The September issue of Playboy features an article by an ex-Jesuit priest, Charles J. O’Byrne, on his tortured experience with the Catholic Church. Catholic League president William Donohue couldn’t resist commenting:
“When a Catholic priest hates the Catholic Church, it is best that he become a busboy or a bartender. Or at least he ought to bum around for a while until he sobers up. Sadly, this is not the case with Charles J. O’Byrne. While the Church is better off without him, it is painfully obvious that this Bobblehead of an ex-priest hasn’t moved on: he’s still whining about the bad old days.
“There’s nothing worse than an embittered Irish Catholic who is at war with the Church. O’Byrne is only the latest to join this losers’ club. He hates the Church’s teachings on celibacy, contraception, fornication, homosexuality, etc. and he fancies that Jesus, Joseph and Mary had sex; regarding this last point, he offers what he no doubt considers to be a particularly profound remark, commenting, ‘Jesus liked women and they liked him.’ He blames Saint Augustine and Irish Catholicism for promoting sexual repression and he despises natural law as another force for sexual repression. If the next pope doesn’t get with it, Bobblehead says, the U.S. church will break with Rome. Or so he wishes.
“An illustration accompanying the article shows a man kneeling under the robes of a priest with his face at the priest’s genitals. This provides more evidence that the piece is not a contribution to critical analysis, but to hate speech. It also underscores why the author is so hot and bothered about the Catholic Church—it doesn’t take its cues on matters sexual from the Playboy Philosophy.
“Finally, Playboy is a rather curious choice of publications for an article like this. Moreover, the author has never published before and has no institutional affiliation. But what Playboy and Bobblehead have in common is a vested interest in maligning the Catholic Church. This is surely not a marriage made in heaven.”
