Posted on 03/04/2002 2:50:19 AM PST by Jim Noble
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:27 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Vatican, in its first comments on the clergy sexual abuse crisis, declared this weekend that gay men should not be ordained as priests.
The comments by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the chief spokesman for Pope John Paul II, were made at a time when a growing body of research suggests that a large proportion of Catholic priests are gay, and scholars who study sexuality and the priesthood said any effort to bar them would lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of priests in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
But this pragmatic approach foundered on the increased sexual acting out which began in the 1950s. Tens of thousands of straight priests got married-and in what in retrospect was a very bad call, were expelled from the priesthood and shunned.
This left behind a larger proportion of gay men-not in itself a bad thing, but in a culture of secrecy and increased sexual acting out, a formula for scandal.
I agree gay men are no more likely to molest children-if there are any gay priests abusing six year olds, I bet you can count them on the fingers of one hand.
Teenage boys-that's another matter. I suspect that sexual interest in teenage boys, and attraction to them, is foundational for gay men-and that's the reason the "scandal" in so many dioceses won't go away. Notice in the quote from Sipe, ''over twice as many priests are involved with adult women as with boys.'' Yes, I'm sure that's true-but "involvement" with adult women is the fulfillment of Creation, and involvement with boys is a felony. This false comparison lies at the root of why the Church is having such a struggle with this issue.
Maybe married priests aren't a good idea-but they would certainly be an improvement on the status quo.
So be it.
It can't do as much damage to the church as continuing to ignore the problem of priests abusing their position, and their people. Crack down on all of them, homo and hetero alike.
This is a primary reason why I am of the protestant persuasion. I personally have been involved in the explusion of two pastors from their position for sexual offenses. One homo and one hetero. We were able to ensure that both of them got help, and that neither of them returned to such a sensitive position again.
Darn right.
That which harbours evil is just as bad or worse.
Until the Catholic Church actively promotes a purge of such evil I won't be willing to expose my children to it.
As a Christian I made a commitment for my children to the Catholic Church on behalf of my wife. We both agreed however that vow was only valid if we were certain that the Church was loyal to the covenant of God.
We view this sort situation as going in the opposite direction and will not partake, support nor tolerate it.
If the Catholic Church wants to slowly strangle itself and die, it's getting off to a fine start, albiet this problem has existed for centuries. It needs to end now.
Too bad. I really admired them and have committed much to their defense, but until this situation changes, that's over.
It's Not About Celibacy
by Deal Hudson, Editor of Crisis Magazine
The recent pedophile problems in various U.S. Catholic dioceses, especially Boston, have led - predictably - to a new wave of questions about priestly celibacy. Let us be clear: There is no relation between the vow of priestly celibacy and the incidence of pedophilia among Catholic priests.
How do I know this? There is less likelihood that a Catholic priest will be a pedophile (0.3 %) than a married man.
This statistic comes from the best and most current study of this issue, Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins (Oxford University Press, 1996). Jenkins shows that true pedophilia, that is, sexual contact between an adult and pre-pubescent child, is very rare in the Catholic priesthood.
Jenkins also explains how the media artificially exaggerates these numbers in their reporting. One U.S. Cardinal told me recently that many of the reported incidents of "child abuse" are actually complaints going back many years about the forms of corporal punishments administered by clergy in days-gone-by. Data about actual sexual contact and routine spanking or paddling are being thrown together.
The whole argument against a celibate, male clergy based on the pedophilia problem is, at best, impressionistic and, at worse, totally disingenuous.
Catholic dissidents who advocate married clergy and women priests are trying to take full advantage of this present situation. Never once do they mention that if a priest is faithful to his vows sexual relations of any kind will simply never occur. Just how allowing clergy to marry, presumably members of the opposite sex, will reduce pedophilia, is never explained.
The media is scrutinizing the Catholic Church on this issue in a way they have never looked at other institutional leaders, such as public elementary schools teachers, for example. The mere fact that the statistical incidence of pedophilia is the less than married men with children should give the media pause, but it does not and will not.
I can't think of a single mainstream media outlet, with the possible exception of Fox News, that does not demonstrate a consistent bias against the Catholic Church. This is not to point a finger at every reporter and editor, but to underline the constant tone and drift of their reporting.
Why, for example, would MSNBC spend an evening inviting people to call in and vote on whether Catholic priests should be allowed to marry? Would MSNBC do a poll on whether Jews should be allowed to eat pork on their holy days?
As Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has shown for years, the media has no fear of offending Catholics because Catholics evidently don't care if their faith is put up for a vote.
A statistical defense of the Catholic clergy, however, is not enough to address the present crisis. There must be serious rethinking of how to identify potential pedophiles before they enter the priesthood, and how to deal with them once an incident occurs. It is clear such a priest can never again to be assigned to duties that put children at risk.
The Church will get its house in order without the help of those who want to knock it down and start again.
