Sex is a perfect example, Father Greeley maintains. The Catholic hierarchy, he says, is the one obsessed with sex. If the church weren't so bent on portraying sex as something ugly, then maybe the church would have more credibility among rank-and-file Catholics, Father Greeley says.

From ......... Daily News Miner, Fairbanks, AK

21 June 21, 1996 .............. A-6

PRIEST'S NOVEL RATTLES VATICAN

The Boston Globe

BOSTON - Rev. Andrew Greeley, best-selling novelist, sociologist and relentless church critic, seems taken aback by accusations that - in his writings at least - he is hung up on sex.

"If the question is 'Do you have erotic thoughts about women?' my answer is, 'Yeah. About 20 times before lunch.' Am I going to violate them? No. But as long as I am a heterosexual male I will always feel that women are attractive. I don't see anything wrong with that. "

To mainstream Catholics who view priests as paragons of piety, that admission might seem shocking. To foes of Father Greeley, the admission would seem typical - coming as it does from a man they believe has spent much of his career trying to give the Roman Catholic Church a black eye. Father Greeley's latest novel, "White Smoke," in which church leaders come across as bumbling fools, will do nothing to dissuade his critics.

But Father Greeley, 68, says he is neither trying to be provocative nor to denigrate the church. He says he is simply telling the truth about a church hierarchy he believes is arrogant, insular authoritarian and woefully out of step with most Catholics.

Sex is a perfect example, Father Greeley maintains. The Catholic hierarchy, he says, is the one obsessed with sex. If the church weren't so bent on portraying sex as something ugly, then maybe the church would have more credibility among rank-and-file Catholics, Father Greeley says.

-END QUOTE-