's your church, right?

Yeah. And the Holy Spirit is the one who purifies us. And I think he has orchestrated things so that the truth is coming out. So it's painful, but I think it's the pain. We need to look at this as the pain of a surgeon's knife. What did you think of, how do you pronounce it, Vigano? Vigano. I think it's the pain. We need to look at this as the pain of a surgeon's knife. What did you think of, how do you pronounce it, Vigano? Vigano.

You met Vigano recently, didn't you? I met him. I was in Milan for the release of the Italian translation of my book. I was there earlier. Congratulations, by the way. That's fantastic. Glory to God. Yeah, it was very exciting. That's fantastic. Glory to God. Yeah, it was very exciting. I had a fantastic trip to Italy. Cardinal Mueller introduced my book in Rome. It was very,

very humbling. I met Cardinal Seurat and Cardinal Burke, but Archbishop Vigano just happened to come to my presentation. He wasn't even a part of it, and he was there, and I was able to meet him. He was always very supportive of the Courage Apostle, which I'm a part of., and he was there, and I was able to meet him. He was always very supportive of the Courage Apostle, which I'm a part of. Maybe the listeners there don't know about it. It's the official ministry of the Church to men and women with same-sex attraction. And he came to my presentation and was very gracious and supportive of it. And so I'm stunned by what he wrote, but people that I really admire, like Bishop Olmsted from Phoenix and others are saying this is a man who loves the church and his testimony is trustworthy and we need to take it seriously and investigate it. Of course, don't take it all.

We need to investigate it, but let's take these accusations seriously. And so I, I'm, I'm grateful for his courage. For those who haven't read it, of course, it was a 11-page, what he called testimony, in which he implicates many high-ranking cardinals and, uh, the Holy Father, and, uh, in, in this whole sex abuse cover-up, and in the homosexual problem in the Catholic Church, which we'll talk about, and calls for their resignation. I mean, it was, someone said it was like an atomic bomb went off in the Roman Curia. Yeah, I think it's pretty much unprecedented in modern times. People have talked about, you know, the Borgia popes and things like that, and I am, by talking about that, I'm not equating the Roman Curia right now to the Borgias.

But this is unprecedented. And I think we're seeing the history of the church being written right now. And these are shocking times. But I think it's reflective of the seriousness of the scandals that have befallen us. These are horrific times, and we need some clarity. We can't take accusations without investigating them, but a man of Archbishop Vigano's esteem and his position in the Curia, he was in a position to know about these things. And so, we have to investigate them. Right. Yeah. And then the responses of those who tried to discredit him don't seem to me to

hold much water. This is a very intricate letter. He, you know, dates and names. And, you know, he's a retired archbishop. You know, as he said, he's an old man who's going to soon meet his maker and wanted to clear his conscience before Almighty God. So I hope that everybody out there listening to this will go for themselves and read this document. What's going to happen since you're a prophet? Well, somebody put up on social media, I saw that Mary is weeping. And I said, no, Mary is sweeping. Mary is clean in the church. And it's significant in my mind that... Please, God, she will. I share your hope, and yet I haven't seen one bishop come forward and say, Mayor Culper, I messed up, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prayer and penance.

Well, and you know, this is, we can pray for that awareness of, it sure would be nice to hear some sorrow from Archbishop McCarrick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for goodness sake, any word of sorrow from him would be good. Well, and the fact of the matter is, we have to also remember this, that the mercy of Jesus Christ is sufficient to cover the sins of Archbishop McCarrick. And he right now is saying to Theodore McCarrick, come to me. Right, amen. And I can give you forgiveness. But you have to – what are we told in the confession? We have to have sorrow for our sins.

We have to recognize that we've sinned. Right. Or else there will not be a big enough millstone, you know, to be around his neck and to drag him to hell for all eternity. But I agree with you because there is this sense within all of us that justice needs to be, you know, handed out. And there can even be this temptation to say, well, they'll get theirs. And I hope they rot in hell and these sorts of things.

I think that's an understandable emotional reaction. But we have to check that with the truths we espouse as Christians. Just like you said, Dan, that as atrocious as these men have been and maybe are, the atrocities these people are committing, you know, we need to pray for their salvation. And that salvation won't come about for their salvation, and that salvation won't come about without their repentance, of course. But if the listeners want to see a really beautiful response to the sins of unchastity by someone who has made a vow of celibacy, St. Basil the Great wrote a beautiful letter

to a fallen virgin. This is a woman who had dedicated her life to consecrated virginity, but she had fallen into temptation. Now, of course, not the same level and degree at all, but the letter is very clear about the sinful nature of what she did. How did you forget your birthright and your dignity? But the end of it, it says, but there is still time. Go run to Jesus. He is waiting for you with open arms because he himself said it, if their sins are discarded, they'll be white as snow. So there is this precedent in the church. There's a history

