By Matt Abbott
Op/Ed
Catholic Online

Father Andrew Greeley has another book out.

It’s titled "Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships with Women."

According to a March 10, 2007 story in the Arizona Daily Star:

"The book is garnering attention for presenting Jesus as a man who promoted equality between the sexes. And no doubt Jesus was sexually magnetic to women like Mary Magdalene, Johanna and Susanna, who are described in the Gospel of Luke as traveling with Jesus and the male apostles, Greeley says.

"‘He was the kind of man on whom women could easily form what we today call crushes,’ Greeley writes in the book. ‘He did not demean them or talk down to them or keep them in their place — whatever that place might be.’

"Greeley says Jesus was likely attracted to women, too.

"‘Jesus was not sexless; he was not a eunuch. He had the same hormones as do all male humans,’ he writes in the book. ‘All we can demand of Jesus because of who and what he was would be that he never exploit a woman or a woman's love. Jesus indeed had hormones, but because he was who he was, he focused his sexual energies on the task of announcing the kingdom of God.’"

The courageous Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (www.hli.org), who recently was belittled by Catholic dissenter Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, had this to say in response to the story on Greeley:

“It's sad that an elderly Greeley still has his mind so focused on sex. Now he has written a book on Jesus and women, something about which the New Testament is largely silent, except to identify Him as the Bridegroom of the Church. Conjecturing on women having crushes on Jesus and Jesus' hormonal patterns is, well, typical Greeley, whose fixation with sex was solidified when he started writing sex novels. They used to say the prolific Greeley did not have an unpublished thought. Now, it seems, Greeley does not even have an unpublished fantasy.”

Readers might recall when I wrote about the unsolved 1984 Chicago murder of Francis Pellegrini, a professor and choir director -- and an acquaintance of Greeley -- who reportedly was going to expose the activities of a clergy pederast ring known as The Boys’ Club.

According to Catholic attorney Sheila Parkhill, Pellegrini was involved in the “adult” sexual activities of the ring, but when he found out that certain priests were targeting children from low-income, ethnic backgrounds, he wanted to stop them.

But Pellegrini was found stabbed to death the day before the meeting with an archdiocesan official was to take place.

The sad thing is, Greeley has been silent on the matter for quite some time, despite possibly having the evidence to “out” the members of the ring, some of whom are still in public ministry.

Sheila Parkhill can be reached at stparkhill@yahoo.com.

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(Matt C. Abbott is a Catholic columnist with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication, Media and Theatre from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, and an Associate in Applied Science degree in Business Management from Triton College in River Grove, Ill. He is the former director of public affairs for the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League and the former executive director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee. He was a contributor to The Wanderer Catholic newspaper and had numerous letters to the editor published in major newspapers, including the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. He can be reached at mattcabbott@gmail.com)

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