Why do people assume that married priests wouldn’t abuse children at the same rate as celibate priests?

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I don’t even know how many are married, divorced, re-married (though I doubt that there are few celibate people). The point is, the problem today is one with our society, across the board, married people and single. Think a celibate priesthood is somehow at fault makes no sense. We might as well argue it is all the black that they wear.

I did not mean to blame teachers. However, teacher unions have acted in the best interest of teacher too often, instead of students. They are as scandalous as any bishop.

Union warns background checks could bar some CPS teachers on first day of class

These unions are powerful, which is why ambitious politicians will conduct all sorts of inquiries into the Catholic Church, but will leave the larger problem of sexual abuse from teachers alone.
 
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bassmansteiny said:
I actually have a family member that works in a female prison in Michigan. You would be surprised how many women in there have sex crimes. There was a mother whom was in there for pimping out her little daughter.
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Working at a place like that puts this whole issue into perspective. Most people are only exposed to crime through the news, which exists mostly to make money by holding the interest of people. I cannot count how many sex offenders I have seen and known pass through. Mostly, is done by family members. I have seen maybe half a dozen teachers, a few cops, a few preachers (though only one was a pastor). I haven’t seen a priest yet. But the one message I get, is that this is a problem that cuts across all jobs, marital statuses, races, and even genders.
 
PureKathleen46 said:
I really feel that the seminaries are rife with homosexuals. These people prey on young men who could be their victims.
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Are you a seminarian or have direct experience with seminaries? Sure, there may be isolated problems, but the vast majority of seminarians are normal, sexually healthy young men.

And I didn’t realize that being a homosexual automatically means you’ll pray on young children. :roll_eyes:
 
Yes you summarized this correctly.
As I have lived with the holy cross brothers for 3 years . and found that they struggle with sexual sin on a daily basis. Even when they are sleeping .
 
I thought if you struggle with sexual sin as a priest or a brother that you have to leave the community?
 
flagged.

you can’t make an outrageous claim like that without backing it up with a source. besides, you’re talking about priests and brothers here. let’s keep it classy
 
Men are always guilty according to some. It’s an idea that’s being promoted currently. Don’t fall for it.
 
It is about time that the mask is removed from the hidden sexual sin with the priests
As most people have not lived with the priests brother or nuns their opinion is void of any use.
 
odds are you don’t know most priests or religious brothers and sisters.

there are over 400,000 priests in the world. you should reconsider
 
I don’t assume any such thing. After all, this is going on in Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, and other religions, too. But a married priest is more likely to be a regular heterosexual man who prefers ADULT women, not children. I have nothing against gay men, as long as they prefer adult men. But the celibacy rule is providing a perfect smokescreen for a whole underground network of pedophiles. As far as having affairs, that’s between the sinner and God, not a crime against a child. Allowing married priests would lower the incidence of pedophilia, not eliminate it.

I’m all for married priests. Or at least married men being ordained as priests. It would be a good start.
 
People need to look up the stats of who molests children. Number one is dear ole dad, while 50 percent of the mothers looking the other way; second used to be step dads, then boyfriends of single women with children at home, who are dating them

and .04 percent of priests.
 
MaryT777 said:
and .04 percent of priests.
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The figure identified by the Australian Royal Commission for priests and religious was 7%, using stats that took into account and removed people from the point they died or left religious life. One order reached 40%. I have never seen a figure of 0.4%.
 
I think you mean “void of any use for you,” as you can only speak for yourself.
 
Four percent was the number from the John Jay report, and that was just the percentage that had some accusation.
 
Not sure it would work that way. Studies have shown that clergy in other faiths (most of which allow married clergy) are generally as likely to be abusers. Now being married might make the reporting of such abuse that much more likely (rather than the decades long institutional cover up the RCC engaged in), but it won’t stop the abuse.

Where women would help with lessening clerical abuse is if they were clergy themselves, which of course the RCC will never allow for long established reasons. However if it did, women generally only make up 12% of abusers in reported cases. Meaning that female clergy are statistically far less likely to abuse than male clergy. Which is an advantage certain faiths that allow female clergy have over the RCC and similarly situated male only clergy faiths, married or unmarried.
 
While I agree with you that people proposing getting rid of celibacy and/or that married men is not a “cure” and is problematic in some of its assumptions, allowing married men to be ordained increases the pool of heterosexual men who are priests.

The John Jay report made clear that homosexuality was the driving force behind the abuse of post-puberty male children.

Pope Benedict set forth a rule that any male with serious SSA is not to be ordained. That should effectively seed out some of the seminarians and would-be seminarians who have SSA. and pardon me if I am a bit cynical, but I have to ask who is it that is doing the sorting? I believe that there are good faith efforts in at least some seminaries to redirect those with SSA, but as the “Uncle Ted” syndrome has shown us, there are plenty of ordained individuals, in high and medium places, who have not been able or willing to tackle the obvious.

My own personal opinion is that allowing married men to be ordained is not a cure to the issue, and is something I think can stand on its own without reference to the issue of homesexuals in the priesthood. We already have ordained married men as priests (including one in my archdiocese who came from the Presbyterian background). But that is a topic for another day.

As a priest friend of mine pointed out, the loss of heterosexual priests post Vatican 2 to get married increased the percentage of priests with SSA. the whole issue is one that the Church will struggle with for well into the future
 
While I agree with you that sexual abuse has occured in other Christian denominations, I think you need to be a bit careful with what you say, as you are not distinguishing between same sex abuse and cross sex abuse; nor are you separating anything out according to age.

I strongly suspect you would find that the great majority of sexual abuse is between male pastors/youth leaders and teenage girls, but I don’t have the studies you appear to have referenced.

The John Jay Report is clear that the great majority of sexal abuse occurred between priests and teenage boys. A far smaller subset occurred between priests and pre-teens (which is the definition of pedophilia; the other buse of teenagers is divided between hebephilia and ephebophilia) and a larger subset was between priest and girls.

Making broad assertions without some backup does not help the conversation. If you can cite some of the studies, that would be helpful.
 
I didn’t divide according to age or orientation on purpose as it’s not relevant to the point I was making. The rates on the whole being the same is the main gist. But for reference here is a study backing the main point I made that abuse is primarily a male clerical problem regardless of the particulars of the targets. And on the whole such abuse is in line with societal levels and proportions as committed by non-clerical males.

 
Marriage will not stop sexual abuse. Having a moral compass and conscience are good reasons sexual abuse does not occur. Fear of being found out and the consequences of that is another good block against sexual abuse. But even those are not always enough.
Rape is about power not sexual gratification. Whether it is of children or adults. The priests and bishops who indulged their appetites were seeking power over another human. Not just sexual gratification.
I spent 10 years in CPS and over and over I saw primarily stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers abusing children sexually. Their bio dads were more prone to spousal abuse. However it does happen even with Bio dads in good marriages. Marriage did not seem to matter. Adultery is a whole different matter and generally not about power.
Just my experience. Someone here likely knows more than me about this.
 
I’d say married priests will be less prone toward sexual malfeasance for the same reason boilers with release valves are less prone to exploding.
 
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