of people who have fallen in their vows made before God and on the sake of the church. Yes, there needs to be just punishment and penance, but the mercy of Christ is always there. At this point in the interview, I tell Dan to stop that ridiculous bloody beeping that's happening in the back of his room. So, Dan, let me ask you, since, you know, for those listeners, I mean, I mentioned this in the intro, you know, you, I'm always nervous when I talk to someone with same-sex attraction that I'm going to butcher how I say this and that they're going to be super

offended. You have and have had for as long as you remember, same-sex attraction and have been in homosexual relationships. Yes. That's true. I am. I true. I have written about it in my book, Why I Don't Call Myself Gay, and the story is told in Desire for the Everlasting Hills. I never wanted anybody to know about it, but God often asks us to do other things. Actually, that's funny that you say that, because we often joke that we have similar careers. I wrote that book on pornography about the same time you wrote yours

on homosexuality, right? Right. Well, there's this interesting thing. It's actually, there's an audio book of the porn myth, okay? Oh, wow. And, but they didn't want me to read it. They didn't like me.

I said, hey, I could read it. And they went, let's hear your voice. And I gave them a sample. And they went, yeah, nah, we're going to get this English bloke. I went, nah could read it. And they went, let's hear your voice. And I gave them a sample and they went, yeah, nah, we're going to get this English bloke. I went, nah, no worries. Anyway, but what's funny is when you go to Audible and click, like, sample, you hear an excerpt from the foreword from this severe sex addict dude.

Oh, my. So you just assume that it's Matt Fradd's story, you know. I'm like, ahhh! Now, I was certainly into porn, but this guy was into DeviantStuff. Anyway, that gets to your point about not necessarily wanting the world to know this, but hey. Now, and then you just wrote an article for First Things. What was the title? Yeah, it's actually about this homosexual clergy issue why men like me should not be priests now you you must you must have copped some flack from that for that oh a lot

yeah i i i get flack all the time i just got a tweet from somebody that said that that uh that was my phone that's okay i i i just got it i just got a tweet from somebody who said that that was my phone. That's okay. I just got a tweet from somebody who said that I'm filled with self-loathing and I hate myself. As anyone who's met you clearly realizes, what a load of junk. It's ridiculous. But, you know, here's the thing. The reason I wrote that is my love for the church. And the church itself has recognized that the priesthood is not a right.

The priesthood is a vocation that's called by God. And we need really good men to stand in the place of Jesus Christ. Now, I believe now that God looks at me and says, Dan, I'm glad that you've come home, and I'm pleased that you've fallen in the Church, fallen in the Church's teaching, and you are doing work for the Kingdom. And he would say, here's my beloved Son, whom I'm well pleased. I hope that's what he can say to me. But that doesn't mean that I'd be a man who is suitable to be a priest. For our listeners who aren't aware, what's the Church's official teaching on this? Well, the history on this goes all the way back to specifically 1961. The Vatican issued an instruction on the priesthood, and one of the things in that instruction, it said men with a homosexual inclination should not be admitted to the seminaries. It also said this,

which is interesting based on the scandals that we've heard erupting of homosexual scandals in the Honduran seminary, Chilean seminaries. It said if any seminarian is found to have violated gravely the Sixth Commandment with a member of the same sex or opposite sex, they need to be expelled from the seminary immediately. So that's 1961. And then in 2005, and we have to think about the context of this, Pope Benedict became pope after the sex abuse scandal in 2002 erupted. He became pope in 2005. What was one of the first things he did? He issued a document on homosexuality and the priesthood in the fall of 2005. And in it, he said that though the church respects those who have homosexual inclinations, those who have a deep-seated homosexual tendency

should not be allowed to be priests. Now, it made a distinction between deep-seated and transitory, and we can talk about that in a moment because it's not really clear what that means. But it made it very clear that people with these deep-seated tendencies should not become priests. Fast forward to 2016, when Pope Francis spoke about the topic, he reiterated the 2005 document and said again that those men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies shouldn't be admitted to the seminary. When I was in Italy earlier this spring, he met with the Italian bishops and he said about homosexual seminarians, he said, if there is any doubt, they should not be admitted to the seminary. So the teaching of the church has been constant, clearly specified since 1961,

but I think in practice it was happening before that. So it sounds like, now, I have my thoughts, but here, let me just throw this out. Someone will say, it sounds like the church is picking on homosexuals. Why shouldn't the church just say something like people who have deep-seated tendencies to unchastity ought not to be admitted into the priesthood? Well, that's a good question. And clearly, somebody who is living with severe temptations to unchastity shouldn't be a priest. But there's something specific the church recognizes about homosexuality, that it's a wound in our sexual identity.

