Yawn. This has been debunked repeatedly. I notice he doesn't provide any proof.
The last statistics I saw on this showed an identical rate of offense between celibate Catholic priests and non-celibate Protestant ministers. Unless Mr. Glazov has some new information, his solution makes no sense.
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.
As a Catholic, Mr. Glazov should know better than this. Women are certainly not demonized in Catholic ideology. If anything, having homosexual dalliances, which Mr. Glazov contends is a celibate priests rationalized release for lustful desires, has been considerably more demonized than heterosexual dalliances since the rule of celibacy began.
Leftist catholic bashing of course. Notice the "priest" is 79 years old, and therefore one suspects the accusations are 30 years old? Or does he use viagra?
That being said, I don't believe that the celibacy rule is "responsible" for this alleged pedophilia epidemic. While there certainly have been many shameful incidents that the Church unwisely hushed-up, this slander against the Catholic clergy is largely media bias, and an example of the only sanctioned religious bigotry allowed in our society.
Forced? As far as I know, the Catholic Church does not draft men into the priesthood - it is voluntary and everyone knows what is required.
On a brighter note, my wife and I had the pleasure of entertaining one of our priests and female religious last night for dinner. In the course of table talk, Father Anderson was explaining to Sister that he was being transferred to the Chicago Archdiocese within a week, and that he woule really miss the RCIA class.
Seems there's a couple in RCIA which Father has given to our resident seminarian for sponsorship. They were atheist/agnostic, until she gave birth to their child. Seems the pregnancy was particularly trying, and she coded three times. The doctors, however, pulled her through, and now the family is all hunky-dory. This experience gave them both a kick in the pants. Call it divine inspiration, intervention, or a happy coincidence, but it seems they heard 'the call' to reform, as it were. And they just happened to be in, you guessed it, a Catholic hospital.
So they're getting special treatment, since no one they know is RC, neither of them is, or was, RC and none of their immediate family is RC. But they're gonna be, come Easter...
I look forward to meeting them.
Here he somehow connects the sexual abuse of children with the lack of a marital sex life. Sorry. Any cop can tell you there is no such connection. Heck, the Dallas Cowboys had a player who molested a little girl while he was married to Joey Heatherton - one of the hottest TV babes of the go-go era.
One of Dr. Glazov's many lies.
Celibacy is not a dogmatic *mandate* of Catholicism. It is a *disciplinary practice* which can change. The Orthodox have always had a tradition of married priests, which goes back to the very beginnings of Christianity itself. In many Protestant denominations, a man *must* be married before he is called by the church's board of elders to be a minister.
Regarding pedophilia, there are two major kinds of pedophilia. There is the kind which is committed by married men against little girls. This type of pedophilia is NOT the most common. The other type, MORE common, is committed by *unmarried* men against boys. A subset of this group preys on boys that are older, i.e. teenagers. A largely-married priesthood combined with better screening for homosexual pedophilia would reduce the numbers of these men in the Catholic priesthood.
Western Catholics need to face the fact that the numbers of men going into the priesthood are very, very small, even when you include "conservative" orders like the Legionaries of Christ, Opus Dei, and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. In my opinion, not only should the priesthood be opened to men who are married, but married permanent deacons should be considered for ordination as priests if they want it. Also, those men who left the priesthood over marriage should be invited to return and their marriages regularized (as long as they're not married to a divorced person w/o an annulment.) This would provide a large jump in the number of active priests in the West.
The best way to challenge something is to make a broad statement that is totally unsupported by any facts and then base your argument on that broad statement. By the time people are finished with your argument, they forget that you never supported your underlying thesis.
I am not Roman Catholic and I'm not sure the Bible mandates celibacy for the priesthood. But, considering the large number of priests and the very small number of ordained pedophiles I am sure there is no basis in the above assertion. I have never heard that the ratio of pedophile priests is higher than the ratio of pedophiles in general. But to accept this author's point, you would need to believe it was. I am sure that a pedophile priest is more newsworthy than a pedophile in general so it can seem that becoming a priest makes one a pedophile.
Of course, we're also not evaluating how many priests engage in illicit adult heterosexual activity. That's because the author has an axe to grind.
If the Catholic church needs to take action, it needs to do a better job of protecting its boys from the few priests who do fall in this manner. It also needs to provide better help to the priests who believe they are falling - to let them know they can request help without fear of reprisal and receive the full forgiveness of Jesus so they can get on with their lives.
Of course, the Church needs to make sure she believes the requirement for celibate priests comes from G-d. But if she is sure, then she needs to stand by what G-d has said no matter what idiots like this author believe.
Shalom.
And, of course, the answer to her question is that they can't. Sure they can quote the Bible. They can tell you how the Church interprets the passage, how they themselves interpret the passage. But good advice is a sharing of experience and as long as clerical celibacy is the rule Catholic clerics will not be able to give good advice on most of the problems people face.
And, of course, the answer to her question is that they can't. Sure they can quote the Bible. They can tell you how the Church interprets the passage, how they themselves interpret the passage. But good advice is a sharing of experience and as long as clerical celibacy is the rule Catholic clerics will not be able to give good advice on most of the problems people face.
Oh yeah, let's follow what this guy has to say. Commie bastard.
I do clerical work in addition to my job as a court reporter.
Nobody told me about enforced celibacy. Who's going to come and arrest me, the Spanish Inquisition?
8')