Letter: Soviet-style `boot camp' for priests

Letter: Soviet-style `boot camp' for priests

Sir: The description of the Stroud reformatory for Catholic priests as a "boot camp" is a rare flash of unguarded honesty from the Catholic Media Office - and is all the more welcome for that ("Gay priest reveals secret of Catholic `boot camp' ", 27 August).

Stroud's existence as a centre for therapy, however, is nothing to be proud of. What other institution would dump together men with addictive problems, frequently precipitated by loneliness; paedophiles, always in a class of their own in any setting; men who have abusive relationships with women; men suffering mental illness because they are required to believe that a deep, loving relationship with a woman is incompatible with their priesthood; and men with homosexual relationships; to name just some categories? How can it possibly claim any integrity? It is symptomatic of an ideology that knows it can cling on only by duress and resembles more something from the era of the Soviet Union than from the lifetime and ministry of Christ.

Many of these men are the final victims of a hierarchical system that insists on a model of priesthood - male and celibate - which no longer has any credibility except in its own eyes. The image of God which the Stroud regime suggests is horrific. One reason why many men refuse to put themselves forward for the priesthood is because, however strong their calling to ordained ministry, they do not believe that God requires them to distort their humanity in the way that has created so many profoundly unhappy men whom the hierarchy then hides away.

Hiding its weaknesses, as it defines them, is a besetting sin of the institutional Catholic Church. As all the other Christian traditions tussle in the public eye with the issue of clergy who are actively gay, I wonder when the Catholic Church will admit that there is a flourishing gay culture among our own clergy - as any honest bishop would tell you.

Mrs JACKIE HAWKINS

Ruislip Manor, Middlesex