Posted on 04/12/2002 1:40:46 PM PDT by aristeides
THE news from America is not good. In my day, there was none of that sort of malarky. At school (in England), the priests who taught me were good and holy men who did not, as a rule, indecently assault the boys.
The only incident I can recall that might now be classed as paedophilia involved a friend who was given one-on-one counselling about masturbation by his housemaster. My friend was told to take down his pyjama trousers. There was no "inappropriate touching", at least by hand, but there was a bit of close and apparently expert scrutiny and . . . But that's enough of that. We thought it was a bit of a lark.
What is happening now, in America, is not a lark. The sex scandal rocking and roiling the Roman Catholic Church there is serious. Even if, as I suspect, many of the weeping "victims" of pervert priests are on the make, there is still compelling evidence that very bad things indeed have been going on, and are still going on.
The scandal stretches back 30 years and more. It involves allegations against as many as 2,000 priests - among them the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles - and has cost the Church about $1 billion. On Thursday in Holy Week, the Pope felt compelled to denounce paedophilia in priests as the work of the Devil.
It's not just paedophilia, either. There is a flourishing gay culture among Catholic priests in the United States. There have always been homosexual priests, of course, many of them very good men. What is new is that such priests now claim the right to indulge their preferences. According to an estimate from within the Society of Jesus, roughly half the American Jesuits under 50 are homosexual, and most of these are sexually active.
In California, the Jesuits have an official website that defies parody. Until recently, it was displaying pictures of novices cuddling one another in Mardi Gras costumes. The pictures carried captions such as "Pretty Boy and Jabba the Slut" and "Lambada, anyone?". These images were not found in some spotty novice's desk drawer, note, but were intended to place the Jesuits in a good light before the 700 million people around the world with internet access.
There is a very serious problem in the Catholic Church, but let's be clear what the problem is not. It is not, as so many believe, the rule of celibacy. ("I mean, if they was allowed to get married, they wouldn't be rogering them choirboys, would they?" The same sort of reasoning, in posher language, can be found in broadsheet newspapers.) If you want proof that celibacy is not the cause of child molestation or promiscuous homosexuality, look at the Church of England, or visit your nearest internet paedophile circle. The truth is that celibacy is the only hope that paedophiles - and their potential victims - have.
The real problem is the legacy of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It is no coincidence, as the Marxists say, that the revolutionary "spirit" of Vatican II began to kick in at about the time much of the sexual abuse began.
By opening itself up to the world - the aim of Vatican II - the Church hoped to foster a renewal of spiritual life. The renewal never materialised. On the contrary, pews emptied, seminaries and schools closed, annulments soared (in America, from 338 a year in 1968 to 52,000 in 1983), nuns started reading Germaine Greer and priests left to get married (giving greater scope to the non-marrying kind).
What followed the Council was decline: moral, intellectual, cultural and spiritual. It spread far beyond the Church. By ditching its ancient Latin Mass - the Mass of Bach, Beethoven and Palestrina - in favour of a participatory vernacular service of praise and thanksgiving, Rome committed an act of vandalism just as surely as it would if it had ordered the destruction of all the great cathedrals of Europe.
As it is, huge sums of money - though perhaps not as much as has been shelled out to the victims of paedophilia - have been spent on smashing altars, ripping out communion rails and generally trashing sanctuaries to make room for the new, man-centred liturgy. It is as though Rome had been seized by a frenzied hatred of beauty. No wonder the churches are empty; no wonder the culture of the bathhouse and the internet chat room has such a secure footing in the Catholic - and for that matter the secular - world.
The Pope has stamped out some of the worst abuses, and has even allowed the old Latin (or Tridentine) rite of Mass to be celebrated publicly, if in moderation; but it is hard to forget or forgive the fraud and experimentation that attended the introduction of the new liturgy in the 1970s. There were clown Masses and bunny rabbit Masses and dancing girl Masses and rock Masses. Christ, it was embarrassing. Celebrants began to get in touch with themselves, and, as we can now see, with others. Out went repression, in came expression. Altar boys paid the price. So did a new, inclusive presence: altar girls.
A measure of the frivolity that infected the Church in the 1970s is to be found in the statement issued last month by the Bishop of Palm Beach, when he resigned after acknowledging impropriety with a 15-year-old boy in 1977. The poor fellow was reduced to trying to account for his behaviour by saying, inter alia, that he had fallen under the influence of the "sexologists" Masters and Johnson, but added that he had made "wonderful Jewish friends" and "wonderful friends in the Muslim community". He asked for prayers and "expressions of love". He suggested that those who were a bit miffed should "pray for their ability themselves to forgive".
