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Is it time the Pope changed the rules and allowed Catholic Priests to marry? Wouldn't children and the rest of society be a little safer and the priests a little more content were that to happen?
As a Catholic myself, I see two problems with allowing priests to marry.
a) They're supposed to be devoting their entire lives to God. They simply don't have the time for the distraction of familial responsibilities. It would likely put a massive strain on the marriage. Not the best environment to raise a kid in.
b) If the Church allows priests to marry, there will be many more priests a generation later. However, many of these priests will be unqualified for the job. If a priest marries and has a son, he might end high school thinking "y'know, the priesthood sounds like a pretty good profession. I know a lot about it from my dad's service, and he's got plenty of connections within it."
The Catholic Church doesn't want people to become priests simply because it's easy to go into the family business.
The hits to the Catholic Church just keep on coming - and they always seem to be around Sex probably because Catholic Priests, who are always male, cannot marry or have relations.
Gay priest sex scandal as undercover Berlusconi reporter 'films clerics at gay clubs' | Mail Online
Granted, the DailyMail isn't much of a newspaper - but it's enough to ask the question:
Is it time the Pope changed the rules and allowed Catholic Priests to marry?
Wouldn't children and the rest of society be a little safer and the priests a little more content were that to happen?
If we take a look at the Episcopal church, which is probably more closely structured like the Catholic church than any other denomination, they don't have a problem with pedophilia, and they let priests marry. I suspect that this is a good indicator of what would happen if priests could marry.
As a Catholic myself, I see two problems with allowing priests to marry.
a) They're supposed to be devoting their entire lives to God. They simply don't have the time for the distraction of familial responsibilities. It would likely put a massive strain on the marriage. Not the best environment to raise a kid in.
b) If the Church allows priests to marry, there will be many more priests a generation later. However, many of these priests will be unqualified for the job. If a priest marries and has a son, he might end high school thinking "y'know, the priesthood sounds like a pretty good profession. I know a lot about it from my dad's service, and he's got plenty of connections within it."
The Catholic Church doesn't want people to become priests simply because it's easy to go into the family business.
Poor men? Boohoo, that's the life they chose.
The hits to the Catholic Church just keep on coming - and they always seem to be around Sex probably because Catholic Priests, who are always male, cannot marry or have relations.
Gay priest sex scandal as undercover Berlusconi reporter 'films clerics at gay clubs' | Mail Online
Granted, the DailyMail isn't much of a newspaper - but it's enough to ask the question:
Is it time the Pope changed the rules and allowed Catholic Priests to marry?
Wouldn't children and the rest of society be a little safer and the priests a little more content were that to happen?
Pedophilia, like rape, seems to be based on the principle of control and power
A pedophile is going to try to get a job that places him in close proximity to children and a pedophile in a position of power is more likely to get away with it than a pedophile not in a position of power.A person who is in a position of power is more likely to be a pedophile than somebody who is not in a position of power.
The Catholic Church is not the only organization where figures of power are caught molesting, harassing and even seducing, those bellow them. The same recurring issue can be found in FLDS churches, the Boys Scouts of America, Islamic groups etc. People need to realize that the evidence seems to support the assertion that pedophiles are encouraged by their environments.
So the solution seems to be to discourage them from following their urges by allowing them to live less restrictive lives. This means allowing them to have wives, children etc. Those who do not try to get help should be treated as people with an unhealthy addiction, a mental illness etc.
Now I know Catholics will say that priests are in the service of God. We'll that's all great and dandy but in the Bible you can find at least one person on every page who was in the service of God and had a wife. Noah, Abraham, Jeremiah, David etc. All these people managed to be in the service of God and still commit the unspeakable (sex). At the end of the day it's up to the Pope. But we all know what will happen with the theologian formerly known as Ratzinger. He will simply make a strawman and blame somebody else for the illogical way in which the church is being led. AIDS not condoms, homosexuality as bad as pedophilia, reality worse than dogma.
That sounds like hogwash. Pedophilia is the sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Not some power trip. Just like normal men find a woman with breasts sexually attractive or a gay man finds other men sexually attractive, the pedophile finds prepubescent children sexually attractive.
A pedophile is going to try to get a job that places him in close proximity to children and a pedophile in a position of power is more likely to get away with it than a pedophile not in a position of power.
You realize that the reason kids get molested in these groups because a pedophile is sexually attracted to children.Also a lot of these groups have a close proximity to children,so it makes sense that pedophiles would seek jobs in the Catholic church and anywhere else near lots of children. Other than strapping someone to a chair and showing him pictures of women, and children in swimsuits to see if there is a reaction, the only thing these organizations can really do is backgrounds checks and report any suspected cases of child molestation to the authorities.
This is nothing more than lets bash the catholic church. Most catholic priests are not pedophiles.and 50% of men arrested for pedophilia are married. so it dispels the notion that a lack of a normal life is going to somehow cause a unmarried priest to be sexually attracted to little boys.
• 3/4 of the violent victimizations of children took place in either the victim's home or the offenders home.
-BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991.
• For the vast majority of child victimizers in State prison, the victim was someone they knew before the crime. 1/3 had committed their crime against their own child, about 1/2 had a relationship with the victim as a friend, acquaintance, or relative other than offspring, about 1 in 7 reported the victim to have been a stranger to them.
-BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991.
• 3 in 10 child victimizers reported that they had committed their crimes against multiple victims: they were more likely than those who victimized adults to have had multiple victims.
-BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991.
Like rape, child molestation is one of the most underreported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed.
-FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
Honestly, unless we are Catholic does our opinion matter? I voted other because I don't care if they are allowed to marry or not. They chose to be a priest.
That would rather depend on several things, like
1) Have you been subjected to abuse by a Catholic Priest?
2) Are you the parent of a child?
3) If you are a parent would you care if you had a child and that child was abused by a Catholic Priest?
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