Religion
Related: About this forumEx-priest says the Vatican uses a special retreat to ‘cure’ Catholic clergy suspected of being gay
A row over the Vaticans attitude towards gay priests has been stoked further by a claim that clergy with homosexual tendencies are sent to a religious retreat to be cured.
The Holy See was embarrassed by a senior Vatican officials decision to come out as gay at the weekend, just as 270 bishops gathered in Rome to attend a synod on family issues.
As Vatican officials called Krzysztof Charamsas gesture very serious and irresponsible, it was claimed yesterday (Monday) that priests suspected of being gay are often sent to a convent in the northern Italian city of Trento to reflect.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/ex-priest-says-the-vatican-uses-a-special-retreat-to-cure-catholic-clergy-suspected-of-being-gay
Nothing bigoted and homophobic there at all, right?
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)The church is equipped to do that, so this guy has that going for him.
Major Nikon
(36,814 posts)Warpy
(110,913 posts)to the Servants of the Paraclete, a residential congregation, where they endeavor to call the holy spirit to cure their afflictions. More centers around the world have been opened since its founding in 1947.
To their credit, from their beginning they wrote letters to bishops and to the Vatican that priests who were sexually abusing children couldn't be cured and should be defrocked immediately. Bishops and the Vatican, already short of priests, chose to ignore the warnings.
ETA: the priest in the OP was ousted because he violated his oath of chastity by producing his long time lover. He'd have been ousted had he produced a female partner, also.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Treating homosexuals like addicts or sex offenders. Common for the time, but just awful how non-heterosexuals have been treated for so long
Warpy
(110,913 posts)and for it to be removed from the DSM as an illness that needed to be cured.
It's equally disgusting for Fitzgerald's warnings about pedophile priests to have been blown off.
edhopper
(33,213 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)edhopper
(33,213 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)AFAIK, the RCC is not into "cures" but is into chastity.
edhopper
(33,213 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)considering the vow of chasity, I would think whatever prefix you put before "-sexual" would become irrelevant. Not that the church has a great history of rational decision making or understanding of human sexuality.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)So:
Where Gay Priests Are Sent to Be Cured
Official Catholic doctrine still calls homosexuality intrinsically disordered. Can the warm embrace of Pope Francis change that?
ROME A gray stone wall on the edge of the northern Italian hamlet of Trento hides a former convent where gay priests say they were once sent to be cured of their homosexual tendencies. The institute was set up in 1928 by Father Paolo Venturini to offer residential accommodation for clergy who suffer from any number of maladies, from depression and addiction to pedophilic urges. But in the last few decades, according to former priest Mario Bonfante, who defied the Vaticans urging to go, they also offered treatment for homosexuality in an attempt to get gay priests back on track through any number of means.
The atmosphere could be extraordinarily sinister. In 1983, an elderly homosexual priest by the name of Armando Bison, who was there for treatment, was killed in a bizarre incident during which two men drove a wooden crucifix into his skull.
Of course the environment is more civilized now, but Bonfante says that priests who came out as gay in Italy before Pope Francis was elected in 2013 were sent to the Venturini Institute to be treated with a type of multi-faceted retraining that mixes psychoanalysis with meditative prayer.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/06/where-gay-priests-are-sent-to-be-cured.html
trotsky
(49,533 posts)A common defense mechanism for those afflicted with impotent rage.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 7, 2015, 05:54 PM - Edit history (1)
There is still the unsourced matter of the wooden crucifix in the skull.
Here is a source:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_%28serial_killer%29&prev=search
Looks like he was killed by Ludwig, a serial killer with nary a word about "curing" homosexuality.
Sloppy.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)we had a priest that was having a relationship with the male drama teacher. Whether it went beyond a close friendship, I obviously have no idea of knowing, but he was sent away to the midwest version of that camp to cure him of his tendencies. He was (and I assume still is) an awesome guy. So was the drama teacher. I'm pretty sure they didn't pray the gay out of that guy.