(Pictured – Left to Right: Fathers Dan McCarthy, Bernárd Lynch, John J. McNeill, and Robert Carter marching with Dignity/New York in an early 1980s “Gay” Pride Parade.)
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association made the decision to delete homosexuality as a diagnostic category from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). This decision was not based on new scientific evidence, but the result of political pressure from activists in and out of the Association, particularly from the newly formed National Gay Task Force; in 1973, the four founding leaders of the Task Force included Dr. Howard Brown, Dr. Bruce Voeller, Father Robert Carter, and Dr. Frank Kameny.
Dr. Howard Brown was chief health officer of New York City during the Lindsay administration. During his tenure, Brown described his horror when he first toured the Tombs, a notorious city prison: “Almost all the men in the crowded cells were demonstrably effeminate. I could not identify with them.” In 1969, after the Stonewall Riots, Brown said of the protesters: “[they] were like the homosexuals I had seen in the Tombs—most of them obviously poor, most of them the sort of limpwristed, shabby or gaudy gays that send a shiver of dread down the spines of homosexuals who hope to pass as straight. I could not have felt more remote from them.” He added that the composition of the crowds brought to mind “every civil rights struggle I had ever witnessed or participated in.” Brown suffered a heart attack and died in 1975 at age fifty.
Bruce Voeller was a biologist and early AIDS researcher; Voeller pioneered and promoted the use of nonoxynol-9 as a spermicide specifically as a topical virus-transmission preventative method for us in the “gay” male community. In 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) held a consultation on N-9 with researchers from around the world. These experts came to the following conclusions: “N-9 is not effective at preventing the transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases (STD). It shouldn’t be used or promoted for disease prevention…Products with N-9 — including condoms, lubes and birth control products — should never be used for anal sex. The rectum is more fragile than the vagina. Even the small amount of N-9 in condoms and lubes can damage the rectum, raising HIV risk.” Voeller died of AIDS in 1994.
Robert Carter was an American Roman Catholic priest and LGBT rights activist; in 1972, he helped to found the New York chapter of DignityUSA; an organization that has since been officially condemned by the Vatican; he led blessing ceremonies for gay couples and saw no contradiction between homosexuality and Christianity; in an unpublished memoir, he wrote: “Since Jesus had table fellowship with social outcasts and sinners, those rejected by the religious establishment of his time, I consider myself to have been most fully a Jesuit, a ‘companion of Jesus,’ when I came out publicly as a gay man, one of the social rejects of my time. It was only by our coming out that society’s negative stereotypes would be overcome and we would gain social acceptance.” Although there were calls for his expulsion from the Jesuits, Carter was never disciplined; he died at his residence at Fordham University in 2010.
Dr. Frank Kameny was an American astronomer who became a “gay” rights activist after he was dismissed from his position in the U.S. Army’s Army Map Service in Washington, D.C. because of his homosexuality. In 1961, Kameny and Jack Nichols, fellow co-founder of the Washington, D.C., branch of the Mattachine Society, launched some of the earliest public protests by gays and lesbians; Nichols, in an early interview, when asked about what “caused” his sexual orientation, said: “…it really doesn’t concern me very much. I never would imagine if I had blond hair that I would worry about what genes or what chromosomes caused my blond hair; or if I had brown eyes. My homosexuality is very much in the same category.” Another member of the Mattachine Society was the infamous Harry Hay; in 1979, Hay co-founded the Radical Fairies, he was also an outspoken supporter of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association.) When questioned on his support for NAMBLA in a 1983 New York University forum, Hay remarked: “If the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world.” According to the NAMBLA publication “A Way Forward,” Kameny spoke at a NAMBLA membership conference in Baltimore in 1981. In 2010, Kameny was seated in the front row of the gathering where President Barack Obama signed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act. Kameny died the following year at age 86; after his death: Kameny’s house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Addendum:
John J. McNeill, a Jesuit priest who co-founded Dignity, was silenced in 1977, when the Vatican ordered him not to speak or write on the subject of homosexuality. Yet, after the publication of “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” McNeill publicly condemned the letter in a statement issued to “The New York Times” and “The National Catholic Reporter.” Cardinal Ratzinger responded by ordering him to keep silent about his views, and to again cease his pastoral work with homosexuals; this time, McNeill refused. Under orders from the Vatican, the Jesuits expelled him in 1987. Later, McNeill said “I always knew I was gay. I tried to be closeted, but that didn’t succeed…The message is that God loves gay lovers and approves of them.” He married his long-time partner in 2009.
