Guys I'm upset: My cousin pastor wrote a HARSH piece on the Catholic Church (sex abuse)

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QwertyGirl said:
I think you completely misunderstood my assertion. It isn’t a man/ woman thing. It is a segregation thing, with one group holding far too much power. In this instance, it happens to be that the segregation is between men and women. I think the same issue would arise if it was racial segregation, or segregation based on nationality, or wealth, or any other thing. When one identifiable group of people in a religious institution holds all the power, the corrupt ones are going to believe that gives them permission to abuse the power. It is just how it is. In fact, it is that way in most instituitions, religious or not. My suggestion, if I were queen of the world, would be to develop a system of checks and balances within the Church. That is what will aid in keeping the corruption at least in check. But to have a system of Checks and balances, it means power needs to be equally distributed, and that is the part that is currently missing.

Look, I get that you don’t agree with me and that is fine. Agreeing and understanding are two different things. The previous posts I read here made me feel like there are many who honestly don’t understand. Therefore, I posted. I really don’t care to argue or debate the issue though. What I think really doesn’t matter unless the person on the receiving end is interested, as opposed to just defending their own beleif.
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But you fail to ask the question, has Christ given us the authority to change a sacrament? He hasn’t. Also you simply have not grasped what the priestly office is. While I commend you for trying to find an answer to the scandal, I still must abide by the truth that there are reasons for a male only priesthood, and I must say it is not out of misogyny. Men and women are two complementary beings, this is no dispute. Both are different and both carry out duties that the other can’t or shouldn’t.

What I have not seen in your posts is the understanding of the priesthood, and while many things in this day and age are redefined and changed in the name of progress, some things are not supposed to be. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is included in this (FROM CATHOLIC ANSWERS):

The Church has in her tradition abbesses, theologians, doctors of the Church, and teachers aplenty in skirts and habits. The question revolves not around pastors and preachers but around the priestly office. Anybody can do pastoral, teaching, preaching, or administrative work. But that is not the essence of the priesthood. The essence of the priestly office is celebration of Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass.

cont’d
 
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And that is why all such arguments are not addressing the issue. The issue is the nature of the sacrament. What is a sacrament? It is a thing that not only does what it symbolizes but symbolizes what it does. In baptism the obvious symbol of cleansing, drowning, and new life is water, not wine. And so wine, for all its admirable qualities, is not the right “matter” for the sacrament of baptism.

Though its symbolism was determined by Jesus’ culture, the wine in the Holy Eucharist-the blood of the crushed fruit-is an obvious symbol to signify the blood of Christ, who was crushed for our iniquities. Like the blood of Christ, wine invigorates, inebriates, and reminds us of the tang of death and new life. Here again, water, despite being the right matter for baptism and not in the least inferior to wine, is the wrong matter for the sacrament of the Eucharist. In short, certain things are natural signifiers. It’s not a question of equality but of fittingness.

Now, Christ is, as he himself teaches, the Bridegroom to the Church’s Bride in the great eschatological marriage feast of the Kingdom (Matthew 25:1-13). Gender has, in Christ’s teaching, a real meaning and is not simply an accident of nature. And he ought to know, since he designed the human person and made it a participant in the mystery of male and femaleness. And so every Mass is a local marriage feast of the Lamb whereby we enter into the self-sacrificial love of that cosmic Bridegroom for his Bride.

And that brings us back to the question of symbols. For as with water in baptism and wine in Eucharist, it is not that a man is superior to a woman in being “matter” for the priesthood. It is that man is a fitting symbol of the Bridegroom and woman is not. The priest is an alter Christus -another Christ-to the Bride in the mystery of the Mass. He does not primarily “administrate” or preach or pastor. He signifies.

Ordination, then, is not a right. It’s a gift. It’s a sacrament, like all sacraments, that does what it symbolizes and symbolizes what it does. Symbols therefore matter-particularly those that Christ himself has instituted-and the Church has no power to alter such symbols in their fundamentals. Christ and the apostles revealed what the “matter” of ordination should be just as they revealed what the matter of baptism and Eucharist should be. The Church merely obeys. That is why the Pope tells us “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

It’s out of the Church’s hands. The argument is with Christ, not the Pope.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/ordination-is-not-a-right

So you see, changing the priesthood has some theological conundrums that are not easy to resolve. To change the priesthood would be like changing the understanding of the Holy Mass. We cannot change what we never had the authority to change, and so that is why we must find different answers to the scandal
 
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AlNg said:
I think it is better to follow the example of Jesus who chose a married man to be the first Pope and bishop. After all, He was the Divine Son of God.
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As opposed to Scripture inspired by that same Gos that explicitly says they should not be married? How do you know that St. Peter’s wife was still alive when he became a bishop?
 
