How do I defend Celibacy?

[HabemusFrancis]

Ok. I have gotten into some debates with friends about celibacy and sex abuse. My secular humanist friends claim sex abuse in RCC was largely caused by celibacy and there would be significantly less of it, and more prompt exposure and reporting of it, if rule were done away with.

I countered that by saying most Catholic abuses cases are decades old, while pedophilia/sex abuse is a fairly common and well investigated crime by officers today.The majority of abusers are married men ( I think?) and even more importantly, pretty much all pedophiles arrested this year were men who took no vows of celibacy, and were not "sexually repressed " in any way. I work for a foster care advocacy center, and pretty much all the children I hear we represent who suffered physical/sexual abuse, were done so by famil/family friends, but not priests .

Yet part of me has doubts that celibacy did not cause any of this. In some big U.S cities, such as Los Angeles and Boston, the pedophiles composed 10% of the priesthood. There seems to have been rife sex abuse of children by many monks in Australia and Ireland, so much so that Irish Christian Brothers ( a once prominent and famous order of educational monks) is now pretty much extinct. I have even heard of cases of orders of monks funding the defense of their cofreres even after they have been indicted and sentenced for abuse. Is there any validity to my doubts/thoughts or is it just silliness?

Not even related to abuse, but why not let priests marry and date like everyone else? What is it to the hierarchy really if a priest just wants a girlfriend or a wife? Why must that be not allowed? I am curious…

 

[Rolltide]

Here is a brief history of celibacy within the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Remember that although the Orthodox Church permits married priests, it also had a large number of celibate priests and monks as well.

Married clergy in the first three hundred years of the church or so were allowed pretty much universally, although even then there were some that decided to give up everything, including a future family, so that they could serve God fully without distraction literally every moment of their life. It should be noted that there is evidence to suggest that married clergymen were expected, at least in the early church, to remain celibate within marriage, and that the tradition was eventually relaxed to allow for sexual relations, except for a period of fasting and abstention before Mass. A more important clarification is that while married people were allowed to be ordained, it was not generally permitted for someone to marry AFTER ordination. If a married priest’s wife died, they were then expected to remain single permanently. (This particular rule remains true even today for the Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Church, and the rare exceptions where a married priest is permitted in the Latin Catholic Church.) However, the first really big moment for celibacy came, ironically, with the legalization of Christianity. Up until that point, there was a generally held opinion that although it wasn’t desirable, martyrdom (as the result of being persecuted for their faith by the Romans) was the most sure fire way to guarantee your way to heaven. Demonstrating one’s belief peacefully while facing death was considered a true act of faith that could serve as an example to others while simultaneously showing the sincere belief of the condemned. However, when the Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in 313, the persecutions halted. That presented certain Christians with an interesting theological question. Now that the routine martyrdom of Christians was ended, what was the next most surefire way to get into heaven? As it turned out, a number of individuals came to the same conclusion. Since the vast majority of sins occurred by committing offenses against other individuals, certain die-hard Christians believed that becoming a hermit was the best option. By avoiding people entirely, it simply eliminated the possibility of committing most categories of sin. Some went to live in the desert, like John the Baptist or Jesus during his forty days of fasting. Others stayed closer by. A few were known to even live high atop the columns of ruined Roman temples, being near the world, but not part of it.

Well, it didn’t take long for theologians, bishops, and some of the higher ups in the church to realize that this probably wasn’t the most constructive thing a Christian could do. After all, although Jesus went out into the desert for forty days, He was also tempted there, and then returned to live and preach among sinners. Along comes St. Basil with an idea for organizing groups of these like-minded individuals into Christian communities that would be separate from the world, but living together. They would pray and study the scriptures all day, perform manual labor, and lead a regimented lifestyle. These men became the first monks, and they were organized into monasteries. St. Basil was the primary founder of this movement in the East. In the West, a similar movement began under St. Benedict, who organized his own monasteries and established his famous Rule of St. Benedict. These monks would take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and dedicated themselves to the same lifestyle. The primary difference however was that the Benedictines, as they became known, tended to stay in more urban areas (or more specifically, towns, villages, and manors after the collapse of the Roman Empire), and their manual labor was geared toward charitably helping the surrounding locals. So, at this point began two different classes of priests. The “secular” priests were the ordinary parish priests that said Mass on Sunday at the local churches. In other words, they dealt with the secular world. These priests could still be married. “Regular” priests were the monks, NOT because they were regular, ordinary people, but because they followed extra regulations above and beyond that of a normal priest.