In his landmark book, “The Church and the Homosexual,” McNeill wrote:
Since most gay people experience their homosexual orientation as a part of creation, if they accept this Church teaching, they must see God as sadistically creating them with an intrinsic orientation to evil. Most gays would prefer to see the Church teaching as wrong, rather than believe God is sadistic.
Dan McCarthy once argued: “I don’t see how the church has any business dictating people’s behavior, the business of the church is to proclaim the Kingdom of God.” He continued: “I’ve been homosexual for 75 years and a priest for about 48 years, it’s no longer a novelty to me.”
A priest with the Holy Ghost Fathers, in 1976, McCarthy began a relationship with his future husband who he legally married in 2011; they met in New York City at a liturgy organized by Dignity.
Bernard Lynch (pictured below) was ordained in 1971 with the Society of African Missions. In 1975, he enrolled at Fordham University in the Master’s program in Psychology; in 1980, he completed his degree in the Doctor of Ministry program at New York Theological Seminary. During that time he agreed to start saying Mass for Dignity in New York City.
In 1998, he and his same-sex partner had their relationship publicly “blessed.” In 2007, they became legally married as the first Catholic priest and partner in a civil partnership. In a 2012 interview, he stated that their 1998 marriage was “solemnly blessed” by an American Cistercian monk. Lynch admitted that he has “many times” given similar blessings to other same-sex marriages. In the same interview, he said this about his religious order: “They have known for a long time that I am a married gay man. Up to now they’ve left me to weave a passage between the cracks…”
Update: Recently, I uncovered a letter (dated 1960) sent to the Mattachine Society from a Roman Catholic priest in Colorado. In this letter, Fr. John C. Walsh of Holyoke, Colorado offered to help the Mattachine Society with answering letters received from male homosexual Catholics. In his letter, Walsh writes: “It is difficult to reconcile homosexuality and Catholic moral teachings.” Actually, its impossible. Especially at that time. But regardless of Walsh’s original intentions in this matter, its remarkably telling that a Catholic diocesan priest from a very small town in Northeastern Colorado was aware of (and reading the publications offered by) a still obscure gay rights organization in Los Angeles.
God have mercy on their souls and help our world please. Joseph, keep telling the truth!
Perhaps homosexuality is actually a demonic oppression.
It says in the bible a list of people who will not get into heaven and it mentions sodomites etc it also states the act is an abomination to God Jesus says only those who do the will of God will get into Heaven even if you do miracles and you do not do Gods will you will not get in A Priest who pdid an exorcism on a priest who was a pedophile said a demon came out of him. And how awful to go to Mass with such a priest saying mass it’s a sacrilege to be saying mass if you are a practicing Sodomite Jesus is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. He is compassionate but also is strict on sin so let’s not take him for granted
God is not sadistic. Human beings, unedited by God’s word are prone to sin. There is a difference. There is a time and place for testimony, gossip is not the way. Gossip is sinful. There is a time and place for rest and recuperation, sloth is sinful. There is a time and place for righteous indignation, anger is sinful. There is a time and place for sexual relations, fornication of any type, is sinful. We are all prone to these sins, some more than others. God is not sadistic, we are selfish and self indulgent. If God is primary in your life, the stirring in your britches will ne secondary. Period.
God have mercy on these men. I quake in fear for their judgment.
God bless you, Joseph. Keep it up.
His legacy is what pervade the Church to this day. He should have been defrocked. What were they thinking?? letting this man run amok and influence Catholics? I am beyond disgusted with our Church, but I still love my Catholic Faith. I hope we can return to order. Get all the homo’s out of the church now.
Here is a quote from one of the greatest saints ever regarding homosexuality. St. Catherine relays words of Our Lord, about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referrng to sacred ministers, He said: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [ of fallen human nature]…but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid having dimmed the light of the understanding, they do not recoginze the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that , for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the jugdment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…It is disagreable to the demon, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being commited. It is true that it is the demons who hit the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demons leave.
