Not happy about sermon tonight referring to sex abuse

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alphawoman said:
More importantly, achieving gender balance in the priesthood, openly acknowledging the existence of gay priests and not condemning them, and allowing priests to marry would attract a different class of priests and shed light in a culture that currently flourishes on secrecy and power imbalances.
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Gender balance?

Let’s pass over (for the time being) that achieving “gender balance” in the priesthood in the sense of having women ordained to the priesthood has been definitively confirmed to be impossible.

Gender balance in the teaching profession doesn’t stop sexual abuse in K-12 schools. Why would it stop it in a church setting? The truth is that sexual abuse by an attractive adult woman in the teaching profession is sometimes dismissed as not even being abuse…even when the victim is a mere boy! In contrast, if a priest were to have a sexual relationship even with a parishioner older than himself and with a longer tenure in the parish than he had, that would still be considered sex abuse, because he has a position of authority and trust. People who come to him for pastoral help are at their most emotionally vulnerable. People can only conspire in crime (or sin) on an equal basis when they have an equal relationship.

Male priests are often suspected as having sexual affairs with each other. Do you think this will somehow go away when the pastor and the associate pastor are of opposite sexes? Project that into the Church and tell me how it improves anything whatsoever. It is no loss to us on that front, then, that we will never have female priests. It would not have solved the problem.
 
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alphawoman said:
The goal of including married priests isn’t because married people are less likely to abuse, but because a full view of married and family life is required to effectively and meaningfully understand amd advise on pastoral morality. It’s a question of creating a culture that reflects the church body, one which is more transparent and respectful of the laity, and less single minded lay focused on the priesthood.
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There is a Catch-22 in that logic, though.

How can members of the faithful who are not priests “effectively and meaningfully understand and advise” how to run the priesthood?
 
alphawoman said:
The Australian commission into institutional sexual abuse of children included some horrifying cases of abuse of very young girls and boys, occasionally with parental complicity.
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Oh my gosh, that is so horrific. I’m so sickened by all of this.
 
Nope, sorry. The male priesthood is an artefact of the post-Constantine Church, with male celibacy coming later through expansion of increased stringency of monastic vows to priests.

I can absolutely make informed and correct judgments about the ordained priesthood without being an ordained priest, owing to being a member of Jesus’ larger lay priesthood and having Jesus as an exemplar of priest in values.

My statement about balance doesn’t require that all priests be married; only that the priesthood accept the possibility of all its members vocations (married or celibate) being represented in its leadership.
 
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It’s terrible. I can’t imagine an organization knowingly concealing and condoning such atrocities.
 
Nope. The male celibate priest is a post-Constantine cultural appropriation, not a truth given to us from Christ.
 
I’m qualifying the conditions under which it’s an appropriate response. In all likelihood, it’s probably the case, but the incidence of cover-ups doesn’t make it a foregone conclusion.
 
I strongly disagree. The population incidence of child sexual abuse by women is dwarfed by that of men. Simply on a statistical basis, the weighted average likelihood of abuse with women priests would be lower than its current level.

My personal opinion is that the climate of rigid control and image management that permeates the administrative Church is a key reason why abuse is allowed to occur. The current ordained hierarchy inculcates an attitude of priestly superiority over the laity and all other vocations. That attitude of entitlement and unfettered power has corrupted the Church’s ability, as an organization, to behave in a principled way.

Also, because normal human traits (e.g homosexuality, experiencing sexual desire) are treated as evil and transgressive, a climate of shame and trading secrets for secrets has allowed “compromised” priests (e.g. gay priests, priests engaging in consensual sex with adults) to be manipulated by real abusers.

