[discostu]

What a terrible arguement for a good position. Clerical celibacy should go but not for any reason that has anything to do with child molestation. I was born in a family that was leaving the Catholic church, and clerical celibacy was one of the reasons, as my mom regularly put it: how can someone who avoids the bond of romantic love, someone that has never and will never enter into the relationship of marriage, someone that will never rear children, how can this person give any useful advice to his parishioners on the problems that are most common in their life (ie problems with the marriage and kids)?

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.

[SoothingDave]

I was born in a family that was leaving the Catholic church, and clerical celibacy was one of the reasons, as my mom regularly put it: how can someone who avoids the bond of romantic love, someone that has never and will never enter into the relationship of marriage, someone that will never rear children, how can this person give any useful advice to his parishioners on the problems that are most common in their life (ie problems with the marriage and kids)?

Why did your family really leave the Church?

The idea that only a married man with kids can give Christian advice is the exact type of thinking that leads women to believe that only a woman can act as a therepist to women, blacks to believe that only a black can represent blacks in Congress, etc.

It is repugnant to the idea that we are all formed in the image of God.

SD

[conservonator]

I was born in a family that was leaving the Catholic church, and clerical celibacy was one of the reasons, as my mom regularly put it: how can someone who avoids the bond of romantic love, someone that has never and will never enter into the relationship of marriage, someone that will never rear children, how can this person give any useful advice to his parishioners on the problems that are most common in their life (ie problems with the marriage and kids)?

Some of the worst advice I have ever received regarding marriage and children came from married people with children.

This type of "logic" leads to the belief that only congress critters that share your gender and ethnicity can effectively represent you. Silly

[Rushian]

Makes one wonder how the celibate, Jesus Christ, could have ever given good advice concerning marital problems!