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I don't favor its being universally applied simply because, as our Lord Himself observed, albeit obliquely, not all men are cut out for it.

But remember, we're not talking about all men, we are only talking about priests. And those that are becoming priests are not exactly going into this ignorant. They know what's expected of them and the only way celibacy can be "imposed" on them is for them to voluntarily vow before God.

I may be wrong but I have a hunch there's a connection between the sex scandals (and not just pedophilia), we have been seeing and the Latin Rite discipline. I can't prove it, but I do think there's a connection. I saw a report to the Roman Catholic bishops on the scandals. I'm sorry but I forget the name of the report. It was noteworthy that in this report very few scandals cropped up in the Uniate rites,The usual reasoning put forth connecting celibacy to pederasty doesn't follow. There's really only two conclusions that can be drawn. 1) That celibacy drives men to lust after children. That one's silly since a) there is no reason celibacy would turn a man into a pervert and b) if they really felt driven to have sex, why not solicit it from a grown woman instead of an adolescent boy? It's not as if molesting boys is somehow more moral. 2) Because married man are not allowed to be priests, it leaves a much a higher prevalence of pederasts in the clergy. OK, fine, we allow priests to marry. It doesn't get rid of the pederasts. It just makes them a smaller percentage of the priesthood.

The real problem is homosexuality in the priesthood. It's corrupting entire archdioceses as the gays run all the way up the hierarchy, and are covering up the acts of their fellow perverts.

Ever notice you don't hear any instances of priests molesting young girls? It's always boys. Sometimes pre-pubescent; oftentimes pubescent. Sleeping with young, boyish looking men is a big thing with the queers.

The real problem is homosexuality in the priesthood.

You are absolutely right. This whole "pederasty" thing is really a cover-up on the part of the pro-homosexual media as far as I'm concerned. It seems that a majority of the cases that I have heard about have involved boys at or nearing adolescence. This is not child molestation, it is homosexual rape/initiation.

But I ask you this -- not as an antagonistic thing, but as an honest question: If you restrict entry to a profession only to men who are willing to go their entire lives without having a licit sexual relationship with a woman, aren't you sort of stacking the deck that a disproportionate number of homosexual men (who cannot have a church-approved sexual relationship of their choice, anyway) will see it as a reasonable option for their lives?

p>And if, by contrast, you have a profession that expects, as its norm, that a man is to be in a stable married relationship with a woman *before* entering it (as with the Orthodox priesthood), that you will have fewer homosexuals?

This is not a reason for the Catholic church to give up its celibacy requirement if they want to keep it, but it would very much seem to me that to have a healthy priesthood, you would need to have an active program to identify seminarians with homosexual inclinations, and then at the very least have an active program for identifying those individuals at high risk of not keeping their vows of celibacy. To do otherwise is to, well, have the situation that exists in all too many Catholic seminaries and dioceses here in America.