[saradippity]

Please stop the lectures on celibacy and the unmarried priesthood in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church,. It clutters up this very important thread and has been discussed thoroughly on many prior threads.

The Latin Rite can defend their position very well and while I have not seen them convince any non-Catholic to switch positions it is not for lack of the better argument. It really boils down to the fact that what Christ seems to be saying quite clearly is a very hard saying.

My real concern with the discussion you and Aquinas are having is that I think you are misunderstanding the position of most Catholics when we seek to differentiate between pedophilia and epebophilia. The reason we do this is not to go easy on these pederast priest predators,not at all. In fact,we just want it to be exceedingly clear that the perpetraters are homosexuals or bisexuals and that is the sub group that are a danger to teenagers and that they should not be priests. First,because they use the priesthood to satisfy their personal lust for youth and beauty while also as a second incentive,recruit these relatively innocent youth into the homosexual lifestyle.

Initially the media had hoped to label the priests involved in the scandalous behavior as "pedophiles" because that is exactly what they wished people to think.

The reason that they hoped to fly with that label is because,studies show that more heterosexuals than homosexuals are "pedophiles". And believe me they would have been happy to review the whole scandal from that perspective.

The media had fervently hoped that no one would notice that 80% of the abuses were not small victims of evil heterosexual,sex starved sickos but were instead post pubescent boys,who have long been the apple of homosexuals eyes and appetites. One third of all homosexuals were introduced to the lifestyle when they were under 18;one third of homosexuals also claim to have introduced a person under 18 to the lifestyle.That is the drty little secret the media sought to protect and that is why we differentiate between pedophilia and ephebophilia---the media does not like that.

[George W. Bush]

My real concern with the discussion you and Aquinas are having is that I think you are misunderstanding the position of most Catholics when we seek to differentiate between pedophilia and epebophilia. The reason we do this is not to go easy on these pederast priest predators,not at all. In fact,we just want it to be exceedingly clear that the perpetraters are homosexuals or bisexuals and that is the sub group that are a danger to teenagers and that they should not be priests. First,because they use the priesthood to satisfy their personal lust for youth and beauty while also as a second incentive,recruit these relatively innocent youth into the homosexual lifestyle.

The net effect is to reduce the severity of the priests' sexual assault on the innocence of youth with whose care they are entrusted. This is a betrayal as cruel, or even more cruel, than for a child to be assaulted or seduced by a teacher or doctor. These are all privileged relationships.

We cannot dumb down the standards for the sake of an intermediate objective. Can you, for instance, tell me the exact age a child is when they are no longer the victim of a pedophile but an ephebophile?

Initially the media had hoped to label the priests involved in the scandalous behavior as "pedophiles" because that is exactly what they wished people to think.

In the Boston scandals, there were a lot of assaults including rapes of small children of both sexes. Some later cases involved older children as well. But the charge of pedophilia was well-founded in the grossest cases. Nevertheless, I will not advocate lesser penalties for molesting teenage boys.

You understand, I'm sure, that the arguments you present favor the American bishops in helping the priest-molesters to escape justice and your organization to escape more punitive lawsuits. So your church has a vested financial interest in presenting this argument.