This would be a more compelling argument if we based our moral decisions on prevailing traditions. I don't think that's the way that most serious Christians look at the issue, though.
Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
Mark 7:9 And [Jesus] said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!"
Thanks. I needed a good laugh to start the day.
Me, too.
Two points:
One: We are confusing the situation by conflating people who fantasize and act out with children-like the guy who murdered the little girl in San Diego-and the very common phenomenon among gay men about attraction to and seduction of teenage boys. I don't think they're the same thing, except that they are both crimes.
If you mean that the priesthood should screen out those with a sexual interest in five-year olds, I'm sure they already do that. If you mean that they should screen out those who like 14-year old boys, then I think they (and we) will have to be much more realistic about gay men. Perhaps this is what Fr. Navarro-Walls means.
Two: "What should be done with such priests". This is, IMHO, the root of why the Church is in such trouble over this. It's not a matter of "making sure they never work with children". What they have done is a grave sin, against the Church and against mankind. They need to face an ecclesiastical punishment at least as grave as what the Church metes out to the divorced: refusal of the eucharist.
The justification for the condemnation of the divorced and remarried is that Jesus said they are committing adultery. Fine.
Jesus also said that those who cause little ones to sin should have a millstone tied around their necks and be thrown into the sea. If the bishops were seen to be crafting metaphorical millstones for these priests, they would not have such a problem, again IMHO.
Sounds like Bill Clinton wrote this book. "True pediphilia" is rare? What is "pre-pubescent"? Well, if you want to molest, I guess you say that you found a pubic hair and decided it was OK to go ahead with your molestation.
According to this guy, all those 11 and 12 year old boys are fair game for Catholic priests because its not "true pedophilia" to molest them.
Does this Jenkins guy belong to NAMBLA?
The *law* sets the limits on what is and what isn't pedophilia---not some apologist for molesting priests and their "look the other way" superiors.
Its pretty sad to think that the divorced are refused the Eucharist---but that the Church thinks this is too severe a punishment to give to child molesting priests. Please tell me this is not true.
1) ...declared this weekend that gay men should not be ordained as priests.
Leave it to the Boston Globe to make such a pedantic statement and then label it a 'declaration'. A firm grasp on the obvious is a talent just outside the grasp of the Boston Globe. There are quite a few passages in Scripture which describe who will NOT inherit the Kingdom of God and homosexuality is on the list, so nothing new here.
2) The comments ... were made at a time when a growing body of research suggests that a large proportion of Catholic priests are gay, and scholars who study sexuality and the priesthood said any effort to bar them would lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of priests in the United States.
I'm sorry, but I really don't have much respect for people who dedicate their lives to researching homosexuality in the clergy. This dedication smacks of perhaps,...ulterior motives? ...to be tactful about a gross exageration of their 'research' ability. How does that read again?..."Scholars who study sexuality and the preisthood"??????
They've gotta be right up there with world league chefs making culinary creations of peanut butter, hardball candy in plastic wrappers and mayonaise,...sorry,....the category is so absurd as to demolish any credibility of the author or the Globe.
''If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb; it would do the same damage to the church's operation,'' said A. W. Richard Sipe, a former priest and psychotherapist. Sipe has been studying the sexuality of priests for 25 years and has written three books on the subject.
Sipe is a pervert. No need to study this. Excommunication is intuitively obvious as a more fruitful endeavor. BTW, If things are that bad, then great, get it over with and lets move on.
Precisely right! And seemingly obvious. The gay subculture, in fact, celebrates a kind of perpetual adolescence. (Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Gray comes to mind.) But this evident truth can't even be mentioned in the PC media. Hence, we have all these ex-priests and other "experts" pontificating about gays and pedophilia without offering any other possible explanation for the prevalence of the problem among Catholic priests. And these are the people who call the Vatican dishonest!
Well, it certainly is true that many child molesting priests have continued to say Mass.
My point was not what the Church is doing to punish them-I don't know what they are doing-but that it should be done publicly, like the shunning of the divorced.
So it would seem. He's trying to justify his abandoning of his vows by claiming that countless other priests are doing the same. I don't buy it.
According to Greeley, what happened is many openly gay men were ordained, including some who were attracted to younger boys. And like many churches, the gays infiltrated the church bureaucracy, where they protected their buddies.
Finally, lest we forget, in the 1980's, there was a movement against punishing pedophiles. They shouldn't be "jailed " they should be treated. This of course was wrong, but now the bishops are being stoned for taking the best psychological advise at the time. See Father Groeschel's article in the National Review on this (I have to get to work, if someone will kindly find it and put up a link. If not, I'll link it tonite)
The justification for the condemnation of the divorced and remarried is that Jesus said they are committing adultery.
Let's be clear about this. The Eucharist is not denied to anyone solely because they are divorced, but only if they re-marry while their spouse is still alive (and thus commit the mortal sin of adultery). A person can be divorced and be in a state of grace. In fact, many are.
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