Free Republic

1. Allowing priests to marry would end pedophilia. It is completely untrue that celibate priests are more likely to be pedophiles than any other group of men, married or not. Pedophilia affects only 0.3 percent of the population of Catholic clergy, and sexual abusers in general account for less than 2 percent of Catholic priests. These figures are comparable to rates among married men, as non-Catholic scholar Philip Jenkins points out in his book Pedophiles and Priests. Other Protestant denominations have admitted to having similar problems among their own married clergy, so clearly the problem is not with celibacy. 2....

The current battles over clerical celibacy are nothing new. When mandatory celibacy was first universally imposed on the clergy a millennium ago, clergy and laity alike broke into riotous rebellion for more than two generations, and a good number of bishops and priests flouted these laws for several generations more. When the Protestant Reformation broke out half a millennium ago, clerical celibacy and marriage were among the most bitter grievances over which the Western Church ultimately splintered. Today, the exposures of child abuse by some enterprising Catholic priests has rejoined these ancient battles within Catholicism and between Catholics and Protestants...

ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS AND COMPLEMENTARY NORMS VATICAN CITY, 9 NOV 2009 (VIS) - The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith today published the Apostolic Constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus", which provides for personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, and some Complementary Norms for the same Apostolic Constitution. Both documents are dated 4 November, feast of St. Charles Borromeo, and are signed by Cardinal William Joseph Levada and Archbishop Luis F. Ladaria S.J., respectively prefect and secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. An English-language communique released by the congregation recalls how on 20...

The Vatican today held the line on priestly celibacy as it published the document which opens the door for hundreds of thousands of disaffected Anglicans to become Roman Catholics. Pope Benedict XVI has made it as easy as possible for traditional and “continuing” Anglicans to convert to Catholicism while retaining key elements of their ecclesiastical heritage, observers commented. The Apostolic Constitution even allows for married Anglican bishops to be granted the status of retired Catholic bishops, to become members of the local Catholic bishops’ conference and to be granted permission to use the “insignia” of episcopal office, such as the...

As reported in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Archbishop Michael Sheehan ordained three priests at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi here in Santa Fe yesterday, and one of the three was Jeffrey Whorton, a married father of five.