continued…

 

[Rolltide]

By 900 AD, the Catholic Church was entering a period of corruption. This was in part due to the incredibly low literacy rates in Western Europe. In many places, it was less than 1 or 2 %. Much of Christianity under Catholicism had been reduced to mere ritual, performed with little understanding by ordinary people. Even among secular priests, illiteracy was common, and there were priests who only knew their own faith from very basic oral instruction. Monks, however, were one of the few groups in the West that were educated, precisely because it was a requirement of their order that they be able to study the Bible and pray constantly. They were also responsible for hand copying and preserving the few books that survived from antiquity (and not just the Bible, but Greek and Roman classics as well). As a side note, this also partly accounts for the furor over the Iconoclastic Controversy about 200 years earlier, which centered on the use of images in church. The East wanted to ban the use of imagery, arguing that it violated the commandment against graven images. However, the West argued that this was a false interpretation, partly because they genuinely believed that images were doctrinally allowed, but even more importantly because of the huge illiteracy rate. Churches in the West needed to be adorned with paintings, statues, and later, stained glass, so that the priests could use the visual aids to help instruct the locals on their faith. Literacy was so bad, that there was a strong belief that without the use of imagery, Christianity could potentially die out in the West.

Around this time appeared a large and very highly regarded monastery in France known as Cluny. They were very educated (by the standards of the time), practiced great austerity in their personal life (although their monastery and church was large due to the huge number of adherents), and were seen as genuinely good examples of Christians by the local populace. They lobbied for various reforms in the Catholic Church, many of which they had implemented successfully in their own order already. This became known as the Cluny Reform Movement. Among these reforms included the creation of mandatory seminaries in every cathedral in Europe. This would permit the education of every single new priest. This was their most successful reform, as many of these seminaries eventually expanded to allow lay people to attend, and they transformed into the first universities in Europe. This change almost single handedly restored literacy to Europe, and helped to usher in the Renaissance. They also helped develop the idea of the College of Cardinals, which created the honorary position of Cardinal. This allowed each nation to have a certain number of talented theologians selected as representatives in the election of a new pope. This regularized the process for selecting the new pontiff, and made it far less prone to domination and control by secular leaders (such as happened with Otto the Great of the Holy Roman Empire, who overthrew the pope and imposed his will upon the church for a time in the early 900s). While we may think of the Vatican hierarchy as antiquated today, for its time, it was quite representative and forward thinking.

However, one of the biggest problems involved the clergy themselves. Ordinary priests had a difficult job. Many had to travel a circuit, performing Masses at numerous manor churches in a specific region throughout the course of a month. As a result, they might only be home for three or four days in that time period. As you can imagine, this was not conducive toward family life, and it led to problems with infidelity among both spouses in the arrangement. Further, many priests (and their wives) wanted to live a high lifestyle and provide for their children, and so some local priests achieved a status near that of the local lord himself, often with a grand estate to match. There was also ample opportunity for corruption through the children of priests. Priests could use collection money to pay local lords to allow their sons to become minor lords, knights, or enter a desirable guild. Family dynasties of priests could also emerge as positions were garnered for children, or passed from father to son, and many were worried that this could lead to power blocks, corruption, and an entry into an abuse of temporal, rather than spiritual power. Also an issue is the (generally overstated) issue of inheritance. As the family of a priest amassed a fortune (which was not necessarily a good example to the public), would the family or the church inherit that property upon their death? The issues of corruption surrounding married priests became so great, that the idea of introducing clerical celibacy, which seemed to be working so well for the monastic orders, became a popular one. By 1100 AD, the Catholic Church instituted this as a mandatory policy for all clergymen in the West. (Note that both Orthodox AND Catholic priests in the East were still permitted to be married, and always have been.) It should again be emphasized that what is usually forgotten today is that the institution of clerical celibacy, at least at that time, was considered a highly popular and successful reform that was championed not just by the clergy, but a large number of lay people as well, and it did greatly cut down on these particular issues.

