I just rewatched the movie “Spotlight”. Would anyone here dispute that if priests were allowed to be married that the result would (eventually) be that the church would have a healthier variety of priests in general? Less homosexuality? Less pedophilia? Less perversion? Normal heterosexual priests. The catholic obsession with celibacy is based on a childish and perverted view of normal healthy human sexuality. The priest sex abuse scandals of the past 75 years would never have happened if normal well adjusted married heterosexual men had been allowed to be priests.
I think it should be an option somehow.
I have no objection to married priests. I’ve met a couple (former Episcopalians, now Catholics). However, I don’t agree that the sex abuse scandal could be rooted in not allowing priests to marry, unless it means that instead of the perverts who were ordained, the Church would have recruited men with normal, healthy sexual appetites. Any man who would use a child for sex would not make an acceptable husband or father. If celibacy itself turned men into child abusers, we would expect it to be common in widowers and other celibate single men. I was widowed (and have married again), and I did not have the slightest inclination to look to children for sex.
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- We do have Married Catholic Priests (converts from high-Church Protestantism and in the Eastern Rite) and many of them are advocates of Priestly Celibacy, because like St. Paul describes, being a Husband and a father are each full-time vocations. Being a Pastor is a full-time vocation. When you try to do both, you cannot commit fully to both.
I work with a Protestant Pastor’s Wife and I hear how hard it is to Pastor as Church (visit the sick in the hospital, council couples, Church council meetings, prepare for Sunday’s Sermon, go look for the drunk son of an elderly Church member at 3 AM, etc.) and work a full-time job on the side to send two daughters (who want to be doctors) to medical school (not cheap). It can be very stressful. His Wife tries to “pastor” where she can.
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Marriage doesn’t cure perversion. Ben, the Baptist Pastor in the Town where I work, was exposing himself to the girls’ track team. A Pentecostal Pastor and Deacon a few towns over were trafficking under-aged girls (and their Wives knew about it). There is a group of Dad’s who pretend to be young boys on social apps and catch predaphiles, confronting them in public, and putting the transcripts and catches on YouTube! Chris Hanson’s “To Catch a Predator” stings have also caught Married Pastors trying to pick up young boys.
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I’ve never seen the movie “Spotlight,” but if it was made in Hollywood, it is a bit hypocritical for Hollywood (with their track-record) to be preaching to the Catholic Church about corruption. Hollywood has many secrets. Children actors have been coming out of the woodwork (pun intended) sharing what had been done to them by sick men in the industry.
We would have scandals with or without Celibacy. The difference would be that it would hurt not only their Victims and Church Family, but their Married Family too (adding to the scandal).
Most Priests take a vow of poverty. How can you raise a Family while also taking a vow of poverty? These are things we would need to think about.
If Wives are doing some of the “Pastoring” to help their Husbands who are spread too thin, why not then allow Women to be Deacons/Priests (ignoring the theological reasons why this cannot be). For these same theological reasons, we cannot ordain homosęxua/trąns to the Priesthood. No life can come from such a relationship. Men are natural protectors and are more likely to preserve the Apostolic Faith. Women are natural nurturers. It is why so many female un-Married/childless Comedians over 40 try to mother the world. Female Pastors tend to buy into the ways of the world by their emotions. This is why virtually all of the Protestant Churches who “ordain” women are draped in rainbow flags. And why Catholic Priests who promote such pervęrsions are effeminate (and should not be Priests).
David, let’s go along with your hypothetical. Suppose the Church changes her discipline of celibacy (knowing your opinion on the Church’s teaching on Married Couples being open to Life), your next proposal will be for allowing Priests to get broken or that the Church change her teaching on contraception/abortion.
I just learned about all the Protestant Churches who were not Pro-Life in the 1970’s. The most surprising was Billy Graham (whom I saw in 1994 along with DC Talk and Michael W. Smith). Speaking of DC Talk, Michael Tait (sitting beside Billy Graham in this photo backstage of the event I attended) is going through a serious scandal of his own making right now! He was Bill Cosbying young men and (allegedly) exposing himself to under-aged boys throughout his career! He was the son of a Married Pastor who became friends with TobyMac while attending Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Jerry Falwell, a Married Pastor, had a scandal of his own, involving a pool-boy!
Marriage does not solve the issue of scandal. It is not the answer to the problem of scandal in the Catholic Church. It hasn’t solved it in the Evangelical Protestant world. And it hasn’t solved it in the non-Denominational world either (google “the fall of Hillsong Church.”)
Cardinal McCarrick was malleating young Seminarians! Let’s start there! Abused often become abusers.
Another one of his victims (who was not a Seminarian, but a friend of the family or a relative) has since left the Catholic Church and become Eastern Orthodox. But, the Eastern Orthodox is not without scandals and cover-ups of heir own.
“Most Priests take a vow of poverty.” I don’t think this is true, at least in the United States. I think that most U.S. priests are diocesan priests and do not take a vow of poverty.
You might be correct, but I’m pretty sure they don’t get payed a lot. I do know if they go out to eat with a fellow Priest, chances are their meal will get payed for : )
I only know this, because my Wife and I were out to eat one time and saw two Priests eating and we told our Waitress that we would like to pay for their meals. She returned and said that three other people had also offered.
We need to weed out bad Priests.
