The post you are reporting:
This is a miserable topic but I just wanted to add another bit to it following the publication of that devastating but oh so accurate Irish Report yesterday. I noticed that the TV news coverage on BBC was very accurate in my view. They got so much right...even down to the total state deference to the Catholic Church then.
Essentially the Church ran the state with a little help from the government, but certainly in all matters moral the government stood well out of the way. Your local MP lived in fear of falling foul of the sunday morning sermon..a sermon every single member of society had to go and listen to. The total population had to go..and go they did...boozers , writers, whiners, bus drivers, etc. ( there were a few exceptions like other religions but a tiny minority).
Society also insisted on you getting married. There were many more women than men, and from an early age the pressure to get married from all mothers everywhere was enormous...and yes the pressure was also enormous to conform to the religious stereotype.
So what to do if you were homosexual in this frantic marriage environment. You couldnt admit to it as it would have brought total shame on your family...they would have been social outcasts, much in the same way as any girl who got pregnant outside of wedlock. This couldnt happen, so the female was shipped either to England or to the nuns, poste haste.
But yes back to being homosexual. In this marital Catholic hotbed of rightousness you simply couldnt be homosexual..the enormity of the shame on your family would be too too much, people would pray for you to be "cured". It is probably impossible now for people to understand the pressure.
So... avoid the pain barrier and join the one escape route ...the priesthood, the religious orders of monks, the christian brothers etc where nobody asked any questions.
The religious orders had lots of money so could accommodate as many people as wanted to join. Those joining were trained up and no doubt with Roman money were despatched to all corners of the globe, particularly America...where their repressed lifestyle eventually emerged, as we know now.
Likewise in Ireland a history of abuse took place second to absolutely nowhere else. I am not writing here against homosexuality, but pointing out the unholy miserable lives of repression and denial they were subjected to. This in my opinion is what eventually led to the enormous quantity of abuse cases under one particular umbrella...the Catholic Church.