It is no good just blaming the Yanks, however. The decline of the Church in America mirrors the decline of the Church elsewhere in the West, and indeed the decline of the West in general. The sex scandals will eventually disappear, but the rot is almost certain to continue, and perhaps grow worse when John Paul II dies. We'd better watch out.
1) All the denominations --including the RCC -- went bankrupt and disappeared;
and
2) All of our church buildings were shuttered and sold?
What do you suppose would happen? I'll tell you:
a) Those who are real Christians, who take their faith seriously, would make the effort to find those among their neighbors who are also real Christians.
b) They would select from among themselves leaders of observable spiritual maturity and giftedness.
c) These people would start meeting in little neighborhood groups for teaching, fellowship, worship, and prayer.
And on this foundation, the church would be renewed and expand as never before.
I am firmly convinced that were this to happen, it would be the greatest thing in the history of the church since Pentecost.
Replacing the Catholic church is the anwwer.
Now, now. Don't jump to the
last page or you won't enjoy the book.
Celibicy is not the cause of homosexual rape of teenage men by priests, but elimination of the celibacy requrement of priests goes a long way towards the cure.
Presently, the Catholic Church has a system in place where a young man, with homosexual desires subtly nagging at him, growing up holy (usually a former alter boy), has an opportunity to deny his tendencies, by becoming "celibate" in a sanctioned, encouraged, manner. Become a priest, and you don't have to worry about those nagging itches. All sexual urges are suppressed equally.
The urges never go away, but the future homo is in a great place to hide them. It must be a great relief, for a troubled, holy man. Feel like doing another guy? Well, nothing to worry about, you are forbidden to do anyone.
Then once in a position of incredible power, surrounded in sanctioned secrecy, among alter boys (teenage men) who worship you, alone with you, with little chance for discovery, in hidden chambers that very few are allowed entrance to, the situation is completely different. It is now a situation where you can easily let those long suppressed urges come forward, with very little risk. A situation perfectly ripe for abuse.
"Lead us not into temptation..."
This is so ripe for abuse.
Now, open the church back up for married men (like it was for 50% of the Catholic Church's existance), and what will happen? They will get a huge influx of men, drawn to God, who are also drawn to women. The overall percentage of homosexual priests will fall dramatically, and the ones that remain unmarried, and who also show no interest in women, will stick out like a sore thumb. They will be watched more carefully.
(Interview question) "Are you attracted to women?"
(Answer) "Uhhhhh....."
Biology is biology. Normal men are strongly atracted to women, and have a very "hard" time not showing it. In an institution that discourages that attraction, and makes men feel guilty for it, you will drive off normal men, and attract troubled young men with homosexual tendencies.
Let's see the study that compares the percentage of homosexual priests in the Catholic Church to the percentage of homosexual priests in the Protestan Church. It has to be out there somewhere. Let's see it.
LOL!! I haven't heard THAT one!!
As usual, you remember incorrectly. Do yourself a favor and get a little education.
Don't link me with anything, just (in 3 sentences or less) tell me.
Luke 1:28 "And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women."
Question : Prior to the fall, did Adam and Eve sin?
Since every sin dimishes grace, the Blessed Virgin Mary could not have been full of grace were she touched by sin. Her redemption was proactive, while ours, including that of your mother, is reactive. The fruit of Christ's redemption was applied to preserve Mary from sin. In contrast, for the rest of us, Christ's redemption cleanses us from sin.
That's already been tried 25,000 times.
You need to do some studying. Start with the Council of Elvira, 295-302 AD, Canons XXVII and XXXIII. When you're done let me know and I'll give you some more information to correct your ignorance. By the way, didn't those married men practice continence?
Let's see the study that compares the percentage of homosexual priests in the Catholic Church to the percentage of homosexual priests in the Protestan Church. It has to be out there somewhere. Let's see it.
Read 1) Priests and Pedophiles by Philip Jenkins
and for starters 2) Child Sexual Molestation by Protestant Clergy
By the way, those Protestants aren't bound by a vow of celibacy.
Well said! Sadly, many liberal-thinking catholics have been swept in through the doors of those "new age" church edifices, while devout catholics have left in droves, seeking shelter in the traditional mass.
As Christ once said: "I know my own and my own know me."
If you missed Matthew 19:12, 27-29 and 1 Corinthians 7:32-33, or people like Melchisedech, Elias, Paul, John the Baptist or Christ then your search wasn't very thorough. Ever hear of lex continentiae? It's been in effect for a lot longer than 1000 years. While you search your Bible again, take a look at John 21:25, 2 Thessalonians 2:14, 3:6, 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Peter 3:15-16, amongst others. Did your search show where in Scripture the Apostles are described engaging in sexual relations with their wives?
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