Father John Harvey, who founded the organization Courage to “support” gay Catholics and “help” manage their same-sex attraction (usually with chastity), and who believed high school and college students hooked up with the same sex because it was “cool,” died Dec. 27 at a hospital in Maryland. He was 92. The author of The Truth about Homosexuality, Harvey believed gay teens could grow out of their homosexuality, but only through the help of “reliable Catholic doctors.”
see ya
Father John Harvey, Who Devoted His Life To Turning Gay Catholic Teens Straight, Died
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ron
Good riddance!
Devon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z_zqOu5WB4
gregger
bye, say hi to Satan for us……
Spike
His writing a book titled ‘The Truth About Homosexuality’ has as much credibility as if I were to write a book titled, ‘What It’s Like To Have a Vagina.’
Give me an effing break.
redball
Goodbye, you dirty bigoted b!tch.
the crustybastard
So homosexuality is properly “cured” with Catholic doctors?
I see.
So then, the old priest-endorsed “cure” of burning gay folks alive wasn’t the proper way to address the issue?
And if Catholic priests could be so spectacularly wrong then, why couldn’t they be utterly wrong about it now?
I’m sure the answer involves “faith,” which is the superstitious folk’s way of shooing away logic and reason.
Jaroslaw
Crustybastard – we are all products of our time, you can’t judge him on that. Mostly. A few transcend their time, most don’t.
What I want to know is how the Catholic Church can admit homosexual desires are beyond your control, homosexuals are persons of worth and yet we are to be celibate forever. Makes no sense.
They also understand that many many passages in the Bible have been misinterpreted or only applied to the time in which they were written. All the verses except the ones about same sex.
That’s what we should be worrying about, not a 92 year old who probably did what he thought was right. Or at least I won’t bash him until I know for sure he was deliberately being evil.
divkid
R. I. P
MAY HE ROAST IN PEACE.
jak
Save a nice toasty spot for the old Nazi, he’ll be along soon enough.
divkid
sorry, couldn’t help the snark, what with having that intrinsically flawed homo nature and all!
———–
a charitable view might hold that we can see in his lifes’ work the faint stirrings of a more compassionate approach to the “problem” of homosexuality based on pity, and however misguided and misinformed that is, in terms of progress it is light years ahead of the outright condemnation of the “evil” homosexual which hitherto prevailed. or the lobotomising, and electrocuting of the “sick” homosexual perpetrated by the “rational” scientists of his generation.
maybe the kindest thing to say is he’s like an early road sign on the road to full acceptance by the church, pointing towards the future but at a weird angle.
or maybe he *was* a monster.
justiceontherocks
He goes to the grave secure in the knowledge that, although he may have passed on, his legacy will continue to do harm for many years to come.
mike
thank god he is gone
ewe
Burn in hell.
codyj
Reliable CATHOLIC DRS??,as in ‘reliable’ CATHOLIC PRIESTS??? lol, man oh man, the RCC is sooooo fkd up,but we all know this…anyhow, according to Lauren Bacall, Bogie told her many times, …’yah know, babe, for me, when its OVER….its OVER’ lol…
Mac McNeill
I think maybe all he did was drive more kids into the closet. I really don’t think he “cured” anyone. The only good a “Catholic Doctor” would have been is if they castrated the kids. And that is always a possiblity.
Anthony Johnstone
Good riddance! I wish I knew where he was buried so I can spit on that monsters’ grave!
Jaroslaw
Divkid – Probably the best way to see where he stood was to read his book. And I’m not being charitable, just reasonable. Let’s wonder more why someone 25 years old and probably Republican can’t understand science rather than rake a 92 year old guy over the coals. While it may be the fashionable thing at this moment to say unkind things, maybe in 92 more years, we’ll understand why people are so unyielding in sexual matters and we the minority will be “curing” them!
