Katie Grimes deftly and clearly explains the . . . well, downright oddity . . . of the heightened homophobia within the Catholic institution. Heightened in relation to the homophobia of many comparable institutions, which don't require the kind of vigilant posses constantly marching around the perimeter that the Catholic institution requires, to keep the gays locked out . . . . And exceedingly odd, when we all know the gays are there, and in abundance, in the very heart and center of the institution, as the coming-out of Monsignor Charamsa in the Vatican has reminded us all over again:
We should ask why. Why would a priesthood that contains several times more homosexually oriented men than the general population fear the acceptance of the purported "sin" of homosexual sex so much more than other sins?
Perhaps the heightened homosexuality of the Catholic priesthood provides not the question but the answer. . . .
The Catholic priesthood paradoxically provides a safe haven for homosexual masculinity only by locking it in the closet, even when the bulging contours of this closet door provide on-lookers a pretty good idea of the contents it hides inside.
Eventually this door will burst off its hinges.
Katie posted this at the Women in Theology site on 9 September. But it could have been expressly written as commentary on Monsignor Charamsa's coming-out story yesterday, and the way that story shines a light into the dark, hidden corridors of the Vatican itself — where we seldom see lights shining to let us outsiders know much at all about what's happening on the inside.
The headscratcher illustration is from The Evening Ledger (Philadelphia, May 4, 1916), and was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Johnny Automatic of Open Clip Art Library.