St.Catherine of Siena, El diabolo, in Orbas de Santa Catarina de Siena
“We shall find out at the day of judgment that the greater number of Christians who are lost were damned because they did not know their own religion.” – St. Jean-Marie Vianney
“A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.” – St. Jean-Marie Vianney
Genuinely asking: If all that God made is good, why does the Church teach that homosexuality is bad? Like the priest quoted above says, if his homosexuality is as intrinsic to who he is, as the colour of his hair, why do we label this part of him as “bad”? (I do know the Church teaching on marriage between a man and a woman and its procreative aspects, but am just puzzled about why the Church condemns something God has made, since it seems that homosexuality is not a “learned” behavior). Any enlightenment would be appreciated.
Here is my response to the “born gay” theory.
https://josephsciambra.com/born-to-bottom-or-god-didnt-make-me-gay
Romans 1:26-27 “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”
It is interesting to note that the sodomite community makes the claim that Jesus Christ never made any comment about sodomy. That, in fact, is not true since not everything He said is recorded. This can be easily demonstrated by Acts 20:35 “In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘ It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”
Therefore, what St. Paul says in Romans 1:26-27 (above) is the teaching of Jesus Christ.
This is confirmed by the words of Christ himself. Luke 10:16″ He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
A very simple but (I think) effective solution is to form independent, lay run teams in each diocese to screen seminarian applicants. This will force the homosexual cabal out of the decision making process and ensure the formation of psychosexually mature men. As it stands, good men are being weeded out while homosexually inclined men are allowed to advance. I know this through personal experience. The laity in each diocese must demand this from their bishops.
I was recently molested by someone with same-sex attraction – a very trusted person – and I saw this person give a nod of consent right before they did it. As soon as it became clear what was going on I left the room and ended up cutting off all connections because they thought this should make no difference. Then they insisted I apologize. I believe it is a demonic possession the deeper one goes into the lifestyle. Very very sad.
There is only one way to force a purge within our beloved Church … stop putting money in the basket, not even a penny, at every level. Tell all ur faithful friends to do the same. Do this however long it takes. If parishes need to close and sell off the real estate so be it. I am willing to drive as far as is necessary to receive holy communion. Not a penny. All levels. THIS MUST BE DONE. Spread the word.
As I understand it, the American ¨Psychiatric Association recognized that the argument presented by the National Gay Task forcé and other groups was correct; that there were in fact no indications that homosexuality was a psychiatric disorder. It was not social pressure under which the APA capitulated, but rather that a re-examination of the facts affirmed the decisión to declair homosexuality not a psychiatric disorder. Had they succumbed to social pressure, there have been two generations of psychiatrists to correct that error. The other option is to claim that the APA is not a serious organization.
Since the 1980s, the Catholic Church has called for homosexuals to be treated with respect, and in 1987, Cardinal Ratzinger sought the creation of outreach programs by the dioceses to attend to this population. Cardinal O’Connor of New York was so impressed by the way the homosexual community cared for those sick with AIDS, when even the families of these men had abandoned them, that he insisted that the Archdiocese begin an outreach program, which became known as “Courage”.
The Church does not see homosexuals as persons with a psychiatric disorder, but as persons who live with a heavy cross and very few people willing to help them find their way. Because of stigma, it is hard to assertain who is or who is not homosexual when we look at historic figures, but in recent decades we can find a number of admirable men who seem to have been homosexual and who channeled their desire for love into altruistic acción for the benefit of humankind. I would mention: Dag Hammarskjöld, William Stringfellow, Dr. Thomas Dooley, and David Rothenberg as men to whom the world has a great debt for their generous work.
Those of us who are mandated by our bishops to offer outreach to this community suffer more from the attacks of misinformed members of the Church than we do from homosexuals trying to steer the work away from Church teaching. Our validly organized groups are trying to offer a clear voice of both comprehension and direction to people who are used to being told they have no place in the Church.
The facts do not support the decision of the APA:
https://josephsciambra.com/the-continuing-reality-of-untreated-mental-illness-in-the-gay-community
Please I strongly encourage all to read the book by Malachi Martin tittled ” The Jesuits. The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church.” It was published in 1987 but it is almost prophetic. The issue goes farther than just homosexuality in the church. That is simply a symptom. The problem goes deeper and it has to do with the turn of the church into secular humanism. If you understand this, then you will understand why these homosexual priest feel ok to proclaim openly their homosexuality.