Seeing past your cultural worldview

[Travis B.]

Conversely, most Episcopalian congregations allow clergy to be openly gay, so it's an attractive option to both repressed gays and those who don't wish to hide their sexuality.

I would imagine that people who want to become clergy but who are flexible w.r.t. Catholicism versus Anglicanism/Episcopalianism would be attracted to Anglicanism/Episcopalianism these days regardless of whether they are gay or straight due to it permitting clerical marriage, being open to women, and (largely) being open to gays*.

* Note that this applies much more to the Episcopalians, because of the existence of many conservative Anglican churches in parts of the former British Empire.

[LingEarth]

Well it's been a while, but I wanted to thank everyone who recommended books in this thread.

I also wanted to share a resource that I've come across. Tales of Times Forgotten is a blog by a history student, who often touches on how people in ancient cultures viewed the world.
A couple of specific examples: As part of a recent post about ancient floor mosaics, she discusses how ancient people viewed art and artists (i.e. primarily as a form of manual labor that served a purpose, rather than a form of individual expression.) And in another post, she discusses several of the ideas ancient people had that don't fit neatly into either modern conservative or liberal ideologies, such as the way they viewed sexuality, or how their view of their gods differs greatly from how modern Christians think about god.

[Raphael]

A couple of specific examples: As part of a recent post about ancient floor mosaics, she discusses how ancient people viewed art and artists (i.e. primarily as a form of manual labor that served a purpose, rather than a form of individual expression.)

I kind of have the impression that in that regard, it's us "Moderns" who are the weird ones.

[bradrn]

how their view of their gods differs greatly from how modern Christians think about god.

Further on this point, Bret Deveraux has an excellent series explaining how Roman religion originated and operated: https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collectio ... knowledge/

[Glenn]

Well it's been a while, but I wanted to thank everyone who recommended books in this thread.

I also wanted to share a resource that I've come across. Tales of Times Forgotten is a blog by a history student, who often touches on how people in ancient cultures viewed the world.
A couple of specific examples: As part of a recent post about ancient floor mosaics, she discusses how ancient people viewed art and artists (i.e. primarily as a form of manual labor that served a purpose, rather than a form of individual expression.) And in another post, she discusses several of the ideas ancient people had that don't fit neatly into either modern conservative or liberal ideologies, such as the way they viewed sexuality, or how their view of their gods differs greatly from how modern Christians think about god.

Thank you for this! I will definitely check out her blog, as well take a look at the recommendations earlier in the thread. (I am a regular reader of Bret Deveraux's blog already.)

[jcb]

I think an even more important factor, however, may be the ongoing loss of prestige. My late husband was ordained in the 70s and he still experienced the reverence with which priests used to be treated in public. He told me it could be embarrassing at times, such as when an elderly man would insisted on offering his seat on a crowded bus. All that changed when the sexual abuse scandals began to break. He noticed fewer and fewer priests wearing cassocks in public. (As a child, I don't remember ever seeing a priest not wear one.) He often found people reacting suspiciously to him when he revealed that he used to be a priest, sometimes even after he'd explained that he was laïcised in good standing (i.e. he left of his own accord, not because he was asked to or expelled).

When would you (or your late partner) say that the scandals peaked?, and that the suspicion started to appear? When I was a child/teenager in the church, I wasn't aware about the sexual abuse scandals until the Boston Globe report in 2002.

[Raphael]

When I was a child/teenager in the church, I wasn't aware about the sexual abuse scandals until the Boston Globe report in 2002.

Weren't jokes, or, if you prefer, "jokes" about that stuff already fairly common before 2002?

[jcb]

When I was a child/teenager in the church, I wasn't aware about the sexual abuse scandals until the Boston Globe report in 2002.

Weren't jokes, or, if you prefer, "jokes" about that stuff already fairly common before 2002?

In 2002, I was 13, so I wouldn't know, because I was too young to notice or understand such things.

[Linguoboy]

All that changed when the sexual abuse scandals began to break.

When would you (or your late partner) say that the scandals peaked?, and that the suspicion started to appear? When I was a child/teenager in the church, I wasn't aware about the sexual abuse scandals until the Boston Globe report in 2002.

The Wikipedia article on the subject dates the dawning of modern awareness of the extent of the problem to a National Catholic Reporter article published in June of 1985. Now that's a fairly obscure source, not well known even within Catholic circles, and I don't recall hearing of it at the time. I had just finished my first year at an all-boys private Catholic highschool operated by the Marianist order. We were very aware of the stigma of going to an all-boys school (which manifested itself as some of the virulent homophobia I've ever experienced) and we suspected some of the priests and brothers of being gay, but I don't think it was common knowledge that some of the clergy were molesting some of the students. I do remember some crude jokes and, in my second year, one of my classmates (who later dropped out and came out as bi) made a crack about luring the assistant principal to an empty office and I wasn't sure how seriously to take it.

A couple years later, however, a friend a year ahead of me came out as gay and told me that the same brother, now the school principal, had in fact molested one of his classmates. Some time after that, I was talking with him after school and a friend of ours came in to tell us that the principal had just made a pass at him. He didn't bother to report it though. Shortly after I graduated in 1988, I learned that the principal had left the school to go to culinary school in Texas. This was, of course, presented as a personal decision. (It was a while before I--and other Catholics--began to recognise the pattern of "reassignments" for what they were.) I talked about my second-hand experiences with other gay guys in college, and some reacted with surprise. I remember one in particular, who also went to a Catholic school, begging me not to talk about the subject.

However, reports continued to come out in the 90s and got some coverage in the mainstream press. In 1998, there was a major scandal in the Dallas archdiocese which was reported in the New York Times and elsewhere. This is around the time I met my future husband and him explaining that he had to tell people he was laicised in good standing and not defrocked following a scandal, so I would say definitely by the late 90s there was general awareness of the issue in the USA though it wasn't universal and the scope probably wasn't apparent to most people until the prosecutions in Boston (which made clear the extent to which bishops, cardinals, and other senior prelates were involved in concealing the abuse).