The Good Catholic's Response to Bad Priests

Bucks County Courier Times ^ | 4/3/02 | Claudio R. Salvucci

[Antoninus]

Good column posted for your comment.

[Mercat]

Amen

[Aliska]

It seems to me that during the upheaval after Vatican II, the church may have somewhat welcomed homosexual priests for a reason I haven't seen discussed. Nobody really understands homosexuality, and perhaps the church leaders thought that homosexual priests would be chaste and here comes the kicker:

There was a mass exodus of priests after Vatican II to marry. After going to all the expense of educating and training them, they left, as did lots of nuns.

Perhaps the church erroneously thought that homosexual priests wouldn't cause the scandals that heterosexual priests got themselves into with women.

I would rather have maintained the ideal of celibacy but now I have come to believe that allowing more married priests would increase the pool of worthy men from which to choose.

[Antoninus]

Ping...

[wideawake]

Great article. The analogy is perfect.

[Antoninus]

I would rather have maintained the ideal of celibacy but now I have come to believe that allowing more married priests would increase the pool of worthy men from which to choose.

Indeed it would. It would also create a class of part-time priests, rather than the multitude of good, honorable men we have today who have given their whole lives to Christ. A celibate priest never has to choose between going out at 3 AM to adminster last rights to a dying parishoner, or staying home to care for his sick child.

Personally, I pray that the Church retains the discipline of celibate priests, even if it meant that we are able to recruit fewer of them in our materialist culture. Once the homosexuals are rooted out, there will be a revival. Count on it.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Such common sense. Excellent. Why is this common sense lacking in our episcopacy?

[Jim Noble]

>>Perhaps the church erroneously thought that homosexual priests wouldn't cause the scandals that heterosexual priests got themselves into with women<<

I think this is true in part.

I think there was tremendous underdiscernment of the effects on the priesthood of allowing ten thousand heterosexuals to be forcibly separated in only a few years. This did two things-it greatly increased the proportion of gay priests as a fraction of the whole, and, it decreased the inhibitory effect on them of living and working with a substantial number of straight men.

But this begs the question of why the hierarchy reacted in this way. Many married priests tell the story that they were on the street, homeless and jobless, within 24 hours of announcing their situation.

This is quite a contrast to the situation of the gay child abusers.

Why do the bishops act as if the sin of heterosexual marriage by a priest is so uniquely horrible? I think it's because they truly feel sickened and horrified when a priest marries a woman.

Why they don't feel this way about gay child abusers, I don't know.

[Judith Anne]

I most certainly pray for all the good priests who must share the cross of infamy with the pedophile sham priests, I will pray for the Church, I will pray for the innocent victims of the homosexual mafia within the Church, and I will pray for ordinary Catholics that their faith will remain strong.

But I cannot bring myself to pray for any predator hiding like a wolf in shepherd's clothing. God will deal with those, and I hope the civil authorities do, too.

[Campion]

He didn't just hit the baseball out of the ballpark ... it's now in orbit and someone should tell NORAD.

[sinkspur]

A celibate priest never has to choose between going out at 3 AM to adminster last rights to a dying parishoner, or staying home to care for his sick child.

If the priest is married, his wife can care for the child.

This dilemma doesn't seem to be a problem for the married doctors I know.

We have married priests in the Church today: Anglican converts, three of whom are pastors of very large parishes in Ft. Worth.

That's far from "part-time."

[sinkspur]

Why do the bishops act as if the sin of heterosexual marriage by a priest is so uniquely horrible? I think it's because they truly feel sickened and horrified when a priest marries a woman.

You haven't heard the worst of it.

In two dioceses I know of, bishops are taking back men who left the priesthood to marry outside the Church (technically, "living in sin" their entire marriages), have divorced their wives, and have asked to come back.

If a priest was laicized, however, he can never come back to the ministry.

This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard of, yet it is happening.

[Aliska]

It does seem that they (priests who left to marry) were booted with no "severance pay". Those pedophile priests and homosexually abusing priests will remain on the payroll until their dying day!

There are many things about the church's prioritizing sins I just don't understand, frankly.

There was a pretty lady in my RCIA class. She was there to try to come to grips with her divorce. She had been married to a priest. He went back to being a priest without her.

Now that isn't so uncommon and at the time I thought his first duty was probably to the church. Years later I am having slightly different thoughts. HE NEVER TOLD HER HE HAD BEEN A PRIEST. That was deceitful and grossly unfair. Uh oh. I'm being grossly unfair as I only heard her side of the story.

She did go on to marry someone else and probably never became catholic.

I don't know if your perception about the churchmen being more threatened by men who wish to marry females is greater than their fear of the havoc that homosexuals can cause. Why do they insist on protecting these priests even after they are removed from parishes? It really sends the wrong message, to me at least. Marry a woman and start from scratch. Cause trouble by abusing parishioners and you get retirement pay for the rest of your life. What's wrong with this picture?

All I know is that I get more upset about certain things that the church seems to gloss over sometimes. It all depends on one's vantage point I suppose.

[Aliska]

I do hope you are right. Rooting out so many is going to cause terrific upheaval.

[OxfordMovement]

AMEN. Bump.

[Aliska]

I don't think I'm alone in thinking of this. I know I'm not because some catholic women have expressed it to me as well. Many priests do not like women; it's been ingrained for centuries. A respected catholic professional woman thinks the pope doesn't like women. She really likes him though. Go figure.

[Aliska]

One more general comment. Most of the cases of alleged and real abuse occurred 20 and 30 years ago. I haven't heard about this happening lately, at least nowhere near the percentage that happened in the past.

[ThomasMore]

Why do an estimated 80-90 percent of the victims of these molestations happen to be teen-age boys? True pedophiles tend to prey on pre-pubescent members of the opposite sex - not same-sex adolescents, which characterizes a different disorder called ephebophilia.

I've been preaching this all along. But you won't see the media touch this. When this finally hits the mainstream, many eyes will be opened and even the Boy Scouts will be exonerated. This whole issue is about homosexuality.

BTW, when statistically looking at the perpetrators and not the victims (pedophiles typically have more victims, i.e. Goeghan with 130) one sees that the percentage of ephebophiles and pedophiles is 98% ephebophiles compared to 2% pedophiles.

[Notwithstanding]

This is a HUGE problem in the US armed services ever since women were placed into the same units as men - and then ever since being a homosexual soldier was no longer verboten.

It makes no sense. (Same with coed dorm rooms on campus). Why on earth would we create such huge sexual temptation for people by placing them in such close quarters 24 hours a day?

[SuziQ]

A respected catholic professional woman thinks the pope doesn't like women. She really likes him though. Go figure.

Has this friend of yours ever read anything written by the Pope? I've seen nothing in his writings to suggest that he doesn't like women. In my opinion, he not only likes women he RESPECTS us as well!