Posted on 03/15/2002 11:59:33 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
BOSTON- In an extraordinary editorial on the city's child-molestation scandal, the official newspaper of the Boston Archdiocese says the Roman Catholic Church must face the question of whether to drop its requirement that priests be celibate.
The editorial, published Thursday in a special issue of The Pilot, asks whether there would be fewer scandals if celibacy were optional for priests and whether the priesthood attracts an unusually high number of homosexual men.
It offers no answers, but says: "These scandals have raised serious questions in the minds of the laity that simply will not disappear."
The editorial was written by Monsignor Peter V. Conley, the paper's executive editor, who is said to be a close confidant of Cardinal Bernard Law, Boston's archbishop. Law is listed as the paper's publisher.
Archdiocese spokeswoman Donna Morrissey had no immediate comment.
Philip Lawler, who was editor of The Pilot from 1986 to 1988 and is now editor of Catholic World Report, called the editorial "very unusual" for raising questions about church doctrine instead of administrative issues.
In Rome, a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said: "The pope has spoken to this. He has said celibacy remains, it is a great gift to the church. He has spoken clearly in favor of celibacy."
The archdiocese is the nation's fourth-largest, with more than 2 million Catholics, and is the center of the biggest child-molestation scandal to rock the U.S. church.
It has been under fire recently after it was disclosed that officials knew about child sex-abuse allegations against the Rev. John Geoghan and did little more than move him from parish to parish. The now-defrocked priest has been accused of molesting more than 130 children over 30 years. He is serving a nine-to-10 year prison sentence for groping a boy, and the archdiocese has agreed to pay up to $45 million to scores of his alleged victims.
As part of a new "zero tolerance" policy of sex abuse, the archdiocese has turned over to prosecutors the names of more than 80 current and former priests suspected of child molestation over the past 50 years.
The archdiocese said it printed the special issue of The Pilot to try to improve communication with parishioners about the latest developments. More than 100,000 copies of the 28-page supplement to the weekly paper were printed and will be distributed after Mass in parishes Sunday.
"Would abandoning celibacy be the proper answer to new data from the contemporary sciences or would it be surrendering to popular American culture?" it says.
The editorial says that the New Testament "clearly prizes" priestly celibacy, but that most Americans don't understand it. It also says that letting priests marry would not be a "panacea," noting the divorce rate.
The editorial poses such questions as: "Should celibacy continue to be a normative condition for the diocesan priesthood in the Western (Latin) Church? If celibacy were optional, would there be fewer scandals of this nature in the priesthood? Does priesthood, in fact, attract a disproportionate number of men with a homosexual orientation?"
It also encourages greater attention to homosexual orientation and the priesthood, and asks if there are valid ways to screen priests for sexual orientation. The editorial also says that "evidence now seems to indicate that (homosexuality) is a genetically inherited condition."
Conley did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.
The Rev. Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist and consultant on sex abuse to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cautioned against linking celibacy and homosexuality among priests to child molestation.
"Any clinician can tell you the diagnosis of pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality," said Rossetti, who has written extensively on the issue. "I think people are jumping on simplistic solutions."
The newspaper also includes a defense of Law by Raymond Flynn, a former Boston mayor and one-time U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
"I think it's a very enlightened editorial in terms of the door being opened, and the church is inviting people to come back," Flynn said Friday. "In a sad way, this is a very exciting and wonderful new era, a dawn for the Catholic Church. I really believe that."
No good reason for Priests to 'go there'. Simply trading one problem; and inviting another.
They can just say "NO" and bear the responsibility of their choices/actions.
"Just because Cardinal Bernard Law can't control his diocese doesn't mean the entire RCC should make this kind of change"
Agree; and why should Priests get married. . .so they can get divorced? . . .Commit adultery? . . .
No good reason for Priests to 'go there'. Simply trading one problem; and inviting another.
They can just say "NO" and bear the responsibility of their choices/actions.
There are twenty-two rites (i.e. churches) in the Catholic world that are in formal union with the Pope. The Latin Rite (what we think of as "the Catholic Church") is only ONE. Virtually every other rite (Maronite, Melkite, Byzantine, Ukrainian, etc.) allow the ordination of married men. The Orthodox Christians (who separated from Rome in the early 11th century) have *always* allowed for the ordination of married men - so they were doing it back when they were Catholic!