This is a question of how do I view myself as a man? A priest is clearly got to be a man who models Christ. Nobody can do it perfectly, of course. We recognize that. But we are called to be, as a priest, a man who knows what it means to be a father. And this demands a certain maturity. The church speaks about this in these documents on homosexuality and the priesthood. They speak of effective maturity. The church speaks about this in these documents on homosexuality and the priesthood. They speak of effective maturity. And what this effective maturity means is that a

man can relate to other people in a way that is in accordance with our true nature as sexual creatures. And what I mean by this is that a man sees a woman as his complement, and that God's vision for human sexuality is a great gift. It is good that a priest recognizes his attraction to women and then gives that up for the kingdom, for the sake of the kingdom. Celibacy for the kingdom is the denial of a good vocation, and the good vocation is marriage and thus being a father. The same sort of man who would be a good father and a good husband, because he knows what it means to be a man and to lay down his life for his potential wife, like Christ laid down his life for the church, that's the sort of man we need in the priesthood. Now, if a man is confused about his sexual identity and sees men, not women, as somehow his complement, there's something amiss in his sexuality,

and it impedes his ability to be a spiritual father. And of course, like, homosexual tendencies are, I want to say this delicately, because the last thing I want to do is get emotional and say things hyperbolically that I don't mean, but I do think that this is accurate, that homosexual tendencies are a greater perversion than, say, a desire for fornication or something like that. And I think as Catholics, what we've done to try to placate the culture you know when we say yes yes we think homosexuality is a sin but we also think fornication is it we also think contraception is like yeah but there are degrees of perversity

here and and clearly a married couple contracepting is not the same as a man sodomizing another man same as a man sodomizing another man. Yeah, that's true. Push back on any of this if you think I'm overstating it. No, no, no. See, here's the thing. Is anybody listening into this from the gay rights movement or whatever say, oh, for Dan to agree with what Matt just said, oh, he's such an inner, he's got inner homophobia. No, one of the truths that I love about the church is it has told me what is good, true, and beautiful about human sexuality. The church uses the phrase, and it falls hard on the ear, that homosexuality is objectively disordered. And people want to jump on that and say, wow, that's so cruel. No, those are words of love and protection. Where would you be right now if all the good Catholics in your life

didn't speak truth to you about this homosexual issue? Oh, I... Do you know what I mean? If they did the Father Martin line where, well, let's just sort of be as vague as possible without fully saying that that homosexual acts are virtuous or can be virtuous. Well, quite honestly, I might have been dead because I the truth is, is when when I kind of came of into sexual maturity, it was at the highlights of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. And it was really the fear of God and the fear of AIDS that delayed my entrance into the gay world. And it was finally basically anger at God and rebellion that I pushed through that when I was 32.

And I plucked the forbidden fruit. And it was not, I was happy as the prodigal son is happy when he leaves home at first. But then he wakes up and says, what was I thinking? I think to myself, if I had been told that this was good, beautiful, normal, I might be dead. And I do not say that with any exaggeration. God says no to us because he loves us. So, okay, point blank. Is there a homosexual problem in the priesthood?

As evidenced by the continuing scandals that we see break forth in the church, absolutely yes. How dare you, sir? Why not say that there is an unchastity problem? Why not just say, like, you know, men are kind of going off with women, or maybe, you know, having sex with kids? That's not a homosexual problem. That's either an unchastity problem, or that's a pedophilia problem. It's a pedophilia, but that's the problem. It's not a homosexual problem. You know, it's remarkable that John Jay's report that was commissioned by the USCCB, the Conference of Bishops, had conflicting information. It made this statement. It said, based on the evidence of abuse that it studied from 1950 to 2002, you could only consider 5% of the abuse to be true pedophilia.

When they looked at the analysis, 81% of the victims were male. Now, of those, 95% of them would not fall under the category of pedophilia. These are post-pubescent boys that have reached sexual maturity, even though they're minors. But that is what is technically called a fibophilia. Fibophilia, yeah. Which is a form of homosexuality. Right. And so the John Jay Report lockstep with the cultural tide in the 2000s said, of course, this isn't a homosexual problem. Yet their own data undermines their assertion.

problem, yet their own data undermines their assertion. Do you think this is why, like, the secular media hasn't gone guns out on Cardinal McCarrick? Well, it's... Because you correct me, but I think the only thing he was accused of with a minor was one accusation with a 16-year-old boy. Is that correct? I might have... Yeah. I heard later that there might have been a second adolescent victim, but they were adolescents. So, like, if you're an older man having sex with a 16-year-old boy, you're a disgusting person, but you're also not a pedophile. Like, just because he's said to be a child by the law, that's clearly a man having sex with a young man. Well, if you look at – it's bizarre how we can look at ages of sexual consent.

