Celibacy: The fact and the fiction. [scandals not caused by celibacy but lack of celibacy]

National Review Online ^ | May 16, 2002 | Raymond Arroyo

[Polycarp]

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May 16, 2002, 10:10 a.m.
Celibacy
The fact and the fiction.

By Raymond Arroyo

When he met with the U.S. cardinals to formulate some response to the sexual scandals besieging the Church, the Pope, in his wisdom took the issue of clerical celibacy off the table as a cure-all. Against the strident voices of dissenters, disaffected clergy, and at least one American cardinal, His Holiness suggested that celibacy was part of the solution, not the problem. And the facts seem to bear him out.

In 1992 the Archdiocese of Chicago reviewed some 2,252 priest personnel files. They found that 40 priests — 1.8 percent had been guilty of sexual misconduct at some point in their career. Of that 40, only one was a pedophile. Another study by Penn State Professor Philip Jenkins reveals that a mere .3 percent of priests are pedophiles. Married men abuse children in far greater numbers. Anywhere from 3 to 8 percent if you believe the studies.

So statistically, children are far safer with the celibates. As the U.S. cardinals said in their report of April 24: "a link between celibacy and pedophilia cannot be scientifically maintained."

"But if only these men had a spouse, a sexual outlet, they would not need to turn to kids" goes the conventional wisdom (and the screeds regularly littering the op-ed pages). Aside from reducing women to little more than child-protection devices, there are logical holes here.

Putting aside the media fixation with the Catholic Church it is important to point out, as the Christian Science Monitor recently did, that the majority of sexual-abuse allegations in America occur in Protestant churches. There are 3,500 sex-abuse allegations a year — roughly 70 a week in Protestant churches according to the Christian Ministry Resource Survey. Remember, these are churches where married clergy and volunteers predominate.

If the objective is to stop the abuse before us, and prohibit its happening again- the Protestant statistics prove marriage is no insurance policy. Since the victims in 98 percent of the alleged Catholic abuse cases were teenage boys, allowing priests to marry (women) seems a pointless solution. There is just no correlation between the offense and the corrective. It's a little like offering the alcoholic priest the deed to a dairy and calling him cured.

If the truth be known: These scandals were not caused by celibacy. These scandals were caused by a lack of celibacy. The ancient discipline has gotten a bad rap in the chaos of the last few months. But it is so much a part of the Church's history and its goodness, to cast it away in this dark hour would be an error.

If you believe the folks on TV, celibacy was something "imposed on the priesthood" during the Middle Ages to keep the children of clerics from inheriting Church property. If I had a dime for every time I've heard this.… Actually, the real history is far more interesting, and complex.

To begin with, Christ himself was a celibate so it is no surprise that the early Church and the Scripture itself salutes and commends the practice. In Matthew's Gospel, Christ lauds those who "make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." In his first letter to the Corinthians St. Paul, another celibate, writes: "the unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord....but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided."

From the time of Christ forward celibacy was the Catholic norm for priests — married clergy were merely tolerated. Certainly by the 4th century there is little doubt where the Church stood on the matter. In 385, Pope Siricius issued the first papal decree on priestly celibacy. Five years later, the Council of Carthage announced: "Previous councils have decreed that bishops, priests, and deacons must be continent and perfectly chaste, as becomes ministers of God...as the Apostles taught." By the Council of Toledo in 633, a bishop's permission was needed for a priest to marry. Finally in 1139, Pope Gregory VII declared celibacy mandatory for all priests; formalizing in law what was already the general practice for centuries.

And the canard that protecting Church land rights drove the papacy to the discipline of celibacy just isn't true. But there is a spiritual explanation. Starting in the third century married priests were required to abstain from sex the night before offering Mass. The notion being: Separate yourselves from the worldly and focus on the transcendent. As the demand for the sacraments increased, these men were abstaining from sex all the time. Thus, like all things in the Church, a practice rooted in tradition evolved over time and eventually was codified into law.

At a time when the world is so transfixed by the deviant, where all mysteries are laid bare, these celibate men and women are a contradiction: a people set apart, people who have saved the most precious part of themselves for God alone. The world needs that example and purity today more than ever.

