Posted on 12/15/2017 11:14:12 AM PST by heterosupremacist
An Australian inquiry into child abuse could rock the Roman Catholic Church.
The panel on Friday called on the church to repeal its celibacy requirement for priests, and said clergy should face prosecution if they fail to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional.
Australia’s Royal Commission into Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its 17-volume report and made almost 200 recommendations following a five-year investigation into how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Roman Catholic Church should repeal its celibacy requirement for priests, IMHO.
However, it is not proper for a government panel to tell a church how to run its religion.
I believe celibacy was meant to prevent priesthoods from becoming family businesses.
“said clergy should face prosecution if they fail to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional”
The privacy of the confessional should always be respected.
I don’t see how priests could violate confessionals. It’s been a problem over the centuries that priests have learned about murders and such. This is just one more example. But outside of the confessional, the church knows a lot and THAT should be required to be reported, rather than dealt with internally.
“The panel on Friday called on the church to repeal its celibacy requirement for priests, and said clergy should face prosecution if they fail to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional.”
—
So celibacy = pedophilia now?
I think priests should be allowed to marry (a woman, that is) and ,in fact, some priest are married - e.g. those who came in as married priests from the Anglican communion.
But no government has any right to tell a church what it should do or believe.
“I believe celibacy was meant to prevent priesthoods from becoming family businesses.”
—
Maybe, but it also keeps them from the worldly concerns of tending to a wife and family so they can be centered on their practice as priests.
Thanks, but we’ll keep the celibacy requirement despite the ill conceived notions of you and Australia.
Do you suppose that dating priests, philandering priests, and divorced priests would help anything?
Reporting abuse... Well of course they should.
Repeal celibacy? Priest and Nuns are married to the church, it’s been that way from the start and it will be that way in the end. If you want to be a priest and have sex become a heathen Protestant and leave the Catholic church.
Catholicism isn’t a club or a democracy... It’s the church of St. Peter, Christ’s disciple, and it isn’t about keeping up with the times, it’s about the words of Christ and the Catholic interpretation of those words and many other religions are available to those who don’t subscribe to Catholic doctrine.
The whining and lamenting from Catholics who don’t actually subscribe to the Catholicism they’ve been taught and grew up with is nauseating... Just shut up and find another place to go worship.
You are incorrect and misguided
heathen protestant? Some for sure. Though not many worshiping statues and such.
Every professional group has a code of ethics that require confidentiality even in instances where it may hamper the law. The priest is not an agent of the court. He is acting as Christ and loosing a person’s sin. That sacrament is central to Catholic teaching as is the canon law of confidentiality.
Clerical celibacy is rooted in Eucharistic Realism.
Ah! So marriage cures homosexuality. Who knew?
Quick, let’s tell the Anglicans.
On the confidentiality of the Confessional...do away with "attorney-client privilege" first and then we'll talk about the Confessional.
Until then...
They're talking about forcing priests to report admissions made in the Confessional.Of course evidence obtained in other ways should be reported...but not things revealed during confession.
Guys who are married to women don't do that stuff nearly as often as guys "married" to guys or guys married to nobody.
Again, I’m not Catholic, but IMHO, priests SHOULD be allowed to marry. I have heard it said that celibacy is required because Jesus was celibate, and a priest is to be a type of Christ, as it were, His representatives on Earth. But ALL Christians are commanded to be Christlike. And with the communion with the Orthodox and various other types of Catholicism, it seems not right to demand celibacy of only Roman Catholic priests, while the others may marry. And now also, married pastors who convert to Roman Catholicism, ARE allowed to be priests. Add that to the fact that priests, historically, up until a few hundred years ago, were allowed to be married, and it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Not here to argue, I’d just like your and other Catholics opinions.
I wonder. I doubt anybody’s done a study.
The privacy of the confessional should always be respected.
______________________________________________________________________________
That’s a tough one. If pedophilia or any other kind of major crime is confessed to the priest, would it not be prudent and acceptable, for the priest to pronounce the penance to be turning oneself in, in addition to the normal penance the confessing person is given to perform?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.