Many states, it's 16. I think that's horrific, but the notion is that if somebody who's 16, they're not a child anymore physically. My understanding is because the church is universal and has to take into account all the different cultures within the world, that canon law states that a woman must be 14 and a man 16. I'm not sure if that's been amended at all since, but that was last what I looked at. That's what it said. I mean, that would be clearly very inappropriate in our culture, but maybe in others and throughout the history it wouldn't have been. But, yeah, you're clearly a man, a young man.

And so let's take McCarrick again. Most of his abuse of his office was with seminarians. And that was clearly with adults. That's clearly homosexuality. But to your point about the media, the media would want to celebrate Theodore McCarrick being honest about himself and being gay and exploring his sexuality. They would love it if the Catholic Church would say, yes, embrace who you feel yourself to be, be gay, and priests should be expressive of their sexuality too. So it goes against their trope to say that there's anything at all about this scandal that's homosexual. It's scandalous.

Yeah. Yeah, that's homosexual. It's scandalous. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, and do you think that there's, I think there's, it's clearly there's certain, perhaps many members in the clergy who are hoping that that'll also happen. I think it seems obvious that Father, what's his face, building a bridge guy, would be one of them and others, like from an outside perspective, it seems like that there are particular clergy who are biding their time in hopes that Pope Francis will make an amendment to the Church's teaching on homosexual acts.

Well, one of the things that I write about in my First Things article is the problem of homosexual clergy who either overtly or covertly are undermining the church's teaching. For example, soon after I came back to the church in 2009, I screwed up. I hooked up with a guy. I knew it was sin. I had this addictive quality that was driving me, and I was filled with remorse. I went to the next confession that I knew I could, and it was a stranger priest to me. I didn't know him. I'd never met him before. And he told me, that's not a sin.

Oh, God. He said, go find a boyfriend. The church is going to change. God have mercy. He recently, what's his face? Father Martin, recently said something to the effect of, if you were to get rid of priests within the clergy, you would empty the dioceses and religious orders of like 50% of their priests. Yeah. It would seem that he's in a place to know that too.

The discussion of how many priests there are who live with same-sex attraction, I'm sure it's much higher than the average population. Why is that? Tell me why that is. Well, Richard Seip, who studied this, he did heroic work with the sex abuse scandal. And he was a psychologist. He was actually a priest himself, but he left the priesthood, got laicized so he could marry a woman. But he studied this, and he wrote in one of his books on the subject, he said, the priesthood is fast turning into a gay profession. And one of the reasons that he lists there is some people ran to the church to squelch the question of why aren't you dating? Why aren't you getting married? And it seemed a vocation for some people that they went into the priesthood. I think also there was probably some active recruiting. You know, you hear these stories of people who went to the seminary in, say, the 60s and 70s because they wanted to become a priest.

And then they were put off by the clear homosexual culture that was there. And so I think there is a concerted effort to kind of create this homosexual boys club, and it succeeded. What do you say to those Catholics who are offended that we would even have an episode like this on Pints with Aquinas? Like, how dare you? You know, how dare you single out homosexual people? Are you saying that homosexual people are more likely to, like, molest children? Like, if that were true, what do you say about my aunt who's, you know, happily married to some other woman? Are you saying she's more likely to do this?

I mean, this is despicable. Just attack unchastity. Don't single out homosexuals. Well, all we're looking at is the statistics. The data. The data. The data. And the honest truth is, the other sad fact, one of the reasons why the church needs to proclaim its good news concerning homosexuality is the remarkable amount of promiscuity that exists in the gay community. Here, let's do a bet right now.

I'm going to make a bet. I've never been on a men-seeking men's site or a women-seeking women's site, all right? But, you're like, where is this going? I would put money, okay, that if I was right now to go to a men-seeking men's site, all the talk would be about sexual hookups. If I went to the women-seeking women's site, it would perhaps some of that be that, but most of it would be more about companionship and friendship. Am I right or wrong?

Well, all you have to look at is, once again, the data. So here's a remarkable statistic. There was a study done in the late 90s in Australia of 2,800 or so, I think around 2,800 self-identified gay men, 49 and over. And one of the things they asked was, how many sexual partners have you had in your life? And the modal range, the most common answer for those people, those 2,800 people, was between 100 and 500 sexual partners. 15.7% of those people said they had had over 1,000 sexual partners. It's bad. I think any man listening to this gets this. I know that women can have

strong sex drives, but I think by and large men have stronger sex drives than women. And I think if you were to ask the typical husband, if you were to have sex whenever you wanted to have sex, like how much more would you be having sex? The answer would be a lot more. Do you know what I mean? It's almost like – That's the argument. The argument is, well, men just like to have more sex. But think about it.

