Posted on 03/27/2002 12:36:14 PM PST by Taliesan
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:36 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The revelations about Boston's pedophile priests had many dismaying aspects beyond their worst aspect, the victimization of the young. One disturbing thing was the way these revelations were greeted by some - as news that was new. There were, of course, new details; but everything disclosed in news reports, including the scale of the offenses, has been discovered before, elsewhere in America or Canada, Ireland or Australia. But after each dismaying explosion of information, people are lulled back into forgetfulness. They are assured that these things, however awful, are mostly in the past, some of them unverified, some exaggerated, and that church officials have already adopted measures to prevent the recurrence of such scandals.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Many are making that point, as you can see on this thread. Given that there is a clinical distinction -- but for the purposes of the reform of the priesthood, what is the moral distinction?
I don't understand.
Can we stop calling this "Pedophila" and start calling it for what it is: homosexual rape of teenage boys!The technical term can be found on this thread: ephebophilia.
He wrote yet another hatchet job on Pius XII, etc., entitled Papal Sin. It's particularly nasty, in that it trashes practically every aspect of Catholicism. Yet Wills claims to be a Catholic.
(Much earlier in his career, he wrote a book called "Confessions of a Conservative" or something like that. He is anything but a conservative. The guy seems to identify with groups so that he can trash them.)
What do you think of his specific historical critique, that celibacy was originally a monastic charism, and became extracted from its supporting context?
A monastic who is homosexual does not have a very favorable "supporting context" for celibacy, in fact, I'd suggest he has a much less favorable context for it than a parish priest who is heterosexual. There's no question that penance and regular prayer are necessary to a celibate vocation, just as they are necessary for every other Christian.
I'm not at all convinced that celibacy originally had an exclusively monastic context. Our Lord speaks specifically of those who give up everything to follow him, and of those who are "eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven". That preceded the development of Christian monasticism by centuries, and Western Christian monasticism by still more centuries.
BTW, I've always respected you and am honored that you would post on the thread.
Thank you; you're very kind. I know you're one of the most irenic Protestants here (or anywhere) and respect you as my brother in Christ.
Garry Wills, OTOH, really ticks me off. :-0
He has his facts wrong. HOMOSEXUALITY has EVERYTHING to do with this problem. 98% of all the abuse cases are with adolescent boys. It's called ephebophilia. Seeing that only men can be priests and its almost always boys that have been abused, the problem is homosexual. The media and liberals, in general, refuse to equate this with homosexuality because it will incriminate the whole lot of sodomites and exonerate the Boy Scouts of American for one.
Not entirely true, eastsider. Western Catholic Christians from Eastern Rites can and do ordain married men to the priesthood (but not to Bishop).
That is, both Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics have the same tradition of married parish priests.
SD
There isn't a moral distinction as both (homosexuality and pedophilia) are considered unacceptable by the church. My comment related more to the press coverage then to the moral question faced by the church, ie, the press is minimizing one aspect of the problem, possibly because accentuating the homosexual nature of the abuse may damage public perception of a lifestyle they traditionally support.
Sorry, I posted earlier before I understood you were trying to limit this discussion to the monastic aspects.
Ah, yes, of course. The Orthodox clergy are not in the news just now, are they?
(And yes, there are groups nutty and cruel enough to do that. If the verse means what you want it to mean, you either have to be nutty and cruel just like them, or you have to be inconsistent. Your call.)
St. Paul was celibate. While he could obviously appoint bishops, what you're saying is that he wasn't qualified to be a bishop. Right?
St. Paul said, quite clearly, in 1 Cor that he wished all of his readers were celibate 'like me'. He wished everyone to be disqualified from the office of bishop?
I have no quarrel with the idea that the passage you cite permits married clergy; the apostolic church was composed of adult converts and ordaining only unmarried men was simply unreasonable. The idea that the passage requires married clergy is nonsense.
No problem. Just being pedantic. (Don't tell anyone!)
I don't think we will see a move to optional celibacy at this time, even if it makes some sense. Think of it as a bulwark against even more radical change (think:priestesses).
SD
The origins of the monastic vocation, well before Anthony, fade into the mists too, so I'm not sure we would distinguish priests and monks clear enough to sustian either argument back to, say, the early second century.
The author did not mention countless acts of cruelty committed by clergy and nuns where they had total control over the young.
I can't help it, but I'm left feeling that something perverted the whole structure long ago. You read in history where monasteries had to be cleaned up. Now I think this is probably what they needed to be cleaned up from. Homosexuality.
Those of us who were raised protestants were often under the yoke of the victorian era. I'm not slamming values and ideals. I still believe in all of them. I am slamming hypocrisy and abnormal repression of the human spirit in the name of religion.
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