Let’s be honest: We do not have a “homosexual priest” problem within the Church. Rather, we have a homosexualist priest problem within the Church.

Priests who might experience same-sex attraction at least have the possibility of addressing that issue effectively in order to live their priestly vocation as a true icon of the Church’s Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, if they accept Church teaching. However, any and all priests, regardless of their attractions, who affirm and promote the homosexualist ideology and turn a blind eye to the corruption of homosexualism in their parishes and dioceses are severely wounding the Body of Christ and harming souls.

What can an average Catholic do about the scourge of the homosexualist priest? Some such priests are bishops—perhaps even cardinals—with offices that wield significant authority over us lay folk.

The homosexualist priest is an ideological colonist—a kind of colonization decried even by our Holy Father Pope Francis when he himself isn’t (whether willfully or unwittingly) fomenting such colonization in the secular media with carelessly proffered sound-bite quotes like “who am I to judge?” and “God made you that way.”

Perhaps the best way to address the homosexualist priest problem is to accept just how disoriented, so to speak, his understanding of the human person and God’s plan for sexuality really is. The homosexualist cleric, whether deacon, priest, or bishop, is deeply, even woefully, confused about these matters and has for decades wrought havoc and confusion wherever he may have had pastoral influence.

The number of clergy who have deep-seated homosexualist tendencies is not negligible. As we formulate our response to them, let us borrow from the Catechism a little bit, and admit that these clerics must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

And here is the great irony: the best way to show respect, compassion, and sensitivity to the homosexualist priest who shows persons with same-sex attraction a false form of respect, compassion, and sensitivity is to help teach the homosexualist priest why he is wrong in doing that. He needs to learn what authentic respect, compassion, and sensitivity really look like.

Don’t Settle for the Subhuman

With that in mind, I respectfully offer to the homosexualist priest an explanation of what it truly means to show “respect” to a person with same-sex attraction. To start, we must avoid the basic disrespect expressed by the culture’s accepted but false taxonomy used to pigeonhole people’s sexual feelings and attractions. It is disrespectful to affirm another human person’s false sense of identity. True respect demands something more from us. Pretending that “God made you that way” is somehow a good response because it makes some people feel better about themselves is actually a demeaning and objectifying view foisted upon others under the false guise of respect.

True respect for another person is simply not possible if you insist on viewing that person in a way contrary to human nature and dignity itself. Rather, I can convey genuine respect for another only to the extent that I see that person as God sees him or her, not as culture does. With God, it’s simple. He either created a man, or he created a woman. Culture is the creator of something subhuman—labels like L, G, B, T, Q, etc., all of which undermine the true God-given value of each person so labelled.

The homosexualist priest needs to learn and understand this great truth if he is to show true respect to someone with same-sex attraction.

How to Suffer with Another

What about compassion? How can I compassionately reach the homosexualist priest in a way that helps him truly grasp this vital but simple point? By definition, “compassion” requires the compassionate person to suffer with another soul and thus truly empathize with that person and their suffering. The problem with the homosexualist priest’s attitude is that he refuses to acknowledge the actual wound that is at the source of the suffering of the person with same-sex attraction.

Imagine a scene in which a friend literally gets stabbed in the back by an intruder who flees. You come upon your friend in great pain, but you can’t see the knife protruding from behind. In your rush of “compassion” for your friend, you tell him to lay down on the couch while you try to get more help. What if your friend, in his disoriented condition, agrees to do that?

Authentically suffering with someone includes an implicit twofold requirement. First, the wounded person must not be self-deluded regarding his own woundedness. Second, the compassionate person must be as aware as possible regarding what kind of wound is causing the suffering.

With homosexuality, real compassion does not come into play when either of those requirements are not met. If a same-sex-attracted person thinks his sexual woundedness is completely normal and okay, then he will never be able to understand or share his experience of suffering adequately with another. Likewise, anyone who thinks being “gay” is okay will not even be able to suffer with someone who knows and accepts that he experiences the deep wound of a homosexual inclination.