continued…

 

[Rolltide]

Important in all of this is that the institution of clerical celibacy was a disciplinary issue, not one of doctrine or dogma. As such, it is a completely changeable issue, and the Catholic Church could see fit to overturn it with absolutely no problem overnight, with a simple decree. It should also be restated that there exists within the Catholic Church today married Catholic Churches in the Eastern branches, and that exceptions can be made by the pope on a case-by-case basis, even in the West. This is usually done for clergymen of other denominations (usually Anglican) that convert to Catholicism and want to be priests. Most people (even Catholics) are unaware that there are about 100 married Catholic priests currently serving in the United States as we speak.

 

[HabemusFrancis]

Since I am sort of a history nerd, I worry about some things that may or may not have happend.

I have heard a rumor that midieval monastaries were hotbeds of homosexuality, often with older monks preying on the young novices. Is there any truth to this or is it just reformation propaganda? It seems it was so with Irish Christian bros, or many of them

 

[marymary1975]

There is a very simple counter argument to that: if celibacy is intrinsically elated to sexual abuse, then how come according to the statistics from the total of sexual abuse cases against children the vast majority of perpetrators and sexual abusers are married?

If you look at children sexual abuse from the big picture each and every statistic in the US (and probably in the world) points out that the majority of perpetrators (by far) are the children’s own father, stepfather or a grandfather. Very closely come uncles and uncles in law and cousins. After that then most perpetrators tend to be close family friends. So the argument that sexual abuse is a result of celibacy has a big hole because if that is true most perpetrators would have to be single don’t you agree?

I think that is exactly what you have to say to your friends.

 

[R_C]

Small percentage of clergy were involved in sex abuse scandal. I believe in the US the number was about 3% accused, 1% condemned - I may be off by 1 or 2 percentage points.

Sex abuse is diffused in many parts of society where celibacy and chastity are not an issue at all.

Most of what we today consider sex abuse was considered normal in many parts of the world before Christianity restored the dignity and rights of women and children, promoting the virtues of virginity, chastity, and celibacy, so the argument is historically inconsistent.

Priests have neither interest nor desire in marrying. In fact, they know their vocation is to be mystically married to the Church. This desire is not coming from the clergy, but from lay people who have no understanding of Catholicism and who are probably projecting their personal struggles onto others.

Priests are not forced to take a promise of celibacy, either. The seminary is years long before ordination to the diaconate with promise of celibacy. The promise is freely made. Even more time passes between that and ordination to the priesthood. If the deacon has some sort of crisis after years and years of celibate life, he can always discuss it with the bishop. It is possible to be released from the clerical state, even for a priest.

Christianity has never, ever allowed a priest to date a woman and marry her. It has, however, been allowed in the past for married men (again: men who were already married) to receive the Holy Orders.

In the Catholic Church, married men can be ordained deacons. Yet, the number of deacons in the world is about 37 thousand, with over 400,000 priests. If marriage was an issue, we would have many more married deacons than priests.

In Eastern Catholic and Orthodox countries, where married men can be ordained to the priesthood, the majority of the clergy is actually celibate.

Last but not least, this argument is made by people who have no clue either of what the state of life of a married man is, or of what the state of life of a priest is (or both). Let me tell you this much: they are busy. To combine the two may make it impossible to fulfill duties towards wife, children, and parish faithful.

