A proportion of such clergy are born uranians. Strange dramas are played in their clerical surroundings. In religious schools for the laity, under ecclesiastical care pederasty is a common weakness of the cassocked tutors. Of this, another chapter of the present study speaks.
It is of interest to notice that, nolens, an attitude of philosophical and scientific toleration of similisexuality is to be observed in the Roman clergy to-day; quite another matter, of course, than mere complaisance toward vice. A priest, whose confidential opinion of the prevalence of uranian instincts in superior moral natures was asked some years ago, by means of a species of circular-letter addressed to the Catholic pastorate, issued by the Natur Wissenchaft Komittee, in Berlin, wrote: "The best and most learned and most pious men have frequently the homosexual instinct. I am convinced that just because -of this fact, many men enter into a monastic life, fleeing solely from the homosexual desires, ignorant of inclinations to the other sex. I am also convinced that the homosexual man has a far harder battle with himself than has the heterosexual. I have even advised penitents to go away' to oriental countries to live, where such unfortunate natures are not punished by laws as criminals. Particularly do I recall the suicide of one popular man, on account of being blackmailed by a studio-assistant, with whom he had been culpable".
Another Catholic pastor stated that his experience in his profession, and his opinions, had convinced him that if female prostitution is to be tolerated, then there should be no penalty for male sexual intercourse; and that having known many such individuals he believed that the general excellence or unworth of a character has no connection with the homosexual impulse. He wrote,—"I have known two individuals, formerly young parishioners of mine, who are each homosexual, but always patterns
— 268 —
