Sunday 24 February 2013

Married Priests: Not The Solution To Pederasty

The priests who had sex with teenage boys were not repressed, but the very reverse.

Everyone now has to accept what Catholics have been saying for years: that, more is the pity, such behaviour was becoming socially acceptable in the 1960s, was thoroughly so in the 1970s, and very largely remained so in the 1980s and even beyond, sometimes all the way down to the present day.

Men with a sexual interest in teenage boys would not get married. Or, if they did, then they would continue to have a sexual interest in teenage boys. In much vaster numbers outside the Catholic Priesthood of the Latin Rite, either they already do not get married, or marriage already does not stop them from committing pederasty. Marriage does not stop the sexual abuse of boys by women, either.

There are arguments for married priests, most notably the fact that the Catholic Church has always had them. Always. Continuously. But like "the priest shortage", which exists only in the tiny number of countries that have liberal hierarchies, the abuse of ephebes, also rather a feature of those countries, is not one of those arguments.

14 comments:

  1. Perhaps if they allowed married priests you yourself might apply to the priesthood. I know that you are a lay Dominican, but if you took Holy Orders & could still get married you could really be a soldier for Christ.

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  2. Why is "the priest shortage" in quotation marks? There is a priest shortage. It may be a localised one, but it is real. Whole nations aren't producing enough priests.

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  3. On the first point, I have no plans to do either.

    On the second, England, for example, still has to highest priest-to-people ratio in the world.

    If we want more in absolute terms, then we need to do what the countries with more in absolute terms are doing. Liberalisation is not it. Bring some of them over to teach us.

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  4. It is surprising that people still see celibacy as the problem given that there have been so many similar cases involving married people, for example those involving athletic coaches and teachers.

    In the United States there have been a number of recent cases involving adult female teachers and teenage boys, and oftentimes people react with bawdy laughter to those cases. It is very disturbing and hypocritical given all the venom these same folks directed at the Church and the priesthood.

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  5. Excellent post, imho. Thank you

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  6. I didn't realise you were a lay dominican, David. Makes sense, love the dominicans, god bless!

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  7. James from Durham25 February 2013 at 08:46

    You are bang on the money with this. Child abuse has nothing to do with clerical marriage. If a priest feels he needs a mate there are a number of good choices he might make and a number of bad ones (we all know what they are). What he won't want to do is abuse a child. That springs from a quite different urge.

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  8. A socially conservative Catholic (Cardinal Keith O'Brien) has just resigned for having desires he condemned and was thus unable to express in an open and correct way: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/25/cardinal-keith-obrien-resigns

    If only he had been able to form a relationship with another man years ago he might not now be in disgrace.

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  9. Illiberal hierarchies (especially in countries without a free press) would help cover up such incidents as Cardinal O'Brien's inappropriate behaviour.

    No wonder you have now sided with the PPPS/CPB and their "Morning Star" newspaper.

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  10. These things do not happen in orthodox doctrinal contexts. Pretty much by definition.

    Nothing has been proved against Cardinal O'Brien, nor does anyone really expect it to be. But he was as liberal as hell at the time in question, so if it were, then my point would be well and truly supported.

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  11. There is a decent argument that in recent times the requirement of celibacy has been keeping heterosexual men away from the priesthood, leaving the field clear to homosexual men in various stages of repression, and increasing the likelihood of pederasty.

    While the celibacy requirement came in during the Middle Ages, it was originally an anti-nepotism rule, and what priests did with their "housekeepers" was winked at for much of history.

    There are various ways to approaching this, including returning to the days I described above, changing the doctrine so its not all-or-nothing marriage-or-celibacy, married priests, or unmarried female celibate priests (recruited from nuns?). So the Vatican is not without options, but I don't think dismissing the whole thing as a legacy of the 1960s is going to resolve the problem.

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  12. Just to pick up on your claim that england has the highest priest-to-people ratio in the world. If that's the case, why are the bishops worried about their priests dying and not being replaced? Do you mean priest-to-churchgoer ratio? In which case I can easily believe you are correct.

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  13. England has the world's highest ratio of Catholics to priests. Perhaps we are just spoilt?

    Why is celibacy suddenly a problem after a thousand years? Sex was not invented at 1970s rock festivals, whatever those who attended them may imagine.

    The Church of England has fabulous endowments, which the Catholic Church is this country does not. In the Eastern Churches, the priest and his several sons work their plot of land like everyone else in the village, as happened in the Western Church before celibacy was imposed. Would that be practical in the Western Church today?

    And what about divorced priests? It happens. School choices are also often an issue. There are many, many others.

    The ordination of women is a doctrinal, not a disciplinary, problem. It is impossible, and the very suggestion of it is now rather dated. On the theological arguments advanced for rejecting women bishops, even the General Synod of the Church of England would not, 20 years on, approve women presbyters if invited to do so.

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  14. I'm not clear on the basis of your arguement: Clearly an option to marry won't change someone's sexual preferences, but surely it would change the specific nature of RC priesthood. Currently it's an "all boys club", hence a) one of the professions most attractive to gay men; b) the opposite for any hetro male with normal hormones (ref candidate shortfall); c) senior-staffed by men who either favour (a) or have no understanding of subtle signs of "inappropriate" sexual behaviour.

    What is the big fear in reversing a policy dictated by some bonkers pope in 1139 with no basis in divine scripture? Would you feel that a married priest is somehow less sanctified than one who has acted "inappropriately"?

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