Gay priests.

Regarding your editorial "Instruction from Rome" (December 16, 2005): Although the contours of an uncreative and hypercautious style of thought have been slowly emerging across several otherwise progressive American Catholic publications--a style romantic about a distinctive Roman Catholic ethos, adorned with intellectual gestures and the art of seemingly fine distinctions, cloaked in the gray colors of neutrality, fair-mindedness, and the great obviousness of reason, and a preoccupation with remaining hearable to the ears of ecclesial power--it is nevertheless disappointing to see such thought infect Commonweal's approach to gay issues in general and gay priests in particular.

One sentence in the editorial says it all: "What role this breakdown in discipline and morality played in the sexual abuse of minors is not clear, but the idea that it played no role in a pattern of abuse in which 80 percent of the victims were male is untenable." Such rhetoric does no service to Catholic arguments about the sexual-abuse crisis. This sort of thinking subtly asks priests who identify as gay to justify why their own large numbers weren't somehow responsible for the abuse, but it does so without actually suggesting how these priests are related to the boys who were abused.

The editorial's easily taken stand against a complete ban on gay priests notwithstanding, the knowingness of the editorial is just about as bad as that of overtly gay-bashing Catholic presses that equate homosexuality with Sodom, the devil, or Democrats. How does Commonweal know that many or most priests, especially of the older generations, who abused boys, had even consolidated a sexual orientation? Or that sexual orientation itself is a stable enough category in which to anchor a social or theological analysis--much less a discipline, reform, or punishment? At the least, no Catholic publication should offer an editorial suggesting that gay means pedophile and leave it unsigned.

TOM BEAUDOIN

Santa Clara, Calif.

THE EDITORS REPLY:

Editorials lay out arguments in an attempt to persuade, and, despite Tom Beaudoin's wishes, cannot be reduced to "One sentence [that] says it all." In fact the sentence Beaudoin quotes was followed by the following sentences addressing all of his concerns: "Celibate gay priests are speaking out, defending the integrity of their vocations. These priests see a ban on homosexuals as a way of scapegoating them for the sexual-abuse crisis, while ignoring the malfeasance of bishops and obscuring the fact that only a small number of priests, whether homosexual or not, were responsible for those crimes."

It is difficult to make sense of, let alone answer, Beaudoin's charges about Commonweal's "hypercautious style of thought," "preoccupation with remaining hearable to the ears of ecclesial power," and other imagined sins. It is worth noting, however, that Beaudoin's disdain for making "fine distinctions" perhaps prevents him from understanding the issues he is rightly concerned about The connection, if any, between the disproportionate number of gay priests and the sexual-abuse of boys is one question. The influence of sexually active gay priests is another. The cognitive dissonance involved when gay priests minister in a church that considers their sexual orientation "intrinsically disordered" is yet another. As the editorial stated, it is the connection between the "breakdown in discipline and morality" caused by gay priests who were sexually active, not merely the presence or number of gay priests, that could have played some role in the sexual abuse of boys. One assumes the ongoing John Jay College study of the causes of the abuse crisis will shed further light on this.

Like many other journals of opinion, Commonweal's editorials are not signed. If Beaudoin is confused about who is responsible for them, all he needs to do is read the masthead.