Finally, you asked what’s the deal with priests dating or marrying. I think you don’t fully understand the vocation of the priesthood. The idea of a priest dating a woman is revolting, for the priest is called to be a brother - even more, a father - and it would be revolting to have a brother looking at his sister (or a father looking at his daughter) with a sexual desire, entertaining a courtship, or desiring to enter into the sort of intimacy that is the bond between man and wife.

Any true Catholic priest will tell you that they often feel they would have enjoyed having a wife and children, yes. But once they heard the call and bent the knee before the bishop for the imposition of hands, they ceased having any desire to date or marry.

There’s a great book I recommend: “Virginity: A Positive Approach to Celibacy for the Sake of the Kingdom of Heaven”, by Brother Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap. Short and to the point.

 

[Joe_5859]

It is a ridiculous and, frankly, insulting argument that celibacy causes sexual abuse. It is insulting both to those who are celibate and those who are married.

Implicit in this argument is the assertion that guys need a form of sexual release else they will turn to child abuse.

If your friends are married, you might ask them if the only thing standing in the way of them committing acts of abuse towards children is the fact that they have a spouse. Hopefully their answer to that question is no.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Ok. I have gotten into some debates with friends about celibacy and sex abuse. My secular humanist friends claim sex abuse in RCC was largely caused by celibacy and there would be significantly less of it, and more prompt exposure and reporting of it, if rule were done away with.

I countered that by saying most Catholic abuses cases are decades old, while pedophilia/sex abuse is a fairly common and well investigated crime by officers today.The majority of abusers are married men ( I think?) and even more importantly, pretty much all pedophiles arrested this year were men who took no vows of celibacy, and were not "sexually repressed " in any way. I work for a foster care advocacy center, and pretty much all the children I hear we represent who suffered physical/sexual abuse, were done so by famil/family friends, but not priests .

Yet part of me has doubts that celibacy did not cause any of this. In some big U.S cities, such as Los Angeles and Boston, the pedophiles composed 10% of the priesthood. There seems to have been rife sex abuse of children by many monks in Australia and Ireland, so much so that Irish Christian Brothers ( a once prominent and famous order of educational monks) is now pretty much extinct. I have even heard of cases of orders of monks funding the defense of their cofreres even after they have been indicted and sentenced for abuse. Is there any validity to my doubts/thoughts or is it just silliness?

Not even related to abuse, but why not let priests marry and date like everyone else? What is it to the hierarchy really if a priest just wants a girlfriend or a wife? Why must that be not allowed? I am curious…

I am not able to offer much help on the first part of your question. But I will say regarding it that people that hold that view seem to think we are slaves to sex. Do the celibate have no choice in submitting to sexual urges. That’s a wrong view that emerged in the sexual revolution and I imagine it is this view to the masses to not suppress sexual desire at all that has led to some priests buying into that philosophy.

As to the why of celibacy. I think you can ask any pastor’s wife in our Protestant community as to how hard it is on the family. Those churches it’s hard for the pastor to be married and they don’t have sacraments or daily mass or a number of other things that take our priests time.

Our priests are married and devoted to the church.

"The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband "(1 Cor. 7:32-34

 

[robwar]

Ok. I have gotten into some debates with friends about celibacy and sex abuse. My secular humanist friends claim sex abuse in RCC was largely caused by celibacy and there would be significantly less of it, and more prompt exposure and reporting of it, if rule were done away with.

I countered that by saying most Catholic abuses cases are decades old, while pedophilia/sex abuse is a fairly common and well investigated crime by officers today.The majority of abusers are married men ( I think?) and even more importantly, pretty much all pedophiles arrested this year were men who took no vows of celibacy, and were not "sexually repressed " in any way. I work for a foster care advocacy center, and pretty much all the children I hear we represent who suffered physical/sexual abuse, were done so by famil/family friends, but not priests .

Yet part of me has doubts that celibacy did not cause any of this. In some big U.S cities, such as Los Angeles and Boston, the pedophiles composed 10% of the priesthood. There seems to have been rife sex abuse of children by many monks in Australia and Ireland, so much so that Irish Christian Brothers ( a once prominent and famous order of educational monks) is now pretty much extinct. I have even heard of cases of orders of monks funding the defense of their cofreres even after they have been indicted and sentenced for abuse. Is there any validity to my doubts/thoughts or is it just silliness?

