Rome's Sex Summit

Who'd have thought that the Pope would ever call an emergency meeting in Rome of the American cardinals to discuss the topic of sex? Sure, the issues that have forced the Vatican to make this extraordinary move, we've been told through much of the media, are pedophilia and sexual abuse. But under the surface it's also?if not more so?about consensual sex: sex

by supposedly celibate priests, and yes, often of the homosexual variety. By now everyone's heard about the swinging Father Shanley, a priest with a sexually abusive past who was shuffled around from archdiocese to archdiocese with Boston's Cardinal Law's blessings, left the Boston archdiocese with Cardinal Law's blessings, only to head out to Palm Springs, where he opened up a clothing-optional gay resort spa, all while he got a check from the church. (Church officials thought he was out there in the desert tending to his allergies.) Turns out he's been living for some time now with what appears to be a much younger boyfriend.

The Shanley case shines a bright light on an uncomfortable aspect of the crisis. The vast majority of the cases of abuse we've seen in the media over the past several months have been male-on-male, and not between priests and little boys but between priests and teenagers; often the abuser has been gay-identified. Some conservatives?yes, admittedly, even including some among that loathsome bunch at the National Review?have been right when they have pointed out that many of these men thus are not pedophiles as much as they are simply gay men in the priesthood (which some observers have speculated could be up to 50 percent gay) who struggle like their straight counterparts to keep the celibacy vow, and who wind up looking for the easiest venue for sex. And defensive liberal and openly gay pundits have been too quick to dismiss that observation, fearful of where it might lead.

It's true that some conservatives?and the Vatican itself?have equated pedophilia with homosexuality, and have then scapegoated gays, blaming gay priests for the current troubles (including those who have remained celibate). It's a nasty charge that feeds the heinous and wrongheaded belief that homosexuality and pedophilia are one in the same. And I've been among those who've given the Vatican a whipping for implying as much. It is, however, valid to ask if all of these are in fact cases of pedophilic abuse, and to conclude that many are not. Septuagenarian Bob Dole, after all, not long ago leered at Britney Spears in a Pepsi ad, and I doubt anyone would call him a pedophile, his Viagra obsession notwithstanding. Being attracted to adolescents, whatever your sexual orientation, is normal and fairly accepted, reflected most prominently in Calvin Klein's use of semi-naked adolescents to sell products not to that age group but to the age group just above it.

Of course, it is wrong for an adult, particularly someone in a position of authority, to force sex upon a young person (and it is against the law in many states to have even consensual sex with someone under 18), but that doesn't make the abuser a pedophile, something even I admittedly may have confused in the past. (Technically, sex with prepubescent children is called pedophilia, while sex with postpubescent minors is called ephebophilia.) It may simply be a case of someone who under any other circumstances would be seeking sexual intimacy with someone of his or her own age, but under the forced celibacy of the church takes what he can get?literally?and what comes most easily. And that all too often means making advances on teens in his care, people over whom a priest has authority, can force himself upon and can demand silence from.

The issues with which the church is grappling are thus much thornier than they appear. And as if they are not complicated and controversial enough, another element far in the background is that sex between priests and teens, as well as with other adults, is not always abusive either?something else that many liberal and openly gay pundits have not wanted to discuss (but which the case of Father Shanley, out partying it up in Palm Springs, also underscores). For every case of abuse of young people we've heard about there are perhaps many more that we'll never read about, locked away in people's minds, never reported (or reported, but locked away in a church file somewhere). But for every case of abuse between an older teen and a member of the clergy, who knows how many cases there are of consensual sex between such teens and priests?

When I was 17, I had sex with a Catholic clergyman on Staten Island, a man in his 20s. He was not someone from my church (I met him at a flea market), so this was not someone in a position of authority over me. There was nothing abusive or coercive about it. In fact, I saw the incident as something exciting, as part of my own sexual evolution and growth as a teenager, discovering my sexuality?and I felt sorry for this poor soul, walled off in his self-imposed prison. I knew he was hungry for it and had limited options. And I knew he'd be easy to get. If anything, one could say that I was the one targeting him. Yes, some will say that kids can be very pushy, and that that doesn't absolve the adult in such a situation. But when we're talking about people just on the cusp of legal adulthood, it all gets pretty murky.

So these are the kinds of issues that lie just underneath the surface of the crisis that has brought the cardinals to Rome. And for that reason, though some of the cardinals have claimed these issues will be raised in Rome, the summit will actually accomplish little with regard to a discussion of human sexuality. As we've seen in the American church with regard to the sexual abuse cases for decades, the summit's intention is to map out strategy to avoid public relations disasters for the church itself, at best offering up a plan to work better with legal authorities in cases of abuse. There's no way that the cardinals or the Pope will address any of the underlying red-hot issues anytime soon in a straightforward manner, let alone move for any concrete changes.

The church conservatives' proposals for change?to become more rigid, crack down on gay priests or even ban them outright?are impractical, unworkable and retrograde, not to mention that they scapegoat a group that has served the church well, and that such proposals would be met with much resistance. It's been said before but bears repeating: The only workable solution is to go the other way entirely, to open the priesthood up to women, to end celibacy, to allow gay and straight priests to be sexually active and to marry. We will likely not see those things in our lifetimes. So for now, and sadly for a long time to come, it will be business as usual no matter how many Vatican summits are held.

Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at [www.signorile.com](http://www.signorile.com).