[Connor_Creegan]

Well for starters, while obviously both are sinful, for a priest to break his vow of celibacy with a woman would require fewer conceptually-separate sinful actions than for a priest to break his vow of celibacy with a man. The former would at least require betraying an oath to God, fornication, and scandal, while the latter would require the addition of sodomy. Therefore, the latter is a graver moral evil.

(Additional note: while Dante Alighieri is not an approved moral theologian, many Catholics see his breakdown of Hell in the Inferno to be quite valuable; Dante places sodomites in the seventh circle with usurers and blasphemers, while those simply guilty of lust are placed in the second circle).

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EDIT: For more info on this particular aspect of Dante's breakdown of Hell, I made a video on this topic, if you are interested:

https://odysee.com/@ConnorCreegan:a/violenceaswenolongerknow...

]

But as far as the investigation, many of us (again, I am representing a certain demographic within the Church, not an aggregate of every card-carrying Catholic) see the problem of homosexual clergy as far more interrelated with other present scandals, such as the sexual abuse crisis, widespread poor catechizing of the youth, general moral flimsiness, and the desire to displace the Tridentine form of the Mass. It's sort of a guilt-by-association thing, sure, but most investigative work in general works on heuristics. Of course, there isn't a necessary link between so-called "homosexual" inclination and behavior on the one hand and pederasty on the other. But there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) This association is actually ancient - it isn't merely some prejudice from puritanical 1950s America. You find it in Plato and Aristotle, despite the overgeneralizations people make about Ancient Greece (much of which is based on very little evidence).

2) It doesn't follow that just because homosexuality is not a consistent predictor of pederasty in the broader population that this lack of pattern is maintained among homosexual clergy.

I would add that most people I speak to in the Church are consistently disfavorable toward priests that have children out of wedlock. But it doesn't really seem to be as major of an issue at present.

[htag]

In the general population homosexuality is a poor predictor of pederasty. It is possible that this is not true of population of Catholic clergy, but it is presumptuous to make this association with a lack of other evidence. The conclusion I am drawing from this conversation is that the investigation has very little to do with preventing/stopping sexual abuse by members of the clergy, or with identifying priests that break their vow of celibacy in general. This is about disposing of theological rivals in positions of authority inside church.