Posted on 02/16/2005 11:18:59 AM PST by Aquinasfan
abstinence needs to be removed and let Priests and Nuns marry. Know matter how good your heart is you cannot deny the normal human desire for sex. Maybe this will help so that they do not prey on others.
I don't buy the bishops' excuse that they "didn't know" or "didn't realize" or that "the psychologists told us" this or that. These are blatant lies. After twenty or thirty years of failure and a billion dollars paid out in hush money, and tens of thousands of ruined lives, you KNOW. Claiming you don't, insults our intelligence and feeds into the mentality of Catholics who WANT to whitewash this scandal rather than do something about the systemic corruption that caused it.
As far as I'm concerned, this is just one more attempt to foist onto Psychology the moral failures of the bishops themselves and the failure of the hierarchical Church in general to clean up its own corruption. And I do not exclude the Pope most especially in all this. Even in his prime he was more interested in the p.r. aspects of the scandals than in any real reform. He did all he could in the way of damage control, but was very little interested in firing anybody or imposing discipline. No reform of the system was ever contemplated.
similar efforts go with the higher law schools. (diploma mills take anyone) But there is a view on law school admissions committees that "liberals" are better legal thinkers than "less intelligent" conservatives.
The concept is to to control law by producing a higher volume of left leaning lawyers. (ie, less likely to care that the ACLU is a comunist founded and run organization.)
First, sexual activity, however enjoyable, rewarding and desireable, is NOT the be-all and end-all of human existence. You can too "deny the normal human desire for sex" just as many recovering alcoholics or drug users or smokers or whatever can deny those desires. No one said it would be easy or comfortable or convenient.
Second, we are talking about the Roman Catholic Church to which I belong. Any man who wants to be a priest and also be married may seek the priesthood in any rite of the Catholic Church OTHER than the Roman Rite: Maronite, Greek, Ukrainian, etc. The Roman Rite wages war with the secular world and the non-Catholic world over this question of celibacy and that angers those worlds.
Third, you do not know what you are talking about. This is a matter of fact and not of rival beliefs. Celibacy has a proven track record of success as a religious way of life. Neither Mother Teresa, nor Teresa of Avila nor Francis of Assisi nor John the Baptist nor Jesus Christ Himself would have been more effective by engaging in sexual behavior with or without marriage.
Bear in mind that the scandal is not so much a scandal of engaging in sexuality, per se. If the priests accused and convicted had been carrying on with all too available single women, there would be sinfulness to be sure but it would have been the sinfulness of unnatural behavior which is the real source of the scandal here. That priests are sinners is no surprise. Most every one of us and of priests is a sinner. If and when you are married, will your wife have to keep an eye on you lest you try to seduce the eight-year-old newspaper boy? Mine won't and doesn't. For the most part we are discussing a scandal that has to do with the always unnatural (as the Church teaches) acts of homosexuality and rather often child abuse of a homosexual nature. Abuse of youth and "sex" with those of the same sex: a double dose of perversion that does NOT arise from celibacy or Holy Orders.
I suspect that you mean well but I do not think you have thought this through. You will never see the day when nuns are allowed to marry in any rite of Catholicism. May you never see the day when Roman Catholic priests of the Roman rite are allowed to marry. We do admit to the priesthood clergy from Anglicanism and Lutheranism who are already married but, like our married deacons, they are not allowed to marry again if they become widowed after ordination.
Ummmnhhh..I'll try to be nice about this.
Please check with the Protestant churches re: the incidence of sexual abuse with their MARRIED ministers.
You'll find it's about the same (total incidence) although the Prots would rather abuse women than little boys.
Tempus fugit. Memento more.
Roma locuta. Causa finita.
Ubi Petrus. Ibi Ecclesia.
Juan Paolo Segundo. Il papa del mundo.
Recovering alcoholics, drug users, and smokers fight to resist a man made product. Sexual desire is primal, a natural human desire to procreate being obstructed by a ideological train of thought. You cannot suppress the normal human desire to mate and if you do we are all doomed to the fate of the Dinosaurs.
Catholics should not hold the evils of that organization or of Blanshard or of Lynn against reformed Christians who may accept or not accept the name Protestant. Protestantism has little or nothing to do with the organization or with Blanshard or with Lynn.
