[dtom]

FYI

[xm177e2]

The problem is not "forced celibacy." The problem is different entirely.

Pedophiles usually don't want to be pedophiles, and they usually turn to God for help. They figure, if I become a priest, maybe God will cure my problem.

And God NEVER cures anyones' problems for them.

So after a while, maybe even a few decades, they start molesting children.

However, the idea that forced celibacy leads to child molestation is ridiculous, they could always go for women around their own age.

[Darth Sidious]

If Mary was always a virgin, Joseph would be the greatest saint who ever lived.

[Campion]

The fact is that when women are demonized, pathology always emerges. It is so ingrained in many Catholic priests to believe that it would be dirty and evil for them to have sex with a woman, that some of them end up rationalizing that it is less sinful to molest a little boy -- or to have sex with a man.

Oh, yeah, right ... "demonizing" women (???) creates pedophiles out of otherwise-normal adult men.

What rot. By the same logic, perhaps we should have shipboard brothels in the Navy -- otherwise, the risk of homosexual rape on those long sea voyages is just too high.

Thanks, Jamie, for ignoring all of the evidence from psychology, which indicates that sexual behavior patterns are chosen by late adolescence (after which no amount of "demonizing" of women will make a pedophile out of a normal man), and all of the evidence from sociology, which indicates that married Protestant clergy commit child sexual abuse at the same rates as celibate Catholic clergy.

[Jack Barbara]

Forced clerical celibacy simply has to go.

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. If you don't want to be a priest, don't be one.

[eleni121]

All he has to do is join a non celibate priesthood for example the Eastern Orthodox Church and serve Christians from that pulpit.

But stop trying to rationalize criminal behavior with the excuse of celibacy! Outrageous!