Pedophilia in the Catholic Church

Espressocycle

The Catholic Church needs to end its ban on married clergy. The only people who want to join are ones who have troublesome sexual attractions and think they might as well be celibate. That was fine back when it was mostly gay men, but starting in the 60s it became more acceptable to be gay, so that pretty much left the pedophiles.

TheRoadDog

While banning maried clergy my be archaic, pedophilia is not restricted to heterosexual single men. Your argument has no merit.

Espressocycle

My argument is that a celibate clergy attracts pedophiles who figure if they have unacceptable predilections anyway, they might as well be celibate. It used to attract gay men with adult attraction, but now that they can live openly and aren't seen as freaks, they aren't as likely to join the celibate clergy.

5stringjeff

You might be more successful in persuading the Catholic Church with a theological argument, such as the lack of a mandate in Scripture for priests, bishops, deacons, etc. to be single and celibate.

TheRoadDog

Boy Scouts of America Troop Leaders are allowed to marry. Doesn't seem to lower their instances of pedophelia.

perfectingpatti

The only people who want to join are ones who have troublesome sexual attractions and think they might as well be celibate.

Really? Where did you get your facts on "the only people who want to join"?

bathsheba_c

Boy Scouts of America Troop Leaders are allowed to marry. Doesn't seem to lower their instances of pedophelia.

Boy Scouts of America Troop Leaders work entirely in close proximity to children. Not all Catholic priests do. Maybe they'd be better off becoming monks . . .

Italian_Buju

Letting priests marry would not stop pedophiles from PRETENDING to be men of God. Every time I see this come up, it honestly makes me laugh. There is no link at all.

treetop57

I don't get HBO, so I won't be able to watch the documentary on tonight:

Alex Gibney’s ‘Mea Maxima Culpa’: Sex, Lies, and the Catholic Church
Feb 4, 2013 4:45 AM EST

Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa, premiering tonight on HBO, tackles the Catholic Church’s sordid history of sex abuse.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/04/alex-gibney-s-mea-maxima-culpa-sex-lies-and-the-catholic-church.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+thedailybeast/articles+(The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles)

The filmmaker's take on celibacy:

Is there something particular to the church here? Is there something about religion that allows this to happen?

What’s peculiar about the Roman Catholic Church is that at the heart of its doctrine is a lie—the lie of forced celibacy. One of the former priests ... did a study for the church to try to understand the sex lives of priests and found that over 50 percent of priests, that he could ascertain, were not observing celibacy. So that leads to a system of secrecy and blackmail, a kind of protective quality, with anything that has to do with sexuality. So as a result, I think that predators intuitively or instinctively sought out an environment like that.

Do you think that if the rules on celibacy were loosened, this would change things considerably?

I do think in the Catholic Church that if you take away forced celibacy, you take away the inherent hypocrisy and secrecy at the heart of the institution. I think forced celibacy is idiotic. I believe that you can choose to be celibate and that you can train people to be celibate. But if you eliminate forced celibacy, I think you’d eliminate the issues that compel priests to abuse or to keep quiet about the abuse.