A thousand sexual partners. You know, when I was growing up and the teenage boys would have Bible class and we'd read about King Solomon's thousand concubines. Right, yeah. 700 wives, 300 concubines, yeah. You know, I remember the boys in Bible class were saying, you could sleep with a different woman every night for three years, you know, but who really wants that?

Even the wildest dreams of a man with a normal sex drive would say, no, I don't really want to have a thousand sexual partners. I don't want to have 500 sexual partners. The idea – I don't know.

I think I disagree. I think a lot of men, if they weren't afraid to be judged or let's say you weren't talking to a Catholic who was afraid that this was wrong, I think they would say, yeah, they would totally want that. Isn't that what porn is? It's just not all the way? they would totally want that. Isn't that what porn is? It's just not all the way. Well, I mean, on a certain level, yes. But for me, the experience that I've had in the homosexual community is there's a remarkable drive to fill a void. Well, and then as you say, look at the data, because that's all you would have to do, right? I mean, it's not like we're judging gay men with a man who's married.

There's a lot of men who aren't married and live promiscuous lives. Are they saying 1,000 women within that time frame? Yeah, it just – and then people say, oh, well, that's just because it's not available. Of course you have two men who might be interested in each other going together. They're going to have a lot more sex. But, you know, I think about my friend Paul, who is in Desire of the Everlasting Hills. Love that man. Love that man.

Remarkable story of God's miraculous intervention in his life. And he had thousands of sexual partners. But one of the remarkable lines in his story is he says, I kept looking for another man who would complete the lack of my own manhood, that would somehow complete me. And so there becomes this drive. If I could just be with the perfect man, I'm going to finally feel like a man. And that's what is driving this promiscuous unchastity among men. And it's happening, of course, with – you don't just – you take a vow of celibacy to become a priest. If you don't have these things sorted out, and this applies to both if you're attracted to men or women, if you don't have your – if you do not have the kind of maturity that recognizes that chastity is a good gift for you, you're not going to be able to fulfill your priestly obligations. And the data just shows that men with same-sex attraction have a really difficult time with chastity. And I quote Dr. Father George Lloyd with a Ph.D. from New York University. He worked with homosexual men and homosexual priests, and he says the data is just clear on this question. The psychic energy for a man with homosexual tendencies to remain chaste

is much greater than a man with opposite sex attraction. Okay. So someone might listen to this and say, okay, 80% these different studies have shown were boys that priests preyed upon, and maybe the majority of them were, you know, post-pubescent. Okay, so fine. But are you saying, and I think this is what's going to stick in a lot of people's craw, that people who are homosexual or have same-sex attraction are more likely to prey upon children? No, I'm not going to.

That's what it sounds like when you say that this is to some people it sounds like that to them you say this is a homosexual problem therefore what you're saying is people with same-sex attraction are more likely to abuse kids well that's that's not uh what we're talking about is a specific category of men in the priesthood. And the question is, should we continue to ordain men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies if the evidence clearly points that as far as the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals happen, it's overwhelmingly an issue of homosexual priests. I mean, that's really the question here, because the tendency to – you're putting

these priests with adolescent boys who are altar boys. It just is not wise, and the evidence shows that the risk is too great, and I think the answer to part of the problems is to abide by the Church's teaching that has existed since 1961. What would it be like having a sense of extraction and going to seminary? Would that be like me going into a convent? It's just like living with a bunch of single women. Is it like that or not really? Because I can see how that would clearly be a temptation for sin and therefore wouldn't be good. Is that the kind of argument or not really? Well, here we maybe want to talk about the Vatican's discussion of transit with homosexual tendencies who have kept their vows, who have gone to seminary,

and have been good priests. I know some of them. And so... So you're not saying if you're a priest with same-sex attraction, you should leave the priesthood somehow? Absolutely not. Because, you know, the grace of ordination is there to fulfill the office if we cooperate with it. So what's the difference between deep-seated and then transitory? Well, and so this is an interesting distinction that the Catechism made, but it didn't really describe it except to say that it might have been maybe an adolescent experience. It's a fairly common occurrence that when you're growing up,

you might experience with another boy, you might have these attractions. Right. And so the – I remember having stuff like that. I remember having – like thinking about a guy who was a couple years above me in high school, who all the girls adored, who was very handsome. And, like, having these accidental images of him in a sexual position and wondering what the heck was happening to me. That's fairly normal. Right.

