The Pink Synod, by Anthony Esolen

By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine, Nov. 22, 2023

Dr. Anthony Esolen is the author of 28 books on literature, culture, and the Christian life, whose most recent work is In the Beginning Was the Word: An Annotated Reading of the Prologue of John. He and his wife Debra also produce a new web magazine, Word and Song, devoted to reintroducing people to the good, the true, and the beautiful. He is a Distinguished Professor at Thales College

Certain seminaries became pink palaces, where seminarians and priests commonly shrugged away their vows of chastity, treating such sins with a thoroughly modern wink and a nudge.

One day, when I was a senior in high school, I went into the lavatory and was followed by a junior whose name I knew, though I didn’t know anything else about him. He was a quiet sort. As I was washing my hands, he approached me and asked me if I would like—something the reader may guess.

I told him no, I wouldn’t. But it shook me up a bit. I’d never heard of anybody being asked such a thing. So, I talked to my father about it that night. Then he told me a story of how, when he was away from home as a young man, working in a factory in New Jersey, the foreman seemed to take a liking to him and invited him to his house one day for dinner.  ….

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