Archbishop: Let's Reexamine Celibacy

[babylonsister]

:wow:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Archbishop-Lets-Reexamine-Celibacy-918

Archbishop: Let's Reexamine Celibacy
By Heather Horn on March 18, 2010 9:07am


Though the furor over German Catholic sexual abuse cases has reached into the heart of the Vatican, the pope thus far has defended the principle of celibacy. One bishop, however, isn't toeing the line. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna and one of the more outspoken skeptics of celibacy, wrote the following last week in a letter in Thema Kirche, the magazine of the Vienna archdiocese:

It's necessary really to put the victim before the perpetrator here, to blame by name. It is also necessary to ask about the causes of the abuses. That means the question of priestly training as well as the question of what was accomplished ... with the 'sexual revolution.' That means the matter of celibacy as well as the matter of personal development. That also means a large amount of honesty, in the church as well as in society.

Cardinal Schönborn's words spring from a deep frustration with the continuing evidence of abuses. "Enough!" he exclaims, saying that many are fed up with the continuing problems. In this letter as well as an earlier one, Cardinal Schönborn makes reference to a passage from the Gospel of John: "the truth will set you free."

[ShortnFiery]

1. + Gender Discrimination = Women as Priests?

[Walk away]

2. So the reason men rape children is because they promised not to...

have consenting sex with an adult? How much more bullshit do we have to take from this church's disgusting and criminal leadership.

Where are their millions of followers? Still donating cash to support these rapists and their enablers? Pedophiles become priests to prey on children without suffering any consequences. Letting them get married won't help.

[Warpy]

3. People put money into the collection plate

because the parish priest says the roof needs repair, children are starving in Africa, and because it's their duty as members of the Body of Christ to feed that body money. They honestly don't realize the priest has to kick back a lot of it to support a corrupt hierarchy that should have been retired by the end of the Enlightenment.

The few Catholics who do realize that have left, the believers to the Anglican church and the nonbelievers to sleep in on Sunday.

[zipplewrath]

4. Not quite

The reason the priesthood is filled with these people is because the people you'd WANT aren't taking the job.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Not exactly, but here's what happens:

The Catholic church says that priests must forever give up sex with adult women.

So who will be most likely to do that, especially in an era when Catholic parents no longer feel obligated to "give a son to the church"?

Men who aren't interested in sex with adult women anyway. There are a lot of gay priests, and there's no harm there, since if they break their vows, it will be with another adult gay man.

But the other group that is not interested in sex with adult women is pedophiles. Entering the priesthood provides a perfect excuse not to get married AND offers lots of access to children, especially if the parish has a school.

That's why there are fewer reports of pedophilia from Protestant churches. Clergy are allowed, even encouraged, to get married, and if there's a sex scandal in a Protestant church, nine times out of ten it's about an extramarital affair with an adult member of the church.

By the way, medieval Japanese monks were notorious for pedophilia. Buddhist rules for monks were stated in terms of "no sex with women," so the monks would take the boys who had been placed in their monasteries for schooling, dress them as girls, and abuse them sexually. (Such boys were called chigo, which is just an archaic word for "child.")