And if I was in today's age, I'd be like, oh, I guess I'm gay. So I'm gay. If I was in today's age, I'd be like, oh, I guess I'm gay. So I'm gay, as opposed to, no, maybe you just see something in this guy that you deeply respect and admire, and traits which you would like to emulate. Exactly. So this is what the Church is talking about, that if these are, for the most part, transitory. And so let's say a man like that, going into the the seminary and he might find some of the men attractive, but he recognized that he sees what's going on and say, where is

this coming from? Is there something about him that I admire that somehow I wish was a trait for myself and they can respond to it in a mature way and with counseling, then they can work through that. I think that throwing a man like that into the seminary might be a challenge, but they can overcome it if they are growing in their own sense of their masculinity and recognize this is a dead end and these are not desires that I should pursue at all. But I think for a man who is solely attracted to men, it's a mistake to bring them into the seminary. I don't think you can say it's the same as a man going into a convent because the sexual experience is different. But the temptations there and you're in a place where you're trying to bond with other men. And if you're not, one of the things I write about in my book is I had to learn and grow in friendship. What does friendship between two men really look like? Now, I did not know what that was like when I was in my 20s or my 30s.

I think now, as I'm almost 50, I've found a lot of healing in that, where it doesn't become this sort of, you know, I would think about my male friends and I'd worry, what did he just say? Why did he say, why did he look at me that way? No, guys don't do that. That's not a normal relationship. Unless they're in a Dostoevsky novel. Right. I just got done reading The Brothers Karamazov. It's incredibly psychological.

Everyone's neurotic. Continue. Yes, exactly. Well, you know, the problem is, is if you have somebody else with these same temptations there and you sense that, and then it's so easy to fall in unchastity. A friend of mine who just got ordained about three years ago, he was at seminary less than five years ago. He went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and four of the seminaries on pilgrimage in Jerusalem went to a gay bar. What in the world are you doing? What in the world are you doing? So it's not just that there's homosexuals in the priesthood with some of them, or perhaps a large number who have no intention of remaining chaste, although I'm sure many do. It's also this, like, in-house weird boys club where people kind of get promoted and... Isn't it?

Well, there has been that. I mean people have talked about the homosexual subculture where they support each other. And it becomes sort of, hey, I know about your scandalous behavior. You know about mine. Let's watch each other's back. That clearly has happened. We wish this wasn't true, but we can't keep ignoring this thing. I tweeted out the other day, it's times like these,

we wish we could keep calling Michael Voris hyperbolic, but alas. What's your opinion on Michael Voris and Church Millicent? Well, I don't have an opinion. No, I think I just wish there's a certain bravado and in-your-face quality that I don't think is always Christlike. That's just my honest truth. But I can't imagine Jesus speaking the way sometimes I hear Michael Voris speaking. Right. Someone said to me recently, like, who's he trying to convert?

And I thought to myself, well, that's a good point. I can't see any non-Catholic converting. But maybe he's like trying to wake up like a sleeping Catholics who just don't want to face this issue and don't want to recognize the Church's teaching on this issue. But yeah, okay. Both is needed, right? It's a message in the way it's presented. It's not enough just to speak the truth. The more valuable message are people who have been in the Vatican and see it and they speak about it like Archbishop Vigano. I mean, he's very clear that there is a homosexual priest problem in the Church, and he calls it out, and I think, thank God for his courage on that. So what do we do from, gosh, there's so much to say. What do we do from here? What do we as lay Catholics do? I mean, I don't think I've prayed for a pope as much as I pray for Pope Francis. If what Vigano has said is true, do you think Pope Francis should resign?

That is above my pay grade. I'm going gonna say yes well like i i i uh what i want to see is i want to see uh some examination of of this these accusations and i want to see if this is the case i want to see cardinals they're in the place to really keep the Pope accountable. Now, he may have ignored them like he has with other questions. But if he knew about this, and if he wants to be true to his own words, then he would naturally resign if he's going to be consistent with that. But if these are true, these accusations are just damning. Yeah. Philip Lawler just published an article with First Things Today called What Francis Knew.

And he closes his article by saying, The questions raised by Vigano cannot be unasked. They can only be answered or ignored. To answer them will entail a painful process, quite possibly leading to a purge of the Catholic hierarchy, but to ignore them would require another cover-up. That could be fatal to this papacy. What do you say to priests who are maybe listening to this who do have same-sex attraction, and they feel like, oh gosh, I mean, there's got to be faithful priests out there who love Jesus Christ, love the Church, love that the Church speaks truth about homosexual acts, but have same-sex attraction. It must be a very lonely time for them right now.

Well, this is why I I wrote in my article with First Things. I said I broach this with a lot of trepidation because I really do think that despite this being a homosexual clergy problem that has brought about this scandal, I do think, and I want to believe, that most of them have been true to their vows, and it's a, I don't know. What's your, I mean, your brother doesn't have same-sex attraction, but what did he, as a priest, what has he shared with you about what it's like being a priest right now? Yeah, it's difficult for him. But my brother is also just optimistic about what the Holy Spirit is doing right now. So he's excited to be a priest.