Or how come otherwise intelligent people (wise on every other issue except homosexuality & abortion) can’t understand they are simply being manipulated by a political party? Do they really think the upper echelon Rethugs care? How many of them changed their tune to be “pro life” just to get elected? When the wind changes so will they. And it is changing for Gay rights, too slowly, but it is changing.
TA
Thanks God HE is gone!!!
B
To put the guy’s views in perspective, he seems to have been
merely following the official position of the Roman Catholic
Church.
For a historical reference, http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfhomop.htm has a document written in 1986 describing the
official position (written by then Cardinal Ratzinger as a letter
to the church’s bishops). While QUEERTY readers won’t agree at all with what he said, the interesting thing about it is that, aside from some vague Biblical passages, the only thing he explicitly cited were (a) some generic statements from the Vatican Council II (motherhood and apple pie statements) and (b) a December 29, 1975 document called “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics”. You’d have expected citations going back much further if this was their number 1 hangup for hundreds of years.
It is not a surprise. If you ask someone who was there at the time, you’ll find that there was very little mention of homosexuality at all before the 1970s (at most a report that so-and-so was arrested for “lewd conduct” or what have you). It wasn’t until the gay-rights movement became visible that the religious people started their anti-gay rhetoric. Instead, the Catholic church seemed to be obsessed about teenage boys masturbating (I’ll refrain from the obvious wisecrack as to why this would be so important to them).
prohomo
Great comments everybody.
Bob
As Bette Davis once said “my mother always told me to speak good of the dead; he dead….good”
kevininbuffalo
Actually Bob that was a lesbian comedian named Moms Mabley, “He’s dead, that’s good.”
I belonged to the online group of Courage, back in my self loathing days. Mostly guilt ridden, middle aged married guys. Spent most of their time talking about “Eucharistic Adoration”, cookie worship for the uninitiated. Couldn’t even say Gay, had to say same sex attracted, masturbation was “M”. No one ever conquered “M”! Actually they all came across as a bunch of pious old Grannies.
I’m glad to be free of all that. And free of Church. My advice to anyone is to walk away from church and keep walking. You don’t need a church to have a relationship with God. In fact church gets in the way.
Jaroslaw
#22 I’m sincerely glad not going to church works for you, I confess I don’t have the self discipline, so going weekly helps me.
Jeffree
@Jaroslaw: (23): I don’t attend church, but several gay friends of mine have found local churches that are LGBT “affirming”—I think one is UCC and another is Unitarian, but I’m not sure of the other ones. One of those friends had been a for member of Courage &/ or Dignity for Catholics but he just couldn’t deal with being considered “morally disordered” and so he switched.
My parents are agnostics so I wasn’t raised in any faith, but I know plenty of people who have found ways to reconcile their sexuality with spirituality.
Jaroslaw
#24 Jeffree – I just mainly wrote to counter the notion that “going to Church hinders your relationship to God” – sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, it is a very individual thing.
I cannot remember that the Catholic church ever said “morally disordered” certainly NEVER on Sunday have I ever heard any references to homosexuality. And one of the Popes a long long time ago said homosexuals are persons of sacred worth. But we’re to abstain. That’s a contradiction in my book. I also believe in marriage so that hasn’t been a problem (mostly) for me but I don’t judge others. I’ve said many places I agree to a point with Michael what’s his name who wrote the book “The trouble with Normal” (as a response to Andrew Sullivan’s “Almost Normal” ) that we’re a very sex negative hyper moralistic self righteous society, which you can lay mostly at the feet of Judeo-Christianity but at the same time, I dont’ think you should have sex on the first date with every guy you meet. Sex is your most personal precious gift. On the other hand, there are occasions where being super horny makes philosophy go out the window no matter how “hard” you try……but to go back again, we mostly control our impulses to overeat, kill other people, talk back to our bosses, mow our lawn even though we don’t feel like it….So I go back to “I don’t judge others.” Just offer food for thought.
greenmusic23f
@Spike: Love it! Thanks!