The Catholic Church is embroiled in yet another abuse scandal, surprise, surprise.  But if you think Pope Benedict XVI who, like all Popes past, scratched, clawed, and schemed his way to the top of the pig pile (it's even uglier than Rupaul's Drag Race, I can assure you) is going to step down — you got another thing comin'.

The Church is, predictably enough, engaging in tried-and-true gay-bashing in its latest efforts to protect its pedophile priests from prosecution and an enabling pope from ultimate accountability.

Whether it's a prostitution ring in the Vatican that supplied male models and rugby players to Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, and a senior adviser to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (mmm, rugby players — sign me up!), or allegations of a cover-up at the highest levels of child rape in Ireland, rather than addressing the issues at hand and holding individuals accountable, the Church is always sure to issue a blanket condemnation of homosexuals. 

Not homosexual priests who abuse power and people.  Just plain, ordinary homosexuals.

Domenico Bartolucci, Master of the Sistine Chapel choir, which is at the center of the prostitution scandal, has been quoted recently as saying:

Homosexuality, which is a disease, has become something normal. They sprout like poisonous mushrooms, and instead of feeling shame they celebrate this plague and the church itself minimalises these sins. Homosexuality itself is not a sin, you can’t punish a sufferer. But it becomes one when the abomination is practised. It’s disgraceful.

It's not the abuse of power or the use of prostitutes that is disgraceful.  It's not even homosexuality.  It's homosexuals.  And, again, not homosexual priests who abuse power and people.  Just plain, ordinary homosexuals.

Because the gay community in the West is increasing out of the closet, because we are vocal and visible, we make handy scapegoats, especially for an organization cloaked and closeted to its core.  It couldn't be that the Catholic closet is the problem, providing cover for sexual predators, could it? 

Could a little honesty and transparency cure what ails the Catholic Church?  Honesty about the nature of gender and sexuality, and transparency about how the Church's hierarchy perverts it?  The US Episcopal Church may have the answer.  It has shown tremendous courage in the face of conservative criticism in allowing openly gay clergy to serve, and even elevating a couple of them now to bishoprics.  Allowing gays to serve openly eliminates the warping influence of secrecy.

I mean, presumably — to use Bartolucci's botched metaphor — poisonous mushrooms sprout in the dark. 

At any rate, the Catholic Church doesn't seem likely to follow the US Episcopal Church's example any time soon (they're having a hard enough time getting the Anglican Communion to).  In fact, taking it to the next level, the bishop of the city of Tursi has declared homosexuals should not receive communion or be given funerals.  “We must have the courage and tact," he told the press, "perhaps first informing the individual, or the families if he has passed, that it’s not possible to administer a communion or funeral. We would perhaps pray for his soul, which must be done.”

Conflating pedophilia and other perversions which plague the hierarchy with homosexuality is nothing new for the Church.  It's a convenient distraction that doesn't answer the accusations of abuse.  For those who might be confused themselves, the distinction between a sexual predator and the rest of us is the same for gays and straights.     

The line is drawn at mutual consent (and more precisely at the possibility of mutuality and reciprocity which informs consent), which normal, healthy adult relations are based on.  I have always liked Thomas Nagel's brilliant riff on this theme in his, ahem, seminal 1969 essay "Sexual Perversion", which takes as its starting point Sartre's "double reciprocal incarnation."  It is a delightful read, and I heartily recommend it.

There are reasons that abuse is endemic in the Catholic Church that have nothing to do with sexuality as such but produce the kind of skewed power relations that proliferate in perversions like pedophilia.  The reason pedophilia and prostitution scandals keep rocking the Catholic Church is because they typify relations within the Church itself. 

In the end Bartolucci is right — poisonous mushrooms — users, abusers, predator-priests — proliferate in dark places. Like closets, for example.

Maybe it's time the Church opened up the closet door and shed some light.