In a criminal trial in a court of law, the jury needs to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty as charged in order to convict him or her. But what about the court of public opinion? I want to set forth here a line of argument to persuade you to have reasonable doubt about Frederic Martel's claim that certain homophobic Vatican clerics are secretly homosexual.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) February 18, 2019: Conservative American Catholics today feel under siege. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the Roman Catholic Church updated certain church teachings and practices. For example, Vatican II mandated that priests should celebrate the Mass in their vernacular language. However, to this day, certain conservative American Catholics prefer to have their priests celebrate the Mass in Latin which for historical reasons was the language in which the Mass had been celebrated for centuries.

Next, conservative American Catholics were distressed by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion in the first trimester contrary to the church's teaching against abortion. To this day, certain conservative American Catholics engage in fierce anti-abortion zealotry. At the present time, abortion appears to be emerging as a possible issue in the 2020 presidential election.

Next, conservative American Catholics were distressed by the priest-sex-abuse scandal and cover-up by bishops. The extent of priest sex-abuse is still being revealed as various diocese and religious orders post online reports of priest sex abuse going back decades.

More recently, conservative American Catholics joined conservative American Catholic bishops in opposing gay marriage.

To this day, certain conservative American Catholics argue that priests who abused underage boys must be gay. For example, Kenneth L. Woodward, who served for thirty-eight years as religion editor at Newsweek, makes this argument in his article "Double Lives: The Peril of Hypocrisy" in Commonweal, the lay-Catholic magazine (dated November 9, 2018):

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/print/40277

Also see my OEN article "Is Kenneth L. Woodward Advancing a Conspiracy Theory About the Priest-Sex-Abuse Scandal and Cover Up?":

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Is-Kenneth-L-Woodward-Adv-by-Thomas-Farrell-Catholic_Homosexuality_Hypocrisy_Newsweek-181020-246.html

In Woodward's commentary, he also discusses the revelations about Theodore E. McCarrick, the former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., who was credibly accused of molesting underage boys years ago. As of February 16, 2019, Pope Francis has officially "defrocked" McCarrick that is, the pope has formally stripped McCarrick of his priestly identity and revoked church-sponsored resources like housing and financial benefits. But the pope's "defrocking" of McCarrick may not impress conservative American Catholics.

See the news story by Elizabeth Diaz and Jason Horowitz in the New York Times (dated February 16, 2019):

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/us/mccarrick-defrocked-vatican.html?emc=edit_na_20190216&nl=breaking-news&nlid=59613384ing-news@ref=cta

Now, to appear to be doing something, rather than nothing, Pope Francis called an unprecedented summit meeting from February 21-24, 2019, in Rome of the heads of each country's conference of bishops (e.g., the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) to consider the priest-sex-abuse scandal and cover-up. To be sure, doing nothing further is not a viable option for the pope. (At the present time, Daniel N. DiNardo, cardinal and archbishop of Galveston-Houston, is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

In anticipation of the pope's unprecedented summit meeting in Rome, Elizabeth Diaz published a lengthy feature story about gay Catholic priests in New York Times (dated February 17, 2019):

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/it-is-not-a-closet-it-is-a-cage-gay-catholic-priests-speak-out.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories@pgty...

However, on Thursday, January 21, 2019, the openly gay French journalist Frederic Martel's new book about the Vatican was released in eight languages and 20 countries. The English translation released in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada is titled In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, translated by Shaun Whiteside (Bloomsbury Continuum). At the time of the 550-page book's release, 300 additional pages of notes were released online. Frederic Martel worked on this book for four years and interviewed more than 1,500 people in 30 countries, including 41 cardinals, 52 bishops, and 45 apostolic nuncios. This is remarkable access.

Frederic Martel (born in 1967) is also author of the 450-page book The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968, translated from the French by Jane Marie Todd (Stanford University Press, 1999; orig. French ed., 1996) and of the 250-page book Global Gay: How Gay Culture is Changing the World, translated from the French by Patsy Baudoin (MIT Press, 2018; orig. French ed., 2013).

Of the more than 40,000 libraries that participate in the database known as WorldCat, 345 libraries hold copies of Frederic Martel's book The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968, and 200 libraries hold copies of Martel's book Global Gay: How Gay Culture is Changing the World. Consequently, it strikes me as fair to assume that most American Catholic academics have probably not heard of Frederic Martel or of his two books.

