Una Mullally: The real scandal at Maynooth is church’s hypocrisy
Hierarchy needs to ask itself why a gay man would enter the priesthood, when the organisation preaches against homosexuality
Maynooth is the Front Lounge to Rome’s Fire Island. The Vatican is the gay clergy capital of the world, with a conveyor belt of gay soap opera storylines emerging from the Holy See – and those are just the ones we hear about. File photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons
The dogs on the street of Maynooth and everywhere else know that gay priests exist in large numbers. The gay priest is so common, he is a cliche. This week, Catholicism’s most open secret was given another public airing when Archbishop Diarmuid Martin stirred things up by confirming that the archdiocese of Dublin will move three trainee priests to Rome, so that they will avoid St Patrick’s Maynooth seminary, where gay priests have allegedly been using the sex and dating app Grindr.
One would imagine many clergy members are furious at Archbishop Martin for drawing attention to Maynooth, and the sexuality and sex lives of gay priests. The church operates behind closed doors, resents answering to anyone but its own hierarchy, and has massive self-interest in maintaining a pious position in society. Why did Archbishop Martin draw attention to Maynooth now? Maybe he wanted Maynooth to get their act together. Maybe he wanted to get ahead of the second aspect of this news story, which is the much more serious aspect of sexual harassment.