Madam, - I find it extraordinary that the Catholic Church should see fit to castigate homosexual people for their apparent sexual immorality yet leave out of the debate large numbers of heterosexual Catholic clergy engaged in illicit and often exploitative heterosexual involvements.
I hear, almost weekly, from women where Catholic clergy have manipulated them into having sex and then "dumping them" as if they were merely "playthings".
Some of the situations are clearly sexual assault, others amount to professional sexual misconduct/sexual abuse because they nearly all started when the woman went to the priest for help.
Therefore it occurred in a professional setting.
The Ferns inquiry mentions those victims sexually abused by clergy even though they had passed the magical age of 18 years.
This is still clergy sexual abuse (not homosexuality!). Often these clergy have a history of sexual "use" of women and men but they are moved to another parish (as child abusers were) to just continue their sexually abusive behaviour.
Attention now needs to go towards addressing the large number of often vulnerable women sexually abused and exploited as adults.
The same applies to the sexual abuse/exploitation of vulnerable young men.
These are not valid "relationships" but abusive ones usually based on the power of the collar. Age is not the issue but vulnerability and the lack of ability to truly consent. - Yours, etc,
MARGARET KENNEDY,
MACSAS (Minister & Clerical Sexual Abuse Survivors),
London E8.