Now, the openly gay columnist for the New York Times Frank Bruni, who previously covered the Vatican for the Times for nearly two years, obtained a copy of Frederic Martel's book in advance of its release on February 21, 2019, and wrote about it in a column titled "The Vatican's Gay Overlords" in the Times (dated February 18, 2019).

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/opinion/vatican-gay-priests.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

However, even Frank Bruni does not claim to have heard of Frederic Martel's previous two books. But according to Frank Bruni, Frederic Martel told him that he does not come from a Roman Catholic background (as Frank Bruni does). Nevertheless, Frederic Martel stands in the long-established tradition of French anti-clericalism.

But Frank Bruni is understandably "worried about homophobes weaponizing the book." In light of Kenneth L. Woodward's conspiracy theory about alleged gay networks advanced, without much evidence, his article in Commonweal dated November 9, 2018, I would say that he could use certain material in Frederic Martel's book to possibly support his claim in general.

In any event, the lay-Catholic newspaper the National Catholic Reporter published an excerpt from Martel's book on its website (dated February 18, 2019):

https://www.ncronline.org/print/news/accountability/excerpt-closet-vatican

Even in this excerpt, Frederic Martel's tone is open to criticism from people who would prefer to see him maintain a consistent tone of seriousness. However, it may be impossible for a non-Catholic gay man to maintain a consistent tone of seriousness in writing about the artful chicanery in the Vatican. Remember, too, that Frederic Martel is writing for the court of public opinion in the twenty countries in which his new book is being published. A consistent tone of seriousness might not be the most effective tone for him to use in the court of public opinion.

Now, in his new book Frederic Martel uses two interpretive "rules" (his term): (1) clerics in the Vatican who are publicly homophobic are, in fact, themselves secretly homosexual, and (2) clerics in the Vatican who are seen publicly as "pro-gay" are likely heterosexual and in the Vatican, according to Frederic Martel, heterosexuality is the exception, not the rule.

Of course, Frederic Martel's rule for interpreting Vatican clerics who are publicly homophobic may be correct those clerics may be themselves secretly homosexual.

But is this way of interpreting those Vatican clerics also a useful interpretive strategy for interpreting conservative Americans who tend to express homophobic views?

Consider, for example, the conservative American Catholics I mentioned above. Consider how fierce the anti-abortion zealotry of certain conservative American Catholics is to legalized abortion in the first trimester. Surely their fierceness cannot plausibly be attributed to any secret homosexuality. But what can we attribute the fierceness of their anti-abortion zealotry against legalized abortion in the first trimester to? For the sake of discussion, let's attribute it to their religious conviction that the church's teaching about abortion is correct and worth defending.

But if we allow this role in the case of the church's teaching about abortion, shouldn't we allow a similar consideration regarding religious conviction about the church's teaching about homosexuality supposedly being "intrinsically disordered"? However, if we do allow such a consideration, then we should take Frederic Martel's first interpretive strategy regarding Vatican clerics with a grain of salt and not just with respect to his first interpretive strategy, but of much of what he says.

As to Frank Bruni's concern about how "militant right-wing Catholics" might use material in Frederic Martel's book as "a stockpile of ammunition" "to conduct a witch hunt for gay priests," I would say that Frank Bruni's concern is well founded conservative American Catholics tend to feel that their religious convictions are under siege, and they could use Frederic Martel's book that way. But is that the only way it could be used?

Now, I would invite you to engage in a thought experiment about the church's teaching that homosexuality is "intrinsically disordered." To blunt the force of this claim, church officials have reminded practicing Catholics that they are morally obliged to love homosexuals instead of engaging in homophobic name-calling or worse behavior. But why don't the Catholic bishops officially expunge the claim that homosexuality is "intrinsically disordered" from the record and thereby declare that it is no longer the church's teaching? Because the Catholic bishops tend to venerate the church's official teachings.

However, if the Catholic bishops were to officially expunge this teaching about homosexuality being "intrinsically disordered," then the entire house of cards that make up the church's central teachings about sexual morality would thereby be in danger of collapsing.

But the Catholic bishops are not yet ready to have the church's central teachings about sexual morality collapse and neither are conservative American Catholics.

Consequently, the Catholic bishops and practicing Catholics in the twenty countries in which Frederic Martel's book is being published will now have to confront the hypocrisy of the double lives of certain clerics in the Vatican.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview