Reporters use Grindr location data to our catholic priest

[neverfstop]

I find the ethical/moral issues of reporting this interesting.  Was personally outing a single priest as gay/not celibate defensible in trying to shame (reform?) the Catholic church? 

www.washingtonpost.com/religion/catholic-priest-grindr-pillar/2021/07/24/b2772f02-ecb6-11eb-8950-d73b3e93ff7f_story.html 


Flynn and Condon initially said they were not interested in participating in an interview for this article, then agreed to consider questions by email, and later said they didn’t have sufficient time and declined. But in comments they’ve tweeted since Tuesday and a podcast they posted Friday, they explained a bit of their thinking.



“There’s nothing to recommend the indiscriminate naming and shaming of people for moral failures just because you can. That is unethical. And that is not something I believe we’ve done,” Condon said on the podcast.



“People are entitled to moral failures and repentance and reconciliation and to a legitimate good reputation. There’s a difference between that and serial and consistent, immoral behavior on the part of a public figure charged with addressing public morality, isn’t there?” Flynn said.

[NewOrleans]

I mean, it’s homophobic af. The degenerate Catholic Church is full of wickedness. Trying to add one man’s sex life to the scale to prove it is unnecessary.

[seeyalater52]

Uhhhhh no dude. Just no.

This is not an academic exercise. This is someone’s life. Do better.

[cville]

Wow. This is some homphobic bullshit.

An exposé is "we have info that a not insubstantial number of priests-- who will not be named individually--who tell you nearly everything sexual is sinful and attempt to regulate your every move in a way that is misogynistic, homophobic, and entirely out of touch with how most people live their lives are hypocrites regularly engage in sexual activity, obviously outside the bonds of Catholic marriage, in contravention of what they literally preach. Let's examine the structural impact of celibacy and Catholic teachings about sex, gender, and sexuality."

This is just a witch hunt and I bet one billion dollars that the authors have participated in a "life chain" and think Pope Francis is a heretic.

[seeyalater52]

Jul 26, 2021 9:41:22 GMT -5 cville said:

Wow. This is some homphobic bullshit.

An exposé is "we have info that a not insubstantial number of priests-- who will not be named individually--who tell you nearly everything sexual is sinful and attempt to regulate your every move in a way that is misogynistic, homophobic, and entirely out of touch with how most people live their lives are hypocrites regularly engage in sexual activity, obviously outside the bonds of Catholic marriage, in contravention of what they literally preach. Let's examine the structural impact of celibacy and Catholic teachings about sex, gender, and sexuality."

This is just a witch hunt and I bet one billion dollars that the authors have participated in a "life chain" and think Pope Francis is a heretic.

It also kills me because of all of the hypocritical shit that Church leadership does, this is the focus of choice? Absofuckinglutely not acceptable. 

[amberlyrose]

I hadn't dug into this before today but I did see Father James Martin post a few times about it last week. It seemed from a quick scan of comments in his posts, the Pillar authors were going after the bishop for his stance with Biden receiving communion. Sounds like it's completely opposite of that and they are even more conservative than the bishop.

The original Pillar article was homophobic AF. It also pisses me off that many liberal Catholics and non-Catholics praised the article and downfall of the bishop without acknowledging how hurtful and downright awful this "expose" was for the LGBT community.

In an article about it in American magazine, a Jesuit publication, the author also questions how they went about gathering this info and the motive to use Grindr data.

"Monsignor Burrill’s identity was correlated with pings from Grindr, an app primarily used by gay men, and his presumed failures at celibacy were substantiated by tracking his phone’s location to gay bars and a gay bathouse in Las Vegas. Did The Pillar’s analysis also look for location pings from straight dating and hookup apps? Were pings from such apps even included in the dataset they used, or was their analysis, either by limitations of design or of available data, destined from the start to focus on failures of celibacy in relation to same-sex activity?" (article)