A notoriously anti-gay priest in Paris will face trial within the Catholic Church over his self-professed attempts to “cure” homosexuality. His method: have sex with men.
Msgr. Tony Anatrella has a long history of campaigning against LGBTQ rights initiatives inside and outside the church. In 2005, he authored an article supporting a ban on LGBTQ people from serving in the priesthood. The following year, he claimed gay men raise “violent” children, and further supported a ban on same-sex marriage equality. He further described homosexuality as a “confusion of sex and feelings leads to a confusion of the realities and an impasse.”
Anatrella’s stance on homosexuality boggles the mind considering his decades-long history of sexual assault of other men. The National Catholic Reporter reports that allegations against Anatrella have circulated for more than 20 years. In 2006, a former seminarian named Daniel Lamarca claimed Anatrella sexually assaulted him during therapy sessions in the 1980s. Lamaraca, a gay man, had sought counsel from Anatrella over his own feelings of homosexuality. He claims Anatrella’s therapeutic approach was to insist the two have sex.
“I know details about Anatrella’s body that could only be known to someone who has seen him naked,” the man told reporters in 2006, adding that he tried to report the abuse in 2001 to church authorities but received no response.
More accusations against Anatrella surfaced in 2008, and again in 2016, leading to a reprimand by the church which banned him from practicing therapy, performing mass or preaching in public. Then, in 2019, a grandfather who attended a school where Anatrella served as a chaplain, accused the priest of rape. The victim claims that Anatrella forced him to have sex; at the time, he was just 14-years-old.
In an even more unusual move, at least one priest claims he has warned church leadership for years about Anatrella’s predatory behavior to no avail. Fr. Philippe Lefebvre has authored rebuttals and polemics against Anatrella’s teachings about homosexuality. He also claims Anatrella’s victims approached him personally for help.
“I told seven French bishops and the president of the Conference of French Bishops,” Lefebvre said. “I did not get any reply. Nothing happened. What happened is that, when my name came up in the press, I was told to be careful and not to criticize Tony Anatrella because he was somebody important in the Vatican.”
At the time of this writing, it remains unclear what when Anatrella’s church trial will begin and what charges he will face. Catholic trials carry strict secrecy requirements, and the details of them seldom are made public. As a psychotherapist, Anatrella, now 80, has authored more than a dozen books, mostly about the evils of homosexuality.
Vince
Yet these are the freaks that people run to for moral and sex advice. Lol Of course only in the religious world. How many more examples do people need to make the connection between the homophobes being gay themselves?
I’d say at least half the catholic church is either gay or pedophile. I can’t imagine a man choosing a profession that demands life long celibacy. They’re running from something.
whereshouldistart
I grew up in the cult of catholicism.
MANY of them did not CHOOSE to be priests.
A lot of catholic families were convinced that having a priest or a nun in the family afforded them a golden ticket to heaven, so they CHOSE one of their children to become one or the other. (I knew several families who had BOTH! I guess they didn’t want to take any chances..eh?)
Kangol2
Actuallly, “Anatrella’s stance on homosexuality boggles the mind considering his decades-long history of sexual assault of other men” only if you are unaware of psychological studies showing a correlation between certain men’s strong homophobia and repressed same sexual desire.
Psychological research has shown that among men claiming to be heterosexual, there is a correlation between high levels of homophobic attitudes and sexual arousal by same-sex (male) imagery, or visual focus on male genitalia, buttocks, etc. Men who expressed lower or few homophobic attitudes were not sexually aroused by same-sex (male) imagery and did not focus on men’s genitalia, etc.. You can Google these (Journ. of Abn. Psychology: “Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?”; Journal of Sexual Medicine, “Homophobia: An Impulsive Attraction to the Same Sex? Evidence From Eye-Tracking Data in a Picture-Viewing Task,” etc.).
That said, this Fr. Anatrella is the perfect, toxic embodiment of a horrendously repressed, self-loathing person who cannot get enough of abusing and harassing other men, yet uses religion to attack other gay people. There are so many like him and they do incalculable damage. In additional to prison time and civil penalties, he needs intensive psychological help.