Good man. Spirit is doing right now. So he's excited to be a priest. He's frustrated. He's angry at the cover-ups and spineless people in the hierarchy, but he's also inspired by the ones who have shown a backbone, who have been courageous. And he is taking even more seriously his own commitment to holiness and to help his own parish follow Christ in the midst of this. And he's encouraging them, stay with the church and let's wait and see what the Holy Spirit's doing. So I think that that's got to be the key for priests is to get excited, to say, look,

there's the whole history of the church has been up and down. Right. And moments of renewal. There's never, there has never been a, what do you say? Picturesque, idealistic time in the church ever,

ever, ever, ever from the get go. There's always been schisms and heresy. And I, I was actually, I spoke at the Courage Conference with you.

Two years ago, yeah. It was great. And I was driving back to the airport with Father Paul. Yes. Father Paul... Father Paul Cech. And I said to him, do you ever remember a time when the Church has been this divided? And he went, uh, the Arian heresy?

He went, okay, touche. Where the majority of Catholic bishops were heretics. Yeah, I mean, we forget our own history. And there was a period of time where the papacy was just rocked with scandal. They called it the pornography. You've got one pope, what, digging up the dead body of another to put him on trial. Exactly. I mean, one of them sold the papacy and then got it back later, selling the papal cutlery, having, you know, writing.

Oh, yeah. And mistresses in the Vatican, you know, so there is a long history of sexual scandals in the church, and we have to cling to the promises of God. Amen. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. And Peter's words, where will I go? Like, where else shall I go? And that's like an honest question, i understand that catholics right now might be like look i i'm done like let me look at eastern orthodoxy or something like i i i i'm i'm done you know um and then some of them want to just leave the church altogether and you think yeah

but what are you gonna go where you're gonna go because if you find a church that's perfect as soon as you enter it it will be wretched because you because you are. You know what I mean? Like, there'll be a big blot on it. There's that line that's maybe too much of a cliche at this point, but you don't leave Jesus because of Judas. You don't leave Peter because of Judas, and you don't even leave Peter because of Peter. Right. Well, that's what G.K. Chesterton, you know, he said, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and Christ built the church on Peter, a weak man. And so it's evidence that this church of failed, broken people is kept together by the grace of Jesus Christ. And that's what we cling to. We cling to Christ and his promises and the Eucharist.

He's there despite bad priests, but the vast majority of priests are great. And I'm so excited about the newer, younger generation of priests that are coming in. And the seminaries have been cleaned up for the most part, despite that story I told you about Jerusalem. I'm talking to younger priests and saying, we did not have this experience in our seminary. My brother did when he was in the seminary 15, 20 years ago, and there are still some seminaries where it's happening, and we need to clean that up. But I think we are seeing a time where Christ is coming in. I'm going to clean the church, and Mary is sweeping, like I said. I like it.

But I do want to say this whole topic of homosexuality and the priesthood, the men, the priests I know who have lived with this, with same-sex attraction, are good and holy men. They should hold their head high because their virtue is sanctifying other people. Their commitment to the truth and to chastity is doing great things for the kingdom of God. And so even though my suggestion is that the church follow its own teaching and not ordain anyone anymore with deep-seated homosexual tendencies. I know many good and holy priests who have lived out the virtues heroically, heroically, and their reward in heaven is going to be great. And so I cannot leave the podcast without talking about that and to spur them on in the good works that they're doing and not let the evil actions of men who then have given into their baser temptations to discourage them, but rather to cause them to turn to cling to the grace of Jesus Christ and to be the good spiritual fathers that God gave them the grace and ordination to be

despite any weaknesses they might have. Amen. Thank you for saying that. To quote Father Mike Schmitz, you know, when there's scandal in the church, you don't leave, you lead. Yeah, and you know, that means more than just criticizing others. Criticizing others is absolutely necessary, especially if others have committed heinous crimes. But I'm thinking somewhere, I think it's the second chapter of Romans or third thereabouts, where it says, you know, Paul's like, you know, you who judge those who commit adultery,

do you commit adultery? You know, those of you who do know, you who judge those who commit adultery, do you commit adultery? Those of you who do this, do you do this? And I think, you know, the same thing we can all say to ourselves. It's like you and like there is this, you know, for most of us, I don't think, well, for many of us, we're not committing as grievous crimes as some of these bishops and priests did, which was just disgusting. And what's it called? The Pennsylvania Report? The Grand Jury Report. It's just, I wept.

It's so disgusting. I read it and I wept. I wish I had never read it, but at the same time, I'm glad it came out. It was both, you know. Yeah, I hear you. I wept too. I was so angry. Yeah, I hear you. I wept too. I was so angry.

