Cardinal Raymond Burke has called upon Pope Francis to clean up what he calls a “homosexual culture” in the Church that has contributed to the sex abuse crisis.
As noted by Matt Walsh and other Catholic commentators, roughly 80% of the sexual abuse victims in the Catholic Church were male, many of them being postpubescent. Recently-ousted Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexual relations with both adult males and minors; far too often, he preyed on male seminarians entering the priesthood.
Speaking with Thomas McKenna of Catholic Action for Faith and Family, Cardinal Burke called for a purge on homosexual behavior in the clergy, which would include an outright ban on homosexual priests.
“It was clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were in fact homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men,” said Burke. “There was a studied attempt to either overlook or to deny this.
Burke continued: “Now it seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root. It is of course a tendency that is disordered.”
The cardinal went on to say that Catholics should rightly feel scandalized but asked they direct their blame toward the men responsible and not the Church itself.
“We should be profoundly ashamed of what certain shepherds, certain bishops, have done, but we should never be ashamed of the Church because we know that it is pure and that it is Christ Himself, alive for us in the Church, Who alone is our way to salvation,” said Burke. “There is a great temptation that our justified anger over these gravely immoral acts will lead us to lose faith in the Church or to be angry with the Church, instead of angry with those who, even though they held the highest authority in the Church, have betrayed that authority and have acted in an immoral way.”
In May of this year, Pope Francis went as far to warn the Italian bishops about homosexual applicants seeking to join the priesthood and why they should not be allowed. His position followed that of Pope Benedict, who emphasized that men “who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called ‘gay culture’” could be denied entry into the priesthood.