If Angela Davis or Barbara Boxer were chosen to replace Lynn, no one would notice much difference other than as to race and gender in the case of Davis or simply gender in the case of Boxer.
Are you tempted by the newspaper boy when your wife/girlfriend is unavailable?
Is sex an expression of love or some primal need? Why?
If some "primal need" to procreate is being frustrated in our time, it is being frustrated by birth control, homosexuality and abortion all of which are vigorously condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. Take that complaint to Planned Barrenhood or NARAL or NAMBLA. In that sense, you are correct in attributing frustration of the desire to procreate to an "ideological train of thought."
Man did not create the genetic makeup of nicotine, consumable alcohol or narcotics nor his own genetic makeup which, in many cases, made those substances attractive to him. Man simply abuses those commodities. Likewise, humans abuse each other in uses of sex for which God did not create sex. Do as you will in your own life. I have no desire to snoop. Most sinful behavior has specific temporal consequences. Alcoholics, for example, are more prone to cirrhosis than non-alcoholics, as a general rule. Likewise, smokers are more prone to lung cancer. Active homosexuals and needle-sharing narcotics users are more prone to AIDS and narcotics users are also more prone to overdosing than those who do not "dose."
Do you think that the dinosaurs just lost their instinct of procreation? The notion that we are enslaved by sexuality is just silly. It is also demeaning. It is also reflective of a notion that we are mortal animals only a little brighter than the average dinosaur. If that is what you believe, there will be little in the way of meaningful discussion between you and believers since you lack common reference points for meaningful discussion with us and we lack them in respect to you.
If priests or nuns (!?!?) do not procreate at all, we will be in no danger of underpopulation, much less extinction, any time soon.
We may go the way of the dinosaurs (temporally) if and when God says so and not one moment before. I believe that. You apparently do not. Therein, with all due respect, lies the relevant difference between thee and me (and other believers).
"abstinence needs to be removed and let Priests and Nuns marry."
Yes, I am quite certain that will somehow keep the homosexual perverts out of the seminaries. Tell the homosexuals they will be allowed to marry women. That will certainly cure the problem...
/sarc
Forget about where I attend Mass on Sunday--stick to the issue. The system is corrupt because bishop-selection is based on cronyism, not on faith. The Pope has no problem with this and has appointed these mediocrities and perverts. He shows no interest in any sort of reform. That is the truth--and citing cliches in Latin by way of rebuttal is not only irrelevant, it's futile.
Thank you for your opinion, un-informed and illogical as it may be.
Don't you have an appearance scheduled on Phil Donahue? You're late....
"You cannot suppress the normal human desire to mate and if you do we are all doomed to the fate of the Dinosaurs."
Nonsense. Even modern psychology recognizes the possibility of religious sublimation of sexual impulses--it's an observable phenomenon. But it's foolish to suppose the Church expects this of everybody. It's a spiritual ideal that's for the chosen few.
Who cares about the psychology of pedophilia. Get them away from the kids NOW, and keep them away!
It could be that the post-vatican II openness and democratization, and the general opening of all parts of society in the 60's and 70's exposed a practice that had been there -- how long?
The older victims, this theory would argue, are either more traditional subservient Catholics, or are dead.
I can't prove it, but neither can the author prove HIS thesis.
Exactly. They are pretending they were ill-informed by psychologists--for twenty and thirty years! What hogwash! Parents were complaining by the tens of thousands. Almost a billion dollars was paid out in hush money and armies of lawyers were intimidating victims on their behalf! And in all that while nobody thought to keep these priests away from boys? I don't think so. The real truth was probably much more sinister--that the priests themselves were blackmailing the bishops. Nothing else can explain the absurd lengths the bishops went to in order to protect the priest-offenders--over a period of decades!
You are wrong. There was no sudden "exposure" of a problem. The studies went back to the 40s and 50s. Many who defend Vatican II would like nothing better than to assume this had always been a major problem--but they would be wrong. There were cases, of course, but they were rare, nothing like the exponential explosion that occurred briefly in the 60s, and then in the 70s and 80s--and not only here but across Europe and Australia.
The picture becomes clearer...
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.