It’s a constellation of issues:
  • Insularity
  • Rigid, exclusive hierarchy and strong power imbalances
  • Some social/legal sheltering by civil authorities
  • Blind trust by parishioner parents
  • Repressed sexuality
  • Papal secret classification of abuse documentation
  • The seal of the confessional, which prevents priests from reporting offenders who confess
  • Arrogance among senior leadership of the Church
  • Lack of female perspective in leadership (God created us man and woman; we are only whole as humans —including perspective and values—when we image God as an institution in both genders)
We can save the female ordination discussion on other grounds and agree to disagree there. 🙂
 
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alphawoman said:
We can save the female ordination discussion on other grounds and agree to disagree there. 🙂
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Why discuss it? It isn’t going to happen. It is a matter of dogma.
alphawoman said:
Nope. The male celibate priest is a post-Constantine cultural appropriation, not a truth given to us from Christ.
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It is a discipline subject to change. Having said that, married men sexually abuse children at a higher rate than Catholic priests do, so that isn’t some kind of panacea, either.
 
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Largely because of access. Priests have less unmonitored access to children owing to not (usually) reproducing. Non-biological step-parents and extended family are among the most common abusers.

The issue is a culture that selects for, and tacitly or expressly, fosters attitudes which dininish respect for others who aren’t priests, and an attitude that the confessional heals all. It creates an attitude of impunity.

Regarding dogma, I adhere to my God-given conscience and capacity fir reason, and am comfortable disagreeing with the administrative Church if I see its decisions as being inconsistent with the historical record of Christ and his early church.
 
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alphawoman said:
The goal of including married priests isn’t because married people are less likely to abuse, but because a full view of married and family life is required to effectively and meaningfully understand amd advise on pastoral morality. It’s a question of creating a culture that reflects the church body, one which is more transparent and respectful of the laity, and less single minded lay focused on the priesthood.
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A Protestant pastor’s family is often quite different than his flock. The responsibilities and pressures (as well as the perks) are pretty distinct from those of rank and file married people.
 
Priesthood doesn´t have to mean without married life. The Eastern Catholic tradition has valid priests too, and even the roman catholic church sees the orthodox priests as valid.
Speaking for myself (don´t want to cause a firestorm here! Really!) I admire it that my priest is married with children. It helped me more than once in understanding practical advice.
 
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I admit I’m also very displeased with my parish’s response. They’ve said next to nothing. In addition, we just found out that there’s an abuser in residence that we were never informed of (his name is nowhere on the bulletin or the website) and who has been shuffled around the diocese. My husband told me last night he doesn’t want me taking our child to Mass anymore. I admit I myself no longer feel fully safe at any of the parishes in our diocese. We know of this man, but who knows what else is going on? This especially hits home for me because I was abused and assaulted by a boyfriend in high school who used religion to mess with my head.

Like Alice, I’ve found married priests to be very helpful when I’ve come across them, and enjoy the counsel of their wives, as well.
 
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You do know that there are married Catholic priests, don’t you?
 
I agree with the OP 100%. This is NOT the time to equivocate or say we need to be sensitive to the poor priest who victimized young people. All I want to here is “we are ashamed, we need to do better and hold these evil men accountable”.

How can a priest stand up and proclaim the gospel on Sunday and then in the shadows abuse young people in horrible ways. How demented do you have to be? How can a bishop, a leader, not only cover this up but comfort and sympathize with an abuser priest over the abused young person?

All i can say is these men will have to stand in judgement before their creator. They will stand in account for the lives they destroyed, the souls they lead astray. Truly it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the ocean on that day!
 
Given that I had posted the facts, an assumption wasn’t needed. My post needed no qualification whatsoever and I feel it is rude for you to question my integrity and the integrity of my bishop.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
OP, so tell your priest you didn’t like his sermon. Why tell us?
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That is an excellent point.

Here’s another thing our new priest said as he was starting to preach–he said he couldn’t be a good pastor to us without saying something.
 
The unmarried priests I consulted when leaving an abusive relationship all said to stay. It was only the 2 priests who were previously engaged before discerning the priesthood who strongly urged me to leave.

There’s an irreality of advising on deep personal relationships without having had one.
 
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