Acts, Not Identities
Rethinking Clerical Abuse and the Question of Homosexuality
The temptation to explain the clerical abuse crisis by pointing to “homosexual priests” or “homosexuality in the clergy” is a persistent one. Yet such rhetoric, while superficially persuasive, misrepresents Catholic theology and distracts from the true roots of the scandal. The Church has never judged people by modern identity categories, but by their acts; and it is fidelity to this principle that best serves both truth and justice.
The statistical picture
In the most comprehensive U.S. study, the John Jay Report (2004) found that 81% of victims between 1950 and 2002 were male, with most aged between 11 and 17.¹ A follow-up analysis (Causes and Context, 2011) stressed, however, that the predominance of male victims does not imply that abusers were motivated by a homosexual identity. Rather, the study concluded that “homosexual identity and/or pre-ordination same-sex sexual behavior were not significant risk factors” for abuse, and that the only consistent signal was the presence of “confused” sexual identity among some older ordination cohorts.² What mattered most were situational factors: the accessibility of victims, patterns of opportunity, and failures of supervision.
Inclination versus sin
Catholic moral theology distinguishes between temptation and sin. As St. Thomas Aquinas explains, concupiscentia (disordered inclination) is not itself sinful without consent.³ This principle is codified in the Catechism: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible… They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (CCC 2358). The Church judges not inclinations, nor identities, but acts freely chosen: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity… the Church teaches that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” (CCC 2357).
Acts, not identities
Historically, the Church spoke of peccata contra naturam—acts against nature—not of “homosexuals.” Terms like sodomite were juridical descriptors for actions, not permanent categories of persons. The modern identity of the “homosexual” as a psychological type only emerged in the late 19ᵗʰ century.⁴ To import these categories into Catholic analysis is anachronistic and misleading.
By analogy, the Church does not speak of “adulterers” as if infidelity defined their whole being, but rather of those guilty of the sin of adultery. Likewise, an alcoholic is not sinful because of a condition of dependency but because of the choices made to misuse drink to the detriment of self and others. Even a murderer is not reducible to “murderer” as an identity, but remains a person made in God’s image, guilty of a grave act. So too, a priest who commits homosexual acts is guilty of mortal sin, but it is neither just nor Catholic to reduce him to the label “homosexual” as though that defines his person.
The magisterial response
Benedict XVI, reflecting in 2019 on the crisis, did identify the rise of homosexual cliques in some seminaries as a factor, but situated this within the wider collapse of discipline and the sexual revolution of the 1960s.⁵ The Congregation for Catholic Education in 2005 directed that candidates with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” not be admitted to Holy Orders, while simultaneously affirming the need for respect and avoiding unjust discrimination.⁶ The point was not to stigmatise persons, but to insist on prudent formation and protection of chastity.
Catholic takeaway
The clerical abuse crisis was not “caused by homosexuality.” To say so is to adopt the very categories of modern identity politics that the Church herself rejects. The true causes lie elsewhere and are far more sobering.
First, the effects of modernism undermined the perennial teaching of the Church. By diluting doctrine, relativising morality, and subjecting divine revelation to shifting cultural winds, modernism created an atmosphere in which sin could be excused, rationalised, or overlooked. In such a climate, abuses were more easily tolerated or hidden, and bishops hesitated to apply the clear discipline of tradition.
Second, the laxity of clerical formation and discipline bears great responsibility. In many seminaries from the 1960s onward, ascetical training was abandoned, moral theology watered down, and vigilance relaxed. Candidates were not adequately tested for virtue or chastity, and in some places corrupt cliques were permitted to flourish. The ancient wisdom of the Church, which had long insisted on rigorous discernment, spiritual direction, and firm oversight, was set aside in the name of openness and aggiornamento.
Third, the decline of moral seriousness in the wider culture played its role. As sexual revolution swept through society, many clergy absorbed its lax spirit. Instead of standing as a sign of contradiction, the Church often imitated the world’s permissiveness, and a double life became possible for those who should have been models of holiness.
Finally, the contemporary obsession with labels and identities has further confused the discussion. By speaking of “homosexual priests” as though an inclination or label explains sin, critics obscure the real issue: priests freely choosing acts gravely contrary to chastity, enabled by weak formation and a Church that too often feared confrontation. To define men by inclination rather than by vocation is itself a distortion of Catholic anthropology, which insists that every person is made in the image of God, called to holiness, and judged by his acts.
The Catholic response, then, must resist simplistic blame. It must recover a rigorous fidelity to the perennial faith, a seriousness about chastity and discipline, and a clear-eyed rejection of modernist evasions. Above all, it must speak with precision: the Church condemns sins, not identities; it judges acts, not inclinations. To do otherwise is to trade Catholic theology for secular ideology and to betray both justice and charity.
Footnotes
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, 1950–2002 (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2004), Executive Summary.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950–2010 (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2011), esp. pp. 71, 126.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q.74, a.3.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), p. 43; cf. Karl-Maria Kertbeny, Paragraph 143 des österreichischen Strafgesetzbuches und seine Aufrechterhaltung als § 152 des Entwurfes eines deutschen Strafgesetzbuches (1869).
Benedict XVI, “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse,” Klerusblatt (April 2019), English text via Catholic News Agency.
Congregation for Catholic Education, Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders (4 November 2005).