It is NOT a "Gospel mandate" to have priestly celibacy. You cannot argue that it is mandatory, or that it is "traditional" (as I pointed out above, it is NOT), or that it is even prudent. It is *disciplinary.*
This discipline can change within the Latin Rite, and it would also be very nice if the Latin Rite would *leave the other rites alone* and let them continue with their time-honored practice of ordaining married men as parish priests. Ironically, the Latin Rite *already* has married priests, because those Episcopal priests who converted to Latin Rite Catholicism and became ordained as Catholic priests *brought their wives with them,* and now are *married* Latin Rite Catholic priests. I have even heard of Lutheran pastors getting ordained as RC priests and keeping their wives. So it is already being done even in the Latin Rite.
Though I'm repeating myself, I would like to see the Holy Father appoint a triumvirate with personal and particular power to clean up the Catholic Church in America. My nominees are: Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Fr. John Corapi, and Fr. Mitch Pacwa. Anyone who wanted to appeal their decisions could appeal to Mother Angelica (God bless her and heal her!) and the nuns at the Shrine in Hanceville, AL.
That would teach them all.
AMEN! And let's not forget, there is a way for married men to serve the Lord in an ordained role. This is the Ordained Diaconate. These men assist the Priest at Mass, can confer the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony, and can take on many of the Pastoral Tasks that Parishes require of their Priests. In Parishes where there is no full time Priest, the Deacon can perform Liturgies where Scripture is read, a homily is given by the Deacon, and the Holy Eucharist is received. The Hosts are Consecrated by the Priest when he says Mass and some are held for the Liturgy the following week.
My late Father in law was a Deacon and my brother in law (sister's husband) is also a Deacon. He performs invaluable services to his Parish by conferring Sacraments, assisting at Mass, running the Religious Ed. program for the teenagers, and at one time was a Chaplain for the men working on cargo ships, etc. in the Port of Pascagoula MS. For all those men who wanted to be Priests, but also wanted to get married, this is a wonderful way to serve.
St. Paul was celibate. In the New Testament it talks as if it is a gift from God . . . don't ask for Chapter and verse . ..
That being said, I have read the pope's statement before and it doesn't make sense. Gift to the church? Church??? Or gift from God??? Or both???
Sorry, I don't know how to explain it. If God chooses priests (which I no longer believe), wouldn't He give them the gift of celibacy since it is a requirement of the church.
Maybe someone can put it into words better than I.
That being said, I fail to understand while a protestant can have a problem with celibacy. Protestants didn't used to have a problem with it. Anyone who was single used to be expected to be celibate or marry. My how things have changed.
Then again, that may not be the case as men used to be brought up to be gentlemen and some waited long years to marry nice girls who often were virgins . . . and we didn't have a society full of pedophiles. There were probably always some, but it seems to be epidemic now . . . so there must be something else going on here.
It is not only a matter of your personal opinion, it is the crux of the whole discussion. If you don't want to be celibate, find something else to do. There certainly are hundreds of opportunities for employment should a man feel the need to dedicate himself to the service of others. If the seminaries weren't so hungry for candidates, they would be able to weed out the incompetent and homosexual seminarians before they receive their Holy Orders and send them packing.
A priest is a different kind of man, his celibacy separates him from the rest of us. It's a sacrifice he promises to make that ordinary men are incapable of. I want an extraordinary man, one who makes a promise that he can keep, in spite of his human impulses. It strengthens him if he's worthy and holy. If he fails, defrock him and send him on his way. Those who do fail do not stain the priesthood, they only disgrace themselves. And those who engage in cover-ups and pay-offs are equally disgraced. Go away, Cardinal Law. Go away weak and feckless Bishops. Wake up Vatican - it is your tacit approval of these practices which allowed this awful situation to deteriorate into the crisis we are now faced with. The "Clown Masses" and the terrible liberalization of the Church were the warning signals that Rome failed heed. Was it worth the 1.3 billion dollars of hush money that the Church has had to pay in the last 40 years?
I don't think celibacy leads to pedophilia but I do think the requirement of celibacy attracts a disproportionate number of maladjusted people.
Women too should be allowed into the priesthood. It's a strange and unsupportable notion but factually true that, under the current rules, Richard Speck would have been a more acceptable candidate for the priesthood than Mother Theresa.
Uh, I don't think so, not according to the Lord anyway. It is Cathloic doctrine that priests will be men.
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