Not even related to abuse, but why not let priests marry and date like everyone else? What is it to the hierarchy really if a priest just wants a girlfriend or a wife? Why must that be not allowed? I am curious…

Other Christians denominations have had the same problem and their pastors are usually married men. If you want to fight fire with fire, have your secular friends read the book
“I Fired God”. which is the testimony of one woman’s escape or leaving of strick fundamentalist churches. Warning, it is a very tough and graphic book to read but what she experienced and proports is that there is a lot of sexual abuse that is covered up. In other words, it is too easy to blame celebacy for sexual deviance when these types of problems go on in other denominations and those problems are with married men, not single.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Ok. I have gotten into some debates with friends about celibacy and sex abuse. My secular humanist friends claim sex abuse in RCC was largely caused by celibacy and there would be significantly less of it, and more prompt exposure and reporting of it, if rule were done away with.

I countered that by saying most Catholic abuses cases are decades old, while pedophilia/sex abuse is a fairly common and well investigated crime by officers today.The majority of abusers are married men ( I think?) and even more importantly, pretty much all pedophiles arrested this year were men who took no vows of celibacy, and were not "sexually repressed " in any way. I work for a foster care advocacy center, and pretty much all the children I hear we represent who suffered physical/sexual abuse, were done so by famil/family friends, but not priests .

Yet part of me has doubts that celibacy did not cause any of this. In some big U.S cities, such as Los Angeles and Boston, the pedophiles composed 10% of the priesthood. There seems to have been rife sex abuse of children by many monks in Australia and Ireland, so much so that Irish Christian Brothers ( a once prominent and famous order of educational monks) is now pretty much extinct. I have even heard of cases of orders of monks funding the defense of their cofreres even after they have been indicted and sentenced for abuse. Is there any validity to my doubts/thoughts or is it just silliness?

Not even related to abuse, but why not let priests marry and date like everyone else? What is it to the hierarchy really if a priest just wants a girlfriend or a wife? Why must that be not allowed? I am curious…

To be precise, most of the abuse that occurred was with older boys…and that means that the abusers were not technically pedophiles but homosexual predators. Therefore, the problem is not with celibacy but with homosexuality.

That is the angle to the story that the liberal press does not want to accentuate.

Celibacy Isn’t the Problem
By: Christopher Kaczor
catholic.com/magazine/articles/celibacy-isn%E2%80%99t-the-problem

 

[Charlemagne_III]

To be precise, most of the abuse that occurred was with older boys…and that means that the abusers were not technically pedophiles but homosexual predators. Therefore, the problem is not with celibacy but with homosexuality.

That is the angle to the story that the liberal press does not want to accentuate.

Of course they don’t. The implications are enormous. They’d have to separate homosexuals into three classes: those adults who are arrested in their juvenile homosexuality (pedophiles), those adults who are arrested in their teenage homosexuality (pederasty), and those adults who have moved on to adult homosexual relations.

Given the arrested I.Q. of many journalists today, reporting complexities of that sort would be a task beyond their pay grade, not to mention their PC obligations.

 

[oldburkes]

It is a ridiculous and, frankly, insulting argument that celibacy causes sexual abuse. It is insulting both to those who are celibate and those who are married.

Implicit in this argument is the assertion that guys need a form of sexual release else they will turn to child abuse.

If your friends are married, you might ask them if the only thing standing in the way of them committing acts of abuse towards children is the fact that they have a spouse. Hopefully their answer to that question is no.

Yes. The sexual release myth is imbedded in young people during adolescence. It’s made to sound like a necessity, like going to the bathroom regularly, and the secular world of medicine calls it a healthy lifestyle. Throw popular entertainment into the mix, and you have a whole stack of lies working on people’s psyche.

