Coming to a theater near you soon, "The Fall of Rome II", starring Pope Benedict XVI, co-starring, oops, where's the cast?.......... (:

Wow! You go, Father Tony! When I read the title of your article, I thought "He's going to have a hard time backing this argument up." But you did back it up...beautifully, I might add. It never occurred to me that so many Catholic priests were gay. The only thing is, you might have to wait a long time before all the current gay priests to pass on or retire. Great commentary!

I'm a former Catholic too and I look forward to the day you predict when the Church in its current incarnation collapses. In my view, Benedict XVI is the culmination of everything that's wrong with the morally bankrupt Church hierarchy. Things have become so bad in areas of the USA that priests are now being imported from Africa, yet gays and - God forbid, women - are off limits for the priesthood.

Protestant denominations are doing much the same thing--only subtler. GLBT folk can be ministers and elders as long as their celibate.RIGHT!! the identification as gay is enough to ban. Presbyterians, like Roman Catholics, are experiencing a shortage of ministers for the first time in over a century.
Let me change direction. I find appalling the Roman C. stance on gays and refusal to ordain women. However, what I believe is far more damning is their stance on birth control. It angers me that it continues to foster unlimited procreation in a world that is already full of people and poverty is rampant. Some rant against the undocumented workers in the US. That number would be far fewer if the Roman church didn't continue it's encouraging large numbers of children born to families already in poverty.
An example a friend whom I suspect is undocumented told me that he was the 9th of 12 children. When each child was old enough to walk, that child was sent to the streets to survive. I'm not talking about abortion, but simple family planning in which each child is planned for, eagerly awaited--and provided for.

The catholic church has regressed to pre enlightenment. I just wish we could get stewardship of the Pieta. We have more right to it than those bi-ches, and it burns my onion that they keep our best works and still have the gall to treat us like dirt. The arrogance of it is an absolute shock.

Father Tony, I understand your argument that it's masochistic for a gay guy to enter or remain in the priesthood. But since we're in Easter Week, a special time to think about repentance and sacrifice and how that applies to our individual lives, I have to ask a question. If all the gays desert the church, who will counsel with compassion the gay youth who might be trying to find a refuge from homophobia or abusive parents? I am thinking of "Doubt," for example. And maybe that's a bad example because there's no excuse for a priest molesting a kid. But, still, that priest was portrayed as a refuge for the boy because of his bullying dad. If there was no gay priest, who would have helped him? Or are you saying that, in the big picture, the Catholic Church is too destructive of GLBT people and would-be priests and nuns should try to lead gays and lesbians away from the church?

Recently (after a "no" from the Bush administration) President Obama opted to support a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for all nations to decriminalize same-sex behavior. Now, the sole western nation to refuse to support decriminalization of homosexuality is, you guessed it, the Vatican (the same folks who think using condoms is a bad remedy to stop spread of HIV in Africa). Apparently, the pope isn't too bothered by gay folks being beheaded and hung from construction cranes in Saudi Arabia and Iran as "criminal punishment" for being gay. I do not understand how or why any self-respecting gay person would want to be a member of this religious cult. The good news is that the Catholic Church is losing members (and is closing churches in the USA). The bad news is that five of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices are Roman Catholics.

As a "Catholic" who left the church in 1970 due to my strong disagreement over birth control and the Viet Nam war, I was hardly surprised when the current pope recently declared that people like me, are less than human and apparently not of gods creation (my words not his, but his were of similar vein). You see I am a post op TS woman who, in my opinion, is growing to be a really good, beautiful person. I am continually struck by the contrast between what the church professes to be about and their actions which seem deafening. It would almost seem that many in the church, particularly those in the Vatican and many priests, believe that they have found perfection. To paraphrase, "let those who have attained perfection in their lives cast the first stone". For me, I am trying to live my life in the very best way I can. I am saddened that the Catholic church views those of us who are either G,L,B, or T as somehow being less than human.
By the way, has the Pope condemned the Iraq war which has resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent people. Oh, I'm sorry I forgot - THOSE people must not be Catholics.
This whole thing with the church saddens me, I really don't get it.

Hi Tony-
I read with interest your essay on weeding out the gay in the RCC. But what about the women who have never even had a place at the table. Perhaps when there are so few gay priests, and only boring straight ones, Rome will start looking at the legally ordained women who are now practicing underground as real options and realize that women have been showing a different kind of priest in the Episcopal Church-and one that I as a lesbian and cradle Catholic-prefer. A loving, warm welcoming presence, and...well sometimes a lesbian. That you will never find in the RCC now because women have never had a place at the table! I blog with a group the Revgalblogpals and never a finer group of women you would want to meet!
Best,
Joanna