In this way, the so-called “compassionate” homosexualist priest needs to learn a vital lesson. Short-circuited and false compassion is a mere bandage applied to an incessantly bleeding but ignored condition. Only those who are willing to see the source of suffering for what it is can truly suffer along with another person and help that person heal.

Coming to Our Senses

Finally, there is “sensitivity,” or being able to respond appropriately to another’s feelings. The homosexualist priest will claim that his response to the same-sex-attracted person is truly sensitive, while the Church’s own teaching on homosexuality is both insensitive and homophobic. The “LGBT” person gets his feelings hurt by words like “intrinsically disordered” and “grave depravity” (regarding homosexual acts).

Indeed, the heretical ideology of homosexualism has itself perfected the propagandist tool of “homophobia” such that “sensitivity” is now entirely a one-way street. The onus is on the Church, we are told, and NOT the so-called “LGBT community,” to show proper sensitivity toward the hurt feelings that abound among those who blatantly reject Church teaching.

Could anyone imagine a more unjust landscape? The homosexualist priest knows he can utterly avoid conversations about the truth of Church teaching (and his interior dissent from it) by focusing instead on how that Church teaching makes some people feel. The homosexualist priest can undermine and indirectly dissent against Church teaching by focusing on feelings and not truth. The truth about homosexuality just hurts too much to ever state it publicly, according to him. Rather, the homosexualist’s strategic focus is on the raging feelings of anger against that teaching.

We must teach the homosexualist priest the additional truth that sensitivity is itself a two-way street. Sensitivity is about our appropriate response to the feelings of others, but it is also about whether a person’s own expressed feelings are themselves appropriate in a given context. The word “sensitive” is used in both ways. If someone expresses rage or anger that is out of bounds, we call him “sensitive,” and the connotation is negative. And we don’t feel very compelled to coddle or concede to out-of-bounds sentiments or emotions from another person.

So, no, it’s not “sensitive” to compromise truth just because that truth causes other people to feel bad. But the homosexualist priest excels precisely in this, even though it’s truly a kind of insensitivity on his part. It’s exceedingly tone-deaf to keep hiding truth while claiming to be responsive to the “feelings” of the “LGBT community” when it is that community that is overly sensitive to hearing that truth and actually insensitive when it come to tolerating the Church’s view in the public arena.

Real sensitivity to the same-sex-attracted person requires that we offer a response to that person’s feelings that will actually lead that person to the truth, not draw him away from it. So much harm to souls arises from homosexualist clergy at all levels of Church authority who are intentionally leading everyone away from Church teaching and the truth of human nature and human sexuality.

Accept the Priest—But Not the Homosexualism

Because the number of homosexualist priests is not negligible, let me be clear about the kind of respect, compassion, and sensitivity owed to them. I respect every homosexualist cleric as a man, an adopted son of God, and as a public representative of the Church.

But I do NOT and will not respect any attempt such clerics make to undermine the mind, heart, and will of Christ and his Bride, the Church, with false teaching.

I have deep compassion for all of our clergy and the immense burdens they carry as they seek to shepherd the People of God. But I do NOT and will not “suffer with” these same men as they seek the ideological colonization of Mother Church with the homosexualist agenda.

I am truly sensitive to the feelings experienced by homosexualist priests who, like all of us, seek to do good even when our choices do not seem good in themselves. But I do NOT and will not ever give them a pass just because their intentions might be in their own minds noble. On this issue, their ways are not God’s ways. That is something they must learn, and will learn, one way or another, either now or in eternity.

Meanwhile, please let us pray earnestly and fervently—and even fast—for the conversion of our homosexualist priests and for the eradication of the rampant homosexualism found in our pews, our sanctuaries, our schools, our soup kitchens, and even in the hearts of our friends and family. Pray that every deacon, priest, and bishop can embrace their true call to be living icons of Jesus Christ, our Way, our Truth, and our Life.