 

[rsantos]

More Catholic clergy have been accused of child abuse than protestant clergy but there are far more protestant than Catholic clergy (314,000 protestant and other Christian clergy and only about 40,000 Catholic clergy in the US).

“The number of Catholic clergy who are accused of or prosecuted for child and adolescent sexual abuse vastly outnumbers the number of protestant clergy. So what is it about the Catholic clergy that makes them distinctly different? One factor is this issue of suppressing one’s sexuality to better serve God” (pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/secrets-of-the-vatican/
“Frontline: Secrets of the Vatican”—quotation from Dr. Martin Kafka, psychiatrist Harvard Medical School – one of a distinguished panel of experts invited by the Vatican to advise the Vatican regarding the child abuse scandals).

 

[opusAquinas]

Ok. I have gotten into some debates with friends about celibacy and sex abuse. My secular humanist friends claim sex abuse in RCC was largely caused by celibacy and there would be significantly less of it, and more prompt exposure and reporting of it, if rule were done away with.

I countered that by saying most Catholic abuses cases are decades old, while pedophilia/sex abuse is a fairly common and well investigated crime by officers today.The majority of abusers are married men ( I think?) and even more importantly, pretty much all pedophiles arrested this year were men who took no vows of celibacy, and were not "sexually repressed " in any way. I work for a foster care advocacy center, and pretty much all the children I hear we represent who suffered physical/sexual abuse, were done so by famil/family friends, but not priests .

Yet part of me has doubts that celibacy did not cause any of this. In some big U.S cities, such as Los Angeles and Boston, the pedophiles composed 10% of the priesthood. There seems to have been rife sex abuse of children by many monks in Australia and Ireland, so much so that Irish Christian Brothers ( a once prominent and famous order of educational monks) is now pretty much extinct. I have even heard of cases of orders of monks funding the defense of their cofreres even after they have been indicted and sentenced for abuse. Is there any validity to my doubts/thoughts or is it just silliness?

Not even related to abuse, but why not let priests marry and date like everyone else? What is it to the hierarchy really if a priest just wants a girlfriend or a wife? Why must that be not allowed? I am curious…

People have sexual desires that they should not act upon. It is the stain of Original Sin.

Priestly celibacy is a tradition not a dogma. I suspect priests will be allowed to marry eventually in the latin rite church given all church closings etc. and we shall be like the Eastern Catholic churches.

 

[rsantos]

A report of the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, (February 27, 2004; 30-37) found that 6.5% of priests ordained between 1960 and 1984 were reported for abuse of minors (Sipe 2009).1 Though a more precise understanding of the relation between mandatory celibacy and clerical abuse has yet to be sorted out, Richard Sipe, married priest, psychologist, clerical abuse expert, and Vatican consultant on celibacy, attests that there are many complex connections.
Sipe’s research found that “Two percent of all Catholic priests could be called pedophiles [abusive of prepubescent children]; an additional four percent [euphiles] are sexually preoccupied with adolescent boys or girls” (Sipe 2003, 203). The American Psychiatric Association has acknowledged that sexual deprivation can lead otherwise sexually adapted men to seek sex with minors (Sipe 2003, 253). Richard Sipe predicts that “The celibate/ sexual system, as it exists, fosters and produces, and will continue to produce, at a relatively stable rate, priests who sexually abuse minors” (Sipe 1995, 27).
Father Thomas Doyle, a former Vatican canon lawyer, asserts “I certainly hope one of the lessons learned [from the abuse scandals] is that there is something radically wrong with mandatory celibacy and with the whole thought process that surrounds it, supports it, tries to justify it, and defends it” (Doyle 2007).

 

[KindredSoul]

The argument that celibacy had anything to do with the abuse scandals is ridiculous, and that can be summed up in one simple sentence: Unless an abuser was prone to abusing children/youths to begin with, then even IF his sexual desire go the best of him and he felt he had no non-sinful outlet for it, he would at least sin with an adult.