Yeah, it was just these men who were supposed to be loving fathers to these people. We're predators. We're demons. But, you know, so we should judge them. And in that sense, those acts ought to be judged. They ought to be publicly shamed. Oh, that's true. And yet, I can't think, Paul saying, you who judge these sexual perverts, are you a sexual pervert? Like, do you look at pornography? You know, are you doing everything within your power, Matt Fradd, to live an upright and virtuous life, to follow Christ,

to be committed to prayer? And the answer for most of us is, not really. It's like, all right, And the answer for most of us is, not really. It's like, all right, well, get your bloody house in order. Exactly. Well, and one of the reasons I have been called to speak about this topic is because of my own sinful tendencies. I recognize that. Thanks be to God. I mean, there's no way I can ever.

Somebody said, oh, great. Your book was translated in Italian. And it's fantastic. You said that us in the podcast. Well, the reason I wrote a book is because I was a prodigal son. And of course, we continue to be the prodigal son. Yeah. Die. Yeah. You know, the tempt to be the prodigal son until we die. The temptations

of the world are still there, and we need Jesus. The most important lesson I've learned is that Jesus himself is the holiness in me. And the honest truth is, we, how are we going to live out the call of Jesus Christ? By always going to the well, going to the Eucharist, taking advantage of the sacraments, living out the spiritual disciplines, and recognizing, but by the grace of God, go I. And all of us have a past. We all know we need Jesus. We all know we're broken.

We all know we need Jesus. We all know we're broken. And one of the things that I admire about the saints so much, they've got no – the closer've got to look at the log in our own eye, if there's one, and recognize by the grace of God, go I, and pray for change, but pray for mercy for those priests. One of the saddest stories I've ever heard Out from from from the sex abuse scandals, which is aside from the the the horrible wounds of abuse is a psychologist who works with priests in dioceses. She works an unenviable job. She works with priests who have been removed because of sex abuse scandals.

Oh, my gosh. God bless her. God bless her. God bless her. And she told me one of these priests who was laicized, right after the hearing, saw him weeping. And she said, what's going on? What are you thinking about right now? And he looked up at her with tears coming down his eyes. He says, you know, I wanted to be a good priest.

Bless her. You know, so you sit there and you think, that's where the mercy of Jesus Christ comes looking on that poor soul. Yeah. And says, you have done what i warned you against let someone damage one of these children it better that there's a millstone around your neck he did it and acknowledged it but i think that's a man who is going he's not sorrowful just that he got caught. Right. And that's the key for him. And in his life of penance, he can do a lot of good for the church now. Yeah. Yeah.

Amen. This is something that I don't think many of us believe. I feel like for the last couple of weeks, I have been frantically, well, not couple of weeks, last few days, frantically refreshing my newsfeed. Frantically, you know, what's going on? What's going on? As if my knowledge of these things is going to control it, you know, and every time I talk with my friends, too often I say, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? As opposed to like, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on the Church. Have mercy on Pope Francis. Have mercy on the Cardinals. Come and restore your Church, you know.

Pull out the weeds. Resurrect your bride. Heal the wound. Heal the wound and bring on the scalpel. Yeah. Bring on the scalpel. Bring the light. Let's cauterize it all this time. Do you think that we Catholics, I feel a lot more open this time around than last time. I have to

be honest, the first time this all came out, the sex abuse scandal, you know, years and years ago now, I got defensive, you know, a little bit. Like, I wasn't justifying these awful things that people had done, but I thought, oh, people are attacking the church, you know. And there is this sort of idea of we want to circle the wagons when we feel our particular group is being attacked. But this time around, I thought, oh, Lord, yeah, let's shine the lights on and let the cockroaches scurry away. Like, I want this investigation that happened in Pennsylvania, wasn't it? I want that in all 50 states. I do, too. I want it investigation that happened in Pennsylvania, wasn't it? I want that in all 50 states. I do, too. I want it all out so we can deal with it.

You know, I wasn't in the church in 2002. That's when I was a prodigal son, you know. So I came in in 2009, and I remember hearing about this, but it wasn't on my radar. But I am hearing what you're saying, that people are, we've been through this, not again, and we will not tolerate this anymore. And I think that that's a message that the hierarchy needs to hear, and I hope to God they're hearing it. Yeah. I am so grateful for you, that you exist and that you write on these things. And yeah, we're going to have to have that beer sometime together. I would enjoy that immensely. And we'll get my brother there and we'll have a good time.

And hopefully chatting about some happier topics. And that's, I do think, I do think we are turning a corner here. It's going to be difficult for a while, but Christ is renewing and purifying His bride. We'll raise a glass to that. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Dan. God bless you. God bless you. Thanks so much to everyone who listened to the show. I hope that it was illuminating, but I also hope that it was hopeful. And I want to thank you for listening. I know for a fact, because this has happened every time we've addressed homosexuality in

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