A post and a news item I saw today reminded me of my previous post in which I asked why it is that some people consider open discussion of homosexuality to be worse than homosexuality itself. Why haven't I heard that or similar arguments expressed in the context of the priest scandal facing the Catholic Church? Shouldn't all discussion of homosexuality be silenced?

The number of priests accused of molesting young males continues to grow:

Over 4,450 Catholic priests can be documented to have been accused of committing sexual assault on minors over the past 52 years, according to a report commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. To put this number in perspective - there are only 44,000 priests currently serving in the United States; and even though the report entirely discards incidents involving a further 3,300 priests who had died, and only deals with incidents in which a victim of abuse has come forward, the number still represents over 4 percent of all priests who served in that period.

(Dan Rather is talking about the report right now on the CBS Evening News.)

This may sound counterintuitive, but I have grown a little tired of hearing that the "gay movement" is somehow to blame for the hemmorhaging of reported cases. While it may seem self-apparent to some, it can be argued equally plausibly that the reason so many cases have been reported in recent years is precisely because "the love that dare not speak its name" now can.

When he was a child in the early 1960s, a very effeminate friend was raped and beaten by bullies, and he managed to find his way to the nearest police station, where, in his bloody and beaten state, the police laughed at him, and called his mortified father, who ran down to the police station and proceeded to beat his son again in front of the still-laughing officers.

Tough love? Acceptable parental behavior? Not by today's standards.

What was once unmentionable, if not unthinkable, is now something that can be reported -- to your mom, to your dad, to the cops.

So, for the sake of this argument, if the vast majority of priest sexual assault allegations involve older male teens (and are thus homosexual in nature as opposed to strictly pedophilia), isn't it fair to at least ask whether or not the recent increase in reporting is a result of the ability of people to talk about it? I mean, hell, if there's a national debate about gay marriage, it's downright laughable to expect anyone to remain silent about a priest's behavior!

I have long seen the scandal as resulting more from abuse of privilege than anything else. If I decided to run around and prey on teenagers at the nearest high school, I would not expect to get away with it for long.

Priests, on the other hand, have been able to hide for years behind their status and power, and they no longer can.

The whole issue is literally out of the closet -- and I think the kneejerk attempt to blame the gay movement fails to address what may be a reason why more and more people are daring to speak up.

Articles like this carry on at great length about homosexuality being the problem, but I have not seen one acknowledge that were it not for the relatively new freedom to discuss homosexuality openly, there would never have been such a debate.

(But for the death of the closet, perhaps?)

Back in 1962 -- long before the "gay movement" -- the Catholic Church had an official policy of silence and denial.

That silence is obviously dead. At least, it's no longer working.

Is it too much to ask what killed it? I admit that I have no statistics to back my suspicions. But I do have my common sense. And I know that this behavior by priests is not new. The reporting and the public attention are.

On the other hand, might there be an emerging new "closet" based on political correctness? (Along the lines of "the less said the better"?)

I hope not!

UPDATE: As Glenn Reynolds further notes, this post takes issue with the numbers given in the above study, and notes that accusations do not represent confirmed incidents. Even if the numbers are overstated, my point remains the same. Sexual abuse by priests is nothing new, but the ability to talk about it freely is a modern phenomenon.