Jezra said:
What you are not seeing is that the secular world is increasingly moral and ethical. The secular world gave us human rights laws. The Church did not. Laws to protect from slavery and racism were passed by secular governments, not the Church. Laws to protect from discrimination on the basis of gender, disability, sexual orientation, religious belief and ethnicity are not the work of the Church, but the secular world.
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Historically untrue. The catholic and orthodox churches held the idea that all human´s souls are equal for centuries. In the 1800s, this was a reason to speak against slavery, which is a huge difference to some protestant views.
Secual world is ethical? I just moved into a county in germany were religions was banned 35 years ago (former socialistic). I can tell you, it´s not only about the politics, it´s the lack of religion leading people here to act absolutely immoral. I thought differently years ago, I changed when I made those experiences. Be careful with such ideas when you never truly experienced such countries, like me before.
If you have some time, I can only say, read Alexander Schmemann´s Work (in english, I think “Oh Death, where is thy sting?”). He explaines in such an intelligent way the difference between the worth of a human life in the secular systems versus the faith - in short, christianity cares for the person, but secular systems care for *the masses" and are therefor easyier failable for dehumanization in the name of a “greater good”.
 
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I am not Catholic so I don’t believe in the concept of Catholic sacraments as you do. I fully understand what the church teaches, I just don’t agree with it. My viewpoint here I is the same for any religious organization, not just the Catholic Church.
 
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QwertyGirl said:
I am not Catholic so I don’t believe in the concept of Catholic sacraments as you do. I fully understand what the church teaches, I just don’t agree with it. My viewpoint here I is the same for any religious organization, not just the Catholic Church.
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Well then I guess there will be no agreement, except that these scandals need to be dealt with and that there needs to be greater accountability in the Church hierarchy
 
Perhaps an unlikely ally, but THIS:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

In other words, monsters are monsters, and will be so whether the sexual violence is inflicted on children or women or other men.
 
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Honestly the marriage thing just isn’t why the abuse happened and isn’t some magic cure.

Eastern rite priests can marry prior to ordination. No big deal.

I just, personally, this shifting the focus to married clergy is making a false solution to a real problem.
 
somecanadian said:
I just, personally, this shifting the focus to married clergy is making a false solution to a real problem.
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My opinion is that maybe, the priesthood attracted the wrong men in the past. Married priests in the western latin catholic rite doesn´t make an abuser a saint, but maybe it breaks the “safer space” (It seems to me that as such some priests see the priesthood) for the usual candidate - which is maybe good.
 
The Church didn’t exist prior to Peter. It’s not like Jesus had a large group of celibate men to choose from. Besides, no one is saying that celibacy is intrinsic to the priesthood. But it’s also not the reason for sexual molestation.
 
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Ridiculous. Sexual abuse happens withing marriage and families all the time.

The only way your theory would work out, if true, is if marriage was REQUIRED, which will never happen, in the first place.
 
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I can name countless married men who have abused children.

I’m related to them.
 
AlNg said:
Jesus chose someone who had not been celibate for the first Pope of the Catholic Church. What is wrong with following the example of the Son of God?
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How about his priests and bishops take it a step farther and take after the example of the man whom they are supposed to act in the person of and remain unmarried like He was? 😜

Celibacy has never been a requirement for the validity of the Sacramental priesthood. You’ll have no argument from me on that. And there are perfectly good married priests. But requiring all priests be married has no basis in Church Tradition nor Scripture, and it will not answer the overall problem of abuse.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
Ridiculous. Sexual abuse happens withing marriage and families all the time
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I think we have to see this more nuanced.
In which types of priesthood happens abuse more often? - in those without the ability to marry. In which families happens abuse more often? (insert reason here). You see what I mean - it´s not that priesthood without marriage is the same as being at risk for child abuse. But in this circumstances we seem to have a really bad correlation.
 
Most priests are celibate, no?

And also, coudn’t it be that the monsters who perpetrate such gross crimes are, in fact, not likely to have healthy sexual lives, in the first place? E.g., marriage may not even be on their minds!
 
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I never said such. But ignoring certain risk factors can´t be the solution.
 
Then what’s the solution? If marriage is an option, so will celibacy still be an option. You can’t get rid of that alleged “risk factor” unless you make EVERY priest married.

In other words, you may have a larger pool of priests coming in — more married priests. But who is to stop the monsters who also happen to be celibate?

And AGAIN, abuse happens all the time in married life, including married clergy. See the various link re: Protestant clergy.
 
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Good question. DO you propose to ban celibacy? Because… I mean, celibate people are apparently more likely to abuse children… according to your logic.
 
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