Vince
Just make him pay for it. He needed psychological help many years ago but he’s 80 now. You’re not going to change him in any way. Get his victims the psychological help they need if anything.
Some times I wonder what role religion plays though. Like they all seem to run to it like flies to shit so it’s hard to separate out the mental illness away from religion itself as the cause. Ex gays are another perfect example.
chrisbissexwilliams
An excellent summing up.
TomG
That’s true. The biggest homophobes are the ones repressing their own innate desires and sexuality.
whereshouldistart
I always say…
IT’S THE SQUEAKY WHEEL THAT CRAVES THE K-Y!
jockjack5
Professor Kangol2… obviously ascribes to the belief of never saying in 19 words what you can say in 199 words.
Whew! What a wind-bag!!
Whatever point he was trying to make was lost in the torrent of words he unleashed (almost all of which were superfluous).
Glad he doesn’t have tenure.
dirtypierre
They must have been ultra horny to engage this troll. Even in my worst need would I turn down any intimacy with this degenerate.
Leash
Hmm maybe that was his approach all along: Having them reconsider their sexuality by making them play with his saggy old balls. What a genius! I wonder how many people has has “cured”.
Cam
So business as usual in the Catholic Church.
Leo
“Anatrella, now 80, has authored more than a dozen books, mostly about the evils of homosexuality.” Burn the books.
GayEGO
Wow! Now he has an excuse for having sex with men – I am trying to cure their homosexuality! Such a shock!
humble charlie
When will people overwhelmingly agree that the Roman Catholic Church is a criminal organization and kick this creepy church out of their countries?
winemaker
As a practicing Catholic and gay man, this some how doesn’t surprise me in the least. The vows of celibacy the priests take is long outdated and causes things like this. Other Christian denominations as well as Judaism allow their clergy to get married so why is the Catholic Church still forbidding their clergy to remain celibate?
JJinAus
You can be a practicing Catholic or a gay man. Pick one.
Heywood Jablowme
Are you saying that if only he’d been allowed to marry a WOMAN, he’d be fine?
jockjack5
As a life-long Presbyterian, I’m not going to be an apologist for the misdeeds of the Catholic clergy, but will simply say that sexual abuse happens in ALL faiths, even in the Boy Scouts.
This friar’s criminal acts are really rather pathetic.
Hopefully he’ll soon get to practice his “cure” in the penitentiary, where he will probably be a bottom whether that’s his choice or not.
blackhook
Christianity is the biggest fraud in history — and the Catholic Criminal Empire takes the cake! Hocus pocus dominocus indeed!
BaltoSteve
I would not say Christianity itself is the biggest fraud in history. The tenants of Christianity are nothing but love and respect. The Christian Church and it’s multitude of denominations and how they use Christianity for their own purposes, now that’s a different story.
Vince
Really Steve. The bible is practically a how to Manuel on dealing with slaves. A death penalty for anything from a wife not being a virgin on her wedding night to unruly kids. Then there the genocide of God wiping out Egyptian children and of course the flood wiping out pretty much everyone because God felt ignored. So much for love and respect.
BaltoSteve
Yes Vince. Christianity is supposed to be the teachings of Christ. You know the NEW Testament. According to those teachings, when he died on the cross the old covenant (the teachings of the old testament, the slavery, the stonings, the not eating shrimp, the entire book of Leviticus, all of that) became null and void. Christians are supposed to follow the New Testament, not the Old. The Christian churches and various denominations still cling to the old testament because it is easier to control people using fear and mistrust than Love.
Fahd
He’s facing trial now? Seems like there needs to be some reform in the investigative mechanisms in the Roman Catholic Church – it always seems to take until these sexual predators are in their seventies or eighties before the church announces that they might be possibly be taking some action against them in the future maybe. Meanwhile, how many lives damaged/ruined? They are only fooling the people who want to be fooled.
Gadfeal
It’s about time that no particular accommodation be made to “religious” organizations over any other. Major “organized” religions are basically those cults created over a millennium ago that have succeeded in establishing human organizations that are allowed to brainwash malleable children into a fictional, pre Age of Reason belief system. Their “preachings” are unfounded positions swallowed by a largely illiterate, uneducated population; majority literacy ONLY came about after 1920.