In the final analysis we are right to condemn, and bring to justice those non-celibate clergymen guilty of these heinous crimes, but let us not strike out against those who faithfully observe their vows to God and continue to walk steadily down this holy and well-trodden path of sacrifice.

— Raymond Arroyo is news director and host of The World Over on EWTN, the world's largest religious network. He writes from New Orleans.

	http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-arroyo051602.asp

[weikel]

Well I don't consider the history channel part of "the liberal media" its always seemed pretty accurate to me. Celibacy was not always a church rule that I do know for sure.

[Conservative til I die]

Submit to the will of the Pope. The unmarried clergy is here to stay for a long while.

[SuziQ]

I do wish people would stop confusing celibacy with chastity, though. The vow of celibacy is a vow never to formally marry. The vow of chastity is the vow to behave themselves

Which I believe is the reason for the Pope's recent statement on preparing men for the priesthood and men and women for the religious life. He re-states the Church's teachings on celibacy, stressing chastity. In the Church's mind, the two are synonymous, and anyone who tries to separate the two in order to bypass the teaching is trying to justify sinful behavior.

[Conservative til I die]

Hey look, it's another droid. I love how the things that "all" Catholics or Catholic clergy do, "never ever ever ever ever" happen in the Protestant world!

You sure you wanna make that bet, skippy? I'll get you a warm wet rag to help you wipe the coming egg off your face.

[Conservative til I die]

It's not about the facts for him. His faith is founded on anti-Catholicism. Without it, there's no rock to stand on. Thus the myths must be perpetuated.

[Conservative til I die]

Look, I know it's hard to look back on history as it happens, since we are hundreds of years removed and all we have is a snapshot: a Council here, a declaration there, a book over there. In reality, when the Church made declarations on doctrine and discipline, it wasn't like one day they made it up and said "This is the law now." In 99.9% of the cases, these declarations were a mere codification of beliefs long held. Usually the declaration was made due to a challenge to that long held doctrine by a heretic, or in response to some sort of situation. An example might be the codification of the Trinitarian doctrine. This was something always held by Christians, but only became an issue when the Arians and many other heretic groups came along with every cockamamie idea about God and His Triune Nature.

A better example used by Protestants is that the Catholics "added" the OT "Apocrypha" to the Bible in 1546. No, the Church always considered those books Canon - it was self-evident and not in need of some written clarification. It wasn't until the heretical Martin Luther came along and started ripping books out of the Bible that he personally didn't like, that the Church was forced to say "This is what the Bible is, and that's final. Now you know for sure, and if you disagree, you're in deep doo doo."

[weikel]

it wasn't like one day they made it up and said "This is the law now."

Don't popes do that all the time?

[Conservative til I die]

No. The Proddies are the ones that make up doctrine as they go along. Popes only clarify and reinforce the faith of the Church Fathers, the Apostles, and Christ HImself.

[weikel]

Proddies?

[NYer]

"make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."

There's a thought. Perhaps this is the treatment needed for the pedophile priests. Turn them into "eunuchs". Is it too late to propose this as an addendum to the charter drafted by the bishops in Dallas?

[Conservative til I die]

Proddies = Protestants (Pro-test-TANTS), n.; the ones Jesus talked about in the Bible, the true Christians, the non-Papists, non-Romish.

[patent]

I have never heard of a single case in a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc. church of a pastor raping little tiny helpless six year old boys!!! NEVER!!!!

Guess again.

From the back cover:

Of that night in 1983, when she first met Brother Tony, Macalynn Embert recalled: “I was impressed with the fact that he didn’t know me at all and yet he was able to minister over me in the way that he did.”
Taking her sons with her, Macalynn drove to the West Palm Beach Civic Center to attend another of Brother Tony’s revivals. Afterward she proudly marched Jason, age ten, and Kenny, fourteen, up to meet this charismatic preacher. “After the service,” Macalynn said, “Jason walked up to where Tony was sitting playing the piano and the very first thing Tony did was to stop playing and ask Jason to turn around for him just like a model. Then he smiled at Jason and put his arm around him and asked, ‘Where’s your daddy?’ Jason told him that he didn’t have one and at that Tony just lit up like a Christmas tree.

