Yet another Catholic priest in trouble

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OK, a Catholic priest found with illegal porn in his possession. I wish I could say that such things are out of the ordinary. Sadly, according to this columnist, 1 in 4 priests "need professional help with sexual problems."

I believe that the Catholic Church has accomplished a helluva lot of good in the world. I'm also aware of the historical bad, no need to remind me. But as of right now, they seriously seem, as an institution, to have their collective heads up their collective anuses. It does not appear that they are doing anything differently in terms of actually addressing the damn problem and dealing with those of their number who are raging perverts. When the hell are they gonna wake up and smell the coffee?

 

If all of that is true, this guy is your regular sicko. What a dirtbag. Ewww!

 

Actually, I think the problem is that they have their heads up the anuses of boys. And I'm not talking about the heads on their shoulders.

 

Thanks for that Splunge, I just got a visual in my head(the one on my shoulders!) and almost threw up. Come to think of it, you cause that alot. Especially in your profile!

 

Being Jewish I have no experience with priests, but being from MA I'm surrounded by Catholics. Whenever this issue comes up the one thing that they all say is that the priesthood became a refuge for gay men who were too afraid to come out of the closet. None of them are every surprised when a priest is found guilty of sex crimes, and they all would never let their kids be alone with priests.

I know that the Church moves very slowly, but at some point they are going to have to let preists marry and even allow females to be priests. It may be the only way they can clean up their image. Why is it that they don't allow priests to marry and/or women? It appears that many other Christian relgions do allow this so I'm kind of doubting it is in the bible (excuse my ignorance on the subject)?

 

There's a minor disconnect in this line of reasoning. It is true that a much larger percentage of priests are gay than the general population, but pedophilia is neither caused by nor related to homosexuality. A full 50% of priests that abuse children were themselves abused as children, so that explains part of the problem. Another possibility is that devout sexual deviants of all stripes are drawn to the cloth in an attempt to put their sexual urges behind them. It could also be the "prison effect" -- that ugly side effect of severe sexual repression where opportunity and availability becomes the driving factor behind sexual desire.

You are right in asserting that nothing in the bible flatly bans married clergy. Indeed, the early Church allowed it. There are, however, several passages and letters that strongly encourage celibacy, arguing that it is in every way superior to marriage, so current catholic doctrine doesn't just come out of left field.

 

Actually, as a Catholic let me add a few points to this.

As someone already pointed out gay isn't pedophile (I could just point to this as some who knew/knows some gay people).

It is true there used to be married priests (there are even a few around today, I believe that were grandfathered in when they became married priests in a different branch of Christianity and then converted). One of the reasons a priest I spoke to (right or wrong) gave as to why priests weren't married anymore was that priests are supposed to be putting the (parish) community first (family can be a big distraction). Moreover there were concerns centuries ago that priests could take advantage of their religious position to get people to give wealth (in the form of land, wealth, and whatever) to said priests' children who then would have children of their own who would become priests as well and form a new type of aristocracy as the situation continued. This would open up the question over if donations going to the Church were really headed there or to a particular family (not that ranking people by bloodline didn't happen all over the place in Europe for a long time).

I would not call gay people deviant.


I would be quite surprised if 1 in 4 priests was a pedophile-that strikes me as high.

One real aspect it does relate to is that some pedophiles are likely to be attracted to the job of being a priest. It can create opportunities for them to take improper advantage of like how some bullies are attracted to joining a police force.


By the way I'm waiting for the day there are married gay priests just so you know my POV.

 

Well, there is something about not letting women rule over or teach men. That was probably just written to that one church, though, as it's justification is to avoid a problem that only that church was having. Beyond that, though, it was actually required that the elders of the early church be married. Maybe for good reason.

Actually, I only know of one such passage, by Paul, and he specifically says that it is his opinion, and not a rule from God.

The problem with this idea is that it was already happening all over the place. Sure, it didn't go to the priest's children, just to the Chruch and, as a result, the Chruch at times achieved more power than any king.

Well:

Now those two were just some quick statistics I pulled up from a google search, and I don't know how reliable either was, but it does seem to indicate that the statistics are fairly similar between priest pedophiles and non-priest pedophiles.

 

Read Lewis' "The Monk." While it may be fiction, it is a damn good book and covers this - basically, the super sexually repressed are extremely dangerous when it comes to sex because once they get a taste of it (or even just a hint of it), all hell breaks loose (no pun intended to anyone who has read it).