Continuing with my free translation of gay theologian Monsignor Charamsa’s interview in Religion Digital.

Do spirituality and sensitivity attract gays to the altar? Are there more homosexuals in the Church than in other social institutions?

I am personally sure that is so. Often in the past, for a gay man to be a priest was a way to hide his homosexuality and make it socially. Today, probably it is only a functional reason in homophobic and backward societies. I imagine that in my country, Poland, it is still working well. I think today it is much more common that a gay man with his sensitivity and openness to the transcendent and the divine, wants to be a priest.

And in the Curia, are there many gays? Is there really the Vatican gay lobby that is often spoken about?

In this area also I can speak only of my experience. We have no studies on the presence of homosexuals in the clergy, because it is a taboo, a topic that should not be discussed. In the Curia there are many gays. Many of them are good priests, if they are not homophobic, if they do not think only of their career, if they do not care only money and power. The problem occurs when gays have internalized homophobia. In the Catholic clergy there are many homosexuals who, repressed by their own orientation, hate those who are gay like themselves.

The other issue is the gay lobby, which I have not come across. I read something about it in Italy, but I have not had any experience. It may be that there is this lobby, as there are Italian or Polish lobbies in the Vatican. The Vatican, the heart of the Church, is a blend of power struggles, politics and money. I also think that the Vatican is itself an Italian and international lobby imposing ideas that have  never been seriously studied.

Is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith particularly homophobic? And its top leader in the Congregation, Cardinal Müller?

Yes,the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the heart of a paranoid and irrational homophobia. In it there is no possibility of understanding and dialogue. It works by stereotypes.I had the impression that in the Congregation, faith in God was not promoted, we do not concern ourselves with Christology or Mariology, we only battle against gays and other sexual minorities. It is an obsession. This is our real faith: anti-gay paranoia. That’s all. It’s our favorite subject. There are meetings in which, of every three cases we discuss, two are against gays. We have invented an imaginary enemy and battle against it with all our strength. We call it “our war on gender”. There can be no discussions, we think that this gender can only promote sex changes. That is the level of paranoia which prevails in the Congregation..

Cardinal Müller has promoted all this ignorance, this extremism, this obsession among the top staff, without any reasoning. Instead of promoting studies, the Congregation is a political agency to sabotage the pontificate of Pope Francis and his synodal discussion. It is the agency that fights gender, which it doesn’t even know how to define. What is of importance is to use the word gender in ways that frighten people, no matter who has not read a single book on gender studies. Obsessive homophobia and misogyny (the real feminofobia, a hatred of women) are a drama for this congregation, whose members are not all heterosexual. As everywhere, there are homosexuals. The reality is that the Congregation hates gays, even though it is known that there are homosexuals among its members.

See also the full series:

• Charamsa: Celibacy, Gays,  Priesthood
• Charamsa’s Penalty, Clerical Pedophiles
• The Church, “Mercy”, LGBT Persecution
• Gays in the Curia, Gays and the CDF
• CDF Attempts to Undermine Francis’ Papacy
• Clerical Pedophilia, Sexual Immaturity
• Charamsa on His Future