It’s as simple as that. Otherwise single Christians who just haven’t found “the one” yet would all abuse children to deal with their sexual tensions, if “having no non-sinful way to have sex” automatically meant you would abuse a child. Obviously most people in such positions don’t do that. If they fall to sin, it’s usually pornography, masturbation, or fornication with fellow adults. There is no reason to believe it would be any different for a priest, unless he was already prone to abusing children/youths for reasons having nothing to do with celibacy.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[oldburkes]

The argument that celibacy had anything to do with the abuse scandals is ridiculous, and that can be summed up in one simple sentence: Unless an abuser was prone to abusing children/youths to begin with, then even IF his sexual desire go the best of him and he felt he had no non-sinful outlet for it, he would at least sin with an adult.

It’s as simple as that. Otherwise single Christians who just haven’t found “the one” yet would all abuse children to deal with their sexual tensions, if “having no non-sinful way to have sex” automatically meant you would abuse a child. Obviously most people in such positions don’t do that. If they fall to sin, it’s usually pornography, masturbation, or fornication with fellow adults. There is no reason to believe it would be any different for a priest, unless he was already prone to abusing children/youths for reasons having nothing to do with celibacy.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

Yes. And ( no offense to anyone who uses statistics, they do make a point very well) I don’t think we need any statistics to show us that marriage does not preclude a person from sexual sin.

Let’s not kid ourselves. If the Church were to move on the celibacy issue, there’s a whole barrel full of critcism for the culture to choose from. They would just pick the next one they pulled out to bash us with, like the myths of obscene Vatican wealth, persecution of women, overbearing restrictions of the Precepts on the laity, archaic views of marriage, and on and on.

It scares me to think that the Church I came to, on my knees, to seek refuge from an evil culture, would even consider “appeasing” that culture, and “meeting it halfway” to improve it’s image and “fill the pews”.

If priests were to marry, it would roll the Sacrament of Holy Orders into a confusing ball with the Sacrament of Marriage. confessional time would suffer, vows of poverty would disappear…so many things are dependent on the one thing. And if there’s a way for a priest to not be celibate and not be married, I don’t want to know about it.

1Corinthians 7:32-35 gives us St. Paul’s opinion on the subject, and maybe that’s a good one to use in defending celibacy to someone.

Father Robert Barron said that Catholicism is a way of seeing. If the culture sees differently, that’s the culture’s problem.

 

[HabemusFrancis]

Thanks, very helpful.

I see an number of people are on here saying that most the priests were not pedophiles per se but rather homosexuals? That leads to another question, are homosexuals more likely to be interested in minors ( not necessarily children) than heterosexual men? At one point I would have been appalled at such a question, but now, I am not so sure…

I get the sense that gay men are more open or tolerant of sexual attraction towards teens ( or at least men who are much younger than they are?). I have read up on a lot of the gay activists of the 50s-70s. Though none were pedophiles ( as far as I know) many of them had sexual relations with mid- late teenagers, which could get them thrown in prison today ( I don’t think police back then viewed sex with teens as quite as much of a crime as they do now:shrug:?)

Also the infamous pedophile rights group NAMBLA had some prominent supporters in the gay rights movement, until they and their kind were excluded from the movement due to bad publicity. Is it true? Are male children more likely to be in danger from homosexual men than female children are from heterosexual men? I know its unPC to ask but I would like to know.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Celibacy does not have to be defended. It is a choice, not a requirement. Upon ordination the candidate for priesthood has chosen celibacy, it was not forced upon him. He has chosen to live celibate in imitation of the life of Christ. It is a noble tradition and will never die out, even if as a requirement it is ended by order of the Pope for the secular priesthood.

Celibacy is a tradition of the Church, and not a required doctrine of the Church. The Church is free to end the required tradition and make it optional, as Pope Francis has hinted on several occasions. If there is one monumental thing this pope could do and be remembered by before he dies, he could end the requirement of celibacy and make it a true lifelong choice to marry, or not to marry, or to not marry at first and later choose to marry.

There is no reason why the monastic and missionary orders might not continue the tradition of required celibacy because of the nature of their lifestyle.