Yeah, who'd a thunk it?

Who knows whether Cardinal Edward Egan is sleeping soundly these days. But as head of the New York archdiocese-as the top Roman Catholic prelate in the state-he'd have every reason to be restless after the recent advent of a little-noticed lawsuit.

The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson-a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment" that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims.

But that's not all his lawsuit claims. Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal: He alleges that Egan is "actively homosexual," and that he has "personal knowledge of this." His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay-Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.

Seriously, if this is true, and there's no reason for this man to have made these assertions if he could not back them up, it brings the Vaticans whole denial of the issue of Gay Priest back into the public forum. I don't understand their problem with Gay Priests, as Gillard says, Gay men are interested in other Gay men. Pedophiles are interested in Children. The only place there seems to be a nexus there is in the minds of the fundie christo-fascists who want control of everything sexual from womb-to-tomb, no matter how insignificant or arcane. And the Vatican has bought into that mindset, lock, stock and cassock after years of moving towards a more enlightened stance on some aspects of human sexuality.

But it does give a whole new meaning to the words "Lay Leadership", eh?