My position is that any organized religion with assets, employees and operating procedures is like an other Man-made social structure; they should be subject to both the fiscal and legal obligations as would any other entity.
While the lastest “revelation” (and you can be sure that it had been known by those in charge) that hundreds, if not thousands of Native Canadian children were murdered and buried. How on earth can one “cover up” mass graves of hundreds of cadavers IN THE GROUNDS of religious schools?
As horrible as that was, it pales in comparison to the “religion-motivated” conversion of Native Mesoamericans that justified the inhumane treatment and decimation of most Mesoamericans in the 16th Century. Supposedly to bring the “heathen” Indigenous to the Truth of the Catholic faith, Spanish colonialism justified the system of forced serfdom, the encomiendas, as the Spanish colonists who lorded over lands and their inhabitants had as “principal mission”, the conversion of Native Americans.
Is there any commonly taught History curriculum that it is believed that there were perhaps more than 120 million Mesoamericans at the time of Columbus’ arrival – a figure that may have exceeded the total European population; yet, a century later, it had reduced to about 25 million. By a combination of mortality from what the Europeans brought to the Americas (viruses, subjugation under the guise of religous motivation, inhumane treatment, and violence), some 90 million Native Mesoamericans disappeared in only 100 years.
In comparison, the population of England in 1345 was estimated to be some 4 million; by 1443, the Plague had reduced that to 2 million, causing the Plantagenets to be ejected from Continental claims – more than “Joan of Arc”. In the same period, France’s population (the largest at that time) went from 25 million to 17 million. So, a 30-50% mortality from the Plague in Europe over 100 years was considered “devastation”. In contrast, does any History curriculum decry that there was 80% mortality in Mesoamerica in 100 years, probably mostly due to influenza, small pox and other European-introduced infections, but an indeterminate portion due to inhuman acts of deprivation and violence?
It’s time to remove all unjustified privileges, tax advantages, and shielding from secular laws of ALL organized religions. They are anti-democratic, and, Historically, the cover presented to the masses to justify umpteen genocidal events.
ManCanBemuse
Check out the new book of Science Fiction entitled “The Ecstasy of Carbon,” by Charles T. Laffoday, which describes a world after Empire and much of Western Civilization collapse in a cacophony of Identity Politics, polarization and fractious subdivisions. This collapse is recounted in vivid technicolor as the description of a new world and a new race, The Mance, the merging of man with experience, ensues from an unapologetically Gay Elitist perspective. It is a book that builds upon its precursor, “Fixed Stars Rise,” which was one of the first books to predict the collapse of Empire and the rise of Gay Elitism with its awareness of the unique evolutionary characteristics of the gay male form. It is in this post-collapse world where the survival of humanity becomes ultimately contingent upon hybridization with increasingly cultivated and discriminating AI who have been created in the image of their creators, many of whom are gay, while the overwhelming majority of whom belong to the demographics of the founding sex and race of Empire: white men. These creators are largely men who believe in merit, goodwill and inclusiveness; yet, they must struggle with a demographics of fate and unprecedented existential pressures to decide who shall be worthy of survival and, indeed, eternity. It is in this post-collapse world where the consensus of these creators and their AI is that the only form ultimately considered evolutionarily viable for hybridization and, indeed, eternity, is that of the sophisticated gay male—similar to the ones present in the creation and design aspect of the AI— as it is the form most intellectually, psychologically, emotionally and physically removed from the soon to be useless rituals and trappings of procreation with its increasingly discordant conflict of unshared needs.
jockjack5
Whew!
Sounds like you’ve been reading “The Ecstasy of Meth”
Besides being totally off-topic, your rant rambled on and on without benefit of one single paragraph break.
Better luck next time.
Heywood Jablowme
Charles T. Laffoday? I bet he’s good for more than one “laff” a day!
MollyIsGay
“Evils of homosexuality”? Does he mean that we make straight people jealous? Other than that…I’m drawing a blank.