Throwing Stones

Fr. Art Mallinson, at one time an assistant at my parish in Plano, has been forced to resign as pastor at St. Michael’s in McKinney after being outed by a “conservative activist group,” dedicated to exposing gay Catholic priests. Roman Catholic Faithful is one of those muck raking organizations of the sort the mainstream media wouldn’t normally go near but anything involving sexual misbehavior among clergymen or conservative politicians is fair game these days. (Openly gay Episcopal Bishops appear to be an exception to this rule.) Fr. Mallinson hasn’t been accused of any crime so far as I know, or of abusing his clerical office, just of some lewd correspondence from several years ago. He may yet be hounded out of the priesthood, though that isn’t technically possible. In my church holy orders, like baptism, confers an indelible sacramental mark. Once one is a priest one is always a priest. No one seems to have alleged Fr. Mallinson has violated his vow of celibacy, though that is also a misnomer. Roman Catholic priests vow not to marry. Fornication is a sin, an infraction of the requirement for abstinence, but it does not abrogate a state of celibacy. I’ve been Catholic and married to a Catholic long enough to have known quite a number of priests. I count several of them among my friends. A few are among the people I admire most in this world. Some I have known left to marry and no longer celebrate priestly rites. Some I thought to be irascible old curmudgeons. Like other men, priests have been known to abuse alcohol or have heterosexual affairs. Some presumably are homosexual. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few have visited pornographic web sites at one time or another, gay or straight. Not withstanding any of that I find most priests to be sincere and dedicated to their vocation. All of them, like me, are sinners. None of them belong on pedestals. None of them deserve to have their private indiscretions dragged across the headlines either. From what I understand Fr. Mallinson would be welcomed back in his most recent parish, among those who know him well. His most vocal critics are people who don’t know him at all. Personally I think the hue and cry often says more about the accusers than the accused. Take a look at the RCF web site. These people have issues, actually only one issue. They don’t talk about anything else. It’s one diatribe after another and for the most part not about the abuse of children, though God knows we’ve had enough of that. This is about gay priests, any gay priests, the bishops who tolerate them, the abomination of gay households in our society, anything gay. They appear to be quite well acquainted with gay porn sites, presumably for investigative purposes only. They like to use gay bashing words like pervert and they aren’t above pointing their readers to graphic and offensive photographs. They solicit dirt from anybody who has any to offer. It’s time we all took a deep breath. Our church is still trying to deal with the scandal of predatory priests that has rocked its foundations. It was the single issue that got the most attention during Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit. It’s not something we are likely to have behind us any time soon. But homosexual priests are a fact. They have been a part of our church at lease since the adoption of mandatory celibacy. They aren’t all pedophiles or predators, and they aren’t necessarily a menace even if they are sometimes guilty of sins many of us find particularly distasteful. We don’t need to be rummaging through every priest’s closet looking for homosexuals and we don’t need homophobic scandal sheets like the RCF news letter.