”From that time on, my relationship with Tony started growing and Jason and Kenny’s relationships with him started growing, too. Before the summer was over he took the boys by themselves for two weeks over at Pastor Kelly’s place out of town.”

Once there Brother Tony wasted no time in slickly ingratiating himself with his two young guests. He required both to sleep with him in the same bed and during the night pulled down Jason’s underpants. Although confused by this, Jason lay still and said nothing. “He thought I was sleeping,” Jason said, “’cause the next morning he asked me was I awake and I said , no.”

Tony Leyva had 100s and 100s of victims himself, and nearly a thousand victims in his ring. See Brother Tony’s Boys, by Mike Echols.

You are seriously deluded if you think only Catholics have this problem. There is no Catholic out there that even comes close to Brother Tony.

patent  +AMDG

[Dajjal]

Conservative til I die: "But the fact is, even accepting your literal definition, a celibate Catholic is by default a chaste Catholic."
I agree 100%.

SuziQ: "Which I believe is the reason for the Pope's recent statement on preparing men for the priesthood and men and women for the religious life. He re-states the Church's teachings on celibacy, stressing chastity. In the Church's mind, the two are synonymous."
I agree 100%.

"Anyone who tries to separate the two in order to bypass the teaching is trying to justify sinful behavior.
I agree 100%. They are not separate, just distinct. Avowed celibacy implies total chastity of the unmarried state.

My own thought is that precision of language is a means of attacking the Modernists' arguments. Maryz and Smedleybutler are correct that common-usage English equates the two terms.

Pray to St. Peter Damian for reform.

[sinkspur]

Submit to the will of the Pope. The unmarried clergy is here to stay for a long while.

Submit to the will of the Pope? On a non-doctrinal matter?

Catholics are free to dissent on incidentals, and celibacy is an incidental.

They are also free to dissent on issues like capital punishment, which are not matters of the ordinary or extraordinary magisterium.

There is a married clergy: married deacons and the Anglican dispensation. And, there will be more.

[Conservative til I die]

There's a difference between disagreement and submission. You're free to disagree with the Pope about the matter, but as the Vicar of Christ, you and I and every other Catholic have to recognize that the Pope's word on the matter is final, until it changes. Try to go and get ordained as a married man, outside of the few exceptions (Eastern Church, Lutheran and Anglican converts), and you'll see what I mean.

This obedience, while it disgusts the Protestants, is what makes our Church so great. We accept the Pope's word on certain things as final. That's why there s 1 billion+ of us in our denomination, and another half-billion or so spread across thousands of denominations of Protestants, from the Anglicans and Lutherans to the Children of God, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christain Scientists.

[Salvation]

The vow of celibacy is a vow never to formally marry. The vow of chastity is the vow to behave themselves

Great clarification.

[Salvation]

You are referring to the Bible only. What about the long list of essays, letters, etc. (referenced above) and oral tradition in the Church? Are you ignoring them?

Does not the book, Acts of the Apostles, talk about Peter at the First Coucil of Jerusalem? What about that?

[Salvation]

Thanks for those insurance references. They usually do their homework and their findings are usually valid. (Yes, I know I qualified, here, but I do not work in the unsurance industry.)

[Salvation]

Which I believe is the reason for the Pope's recent statement on preparing men for the priesthood and men and women for the religious life. He re-states the Church's teachings on celibacy, stressing chastity. In the Church's mind, the two are synonymous, and anyone who tries to separate the two in order to bypass the teaching is trying to justify sinful behavior.

Let us pray that the visits to the seminaries will be unannounced (I doubt it.) and that seminarians will tell the truth when questionsed by the team the Pope is sending out.

[Salvation]

His faith is founded on anti-Catholicism.

My son has traveled through many churches and is on his way back to the RC Church -- now in an Anglican Church -- and this morning her asked me: Do any of your sermons given by priests talk about Protestants -- downgrading them?

I was astounded by his question, but preaching Anti-Catholicism must be quite common in some Protestant churches.

(I am naive here? Or does anyone wish to comment if they have experienced this inside a Protestant Church?)