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Is it time Cathoic Priests were allowed to marry?

Is it time the Pope changed the rules and allowed Catholic Priests to marry?

  • God yes!

    Votes: 11 50.0%
  • Hell no!

    Votes: 2 9.1%
  • Rutabaga

    Votes: 5 22.7%
  • Other (Explain)

    Votes: 4 18.2%

  • Total voters
    22

Ockham

Noblesse oblige
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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?
 
I'm not sure allowing priests to marry women would help with some having sex with men and little boys.
 
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?

I doubt it will make a twit of a difference re children short term, anyway. Pedophilia has absolutely no relationship to heterosexual relations at all. I think it would attract more men to the priesthood. And, hey, when they gave their marital advice it would come from someone who's walked the walk -- that has it's advantages.

The reason I say "short term" above is that I think the Catholic Church draws pedophiles the same way carion draws flies. That mindset will take a while to change.
 
Well - since I don't trust the Priests to keep it in their pants and respect my children, I don't let my children near them.
Safety-safe.

To me it's just common sense - You should *never* trust anyone alone with your children . . . you can never be too careful, though - and bad things will happen anyway. It's hard to strike a balance between hover-mother and a essential-freedom-ensuring mother.

One thing that is always advised when your kid's are in a daycare is to randomly stop by and call to see how your children are doing - I think that's a decent middle ground.
 
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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.
 
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.

Most Protestant ministers manage to raise a family while still devoting their working lives to God. Granted it has its stresses and such, but it would hardly be a catastrophe.

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.

Hmmm.... why would the requirements be any easier? You can find people right now who have an uncle or a brother in the preisthood, and I assume the educational/etc requirements remain the same...


My two bits, I think the Catholics should loosen the restriction, which I've never considered Biblical anyway... but then again I'm not Catholic, so it isn't really my concern or my problem, or my decision. :shrug:
 
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?

Default choice Rutabega.

Do you mean that priests can marry each other?
 
It is quite possible that the HRCC is of the belief that unmarried Priests are of greater economic value to the Church than having married priests.
Throughout the history of Christendom albeit mainly (not solely) the HRCC has conducted itself in ways that are not in conformity with it's stated objectives.
As for instance at times various Popes were actually married, many others had Mistresses even up to fairly recent times.
Certainly Popes have in the past fathered children.
I somehow doubt that allowing Priests to marry will in any way reduce the amount of Pedophilia abuse on children in the care of Priests and also Nuns in this Church.
IMO any Church should be banned from having children in it's care.
The HRCC have consistently over many years proven that the welfare of the child is not of paramount importance.
Rather it seems that these children simply provide a never ending stream of victims for the HRCC Priests.
 
i don't think it would make a difference really, the majority of priests keep their vows and don't molest children, the i doubt it would make a difference for the few that do, because they're opportunists, and if the opportunity presented itself, married or not, i think they'd still do it.
 
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.
 
Allowing priests to marry is usually an argument about how to get more priests, not to prevent these scandals. Pedophiles are pedophiles, married or not. Besides, it would be a fundamental change to the church. There are 7 sacraments. You can't just blend holy orders and marriage.
 
I think allowing Catholic priests to marry would be a good idea, but since I'm not a Catholic I really have no stake in the matter, and therefore don't really care all that much.
 
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.

The Episcopal Church has had its own struggle to catch up with increased public awareness of the issue. It's likely that married priests in the Anglican Communion abuse at about the same rate Catholic priests do.
 
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.

You have to remember that the entire reason the RCC stopped allowing it had nothing to do with devoting their lives to God, it was because lots of priests set up little priestly dynasties where their families were taking money away from the church. Instead of leaving everything they had to the church when they died, priests were actually, get this, giving it to their families! The Pope had to put a stop to it, they were losing money!

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.

You don't think there aren't plenty of priests who are already unqualified for the job? Like all of the pedophiles?

In reality, the priesthood is asking men to live in entirely unnatural ways, their natural sex drives eventually force them to act and they take their sexual impulses out on the most available resource available to them: children. Let these poor men have sex and the amount of sexual abuse in the church will go down dramatically.
 
Poor men? Boohoo, that's the life they chose.
 
Poor men? Boohoo, that's the life they chose.

Sure it is, but we have to be realistic. You can choose not to eat but eventually, you're going to have to or die. Personally, I think all theists are out of their minds in general, but they have a right to believe whatever mind-numbingly ridiculous crap they want, but actions and beliefs have consequences and bad beliefs that have bad consequences need to be addressed. Catholic priests, for whatever screwed-up reasons they choose to become priests, still have all this nonsense imposed on them from above and it needs to stop.
 
Being an ex catholic

I have always viewed priests as being unmarried and living a life of poverty.

Dedicating their lives to serve god, and of charity.

The fact that the church maintains a massive amount of wealth is one reason I have rejected it and all religion
 
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?

I picked other.What the catholic church does is their business, not that of non-catholics and phony catholics. If someone wants to be a priest and be able to marry then do not be a catholic priest. Besides that I seriously doubt Chester the child molester is going to satisfy his sexual attraction to little boys just by being married to an adult woman. A gay pedophile doesn't molest little boys just because he can't get *****, if he was desperate for ***** you would be seeing Catholic priest arrested in John sting or catholic priest caught in affairs with nuns stories.
 
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Pedophilia, like rape, seems to be based on the principle of control and 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.
 
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Pedophilia, like rape, seems to be based on the principle of control and power

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 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.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
 
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.

It can sound like whatever you want. The evidence supports exactly that. The pedophile-victim relation is almost exclusively one where one figure has power over the other. Priest/school boy, boy scout leaders/boy scouts, FLDS members/FLDS children, father/daughter, son etc. Do you have evidence to support the opposite?

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.

And again, that simply isn't supported by evidence.

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.

That is hogwash. Nobody decides to study(yes, you do have to go to school to become a priest) expecting to get a job taking care of kids anymore than somebody goes to work for NASCAR expecting to get a job as a race car driver. The list of requirements that one needs to fulfill to become a priest is about the same length as you would any other vocation.

Why would somebody who is simply attracted to children go through the trouble of becoming a priest simply so they may be lucky enough to work with them? We would have been hearing about never ending cases of pedophilia in the education world by now wouldn't we? But that isn't the case. The reality James is that the relationship between pedophile and victim is one of control. One figure has control over the other.

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.

Well considering the fact that the Catholic Church actively works to protect its child molesters in the worst of cases and simply turns a blind to others it's not surprising. However let us look at your bland statistic for a minute and add some more later. 50% of all those arrested for pedophilia are married men. Who are the victims? Let's see:

Pedophile and Child Molester Statistics - Yello Dyno

• 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.

In 75% of cases they are people who the victims seem to know.

• 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.

In 33% of cases the victim was their own child.

• 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.

More likely to keep reoffending than those who go after adults.

Finally:

Like rape, child molestation is one of the most underreported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed.
-FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.

So what do we have? Well we have that the victims are people they know, just like rape, that the victims are people they have control over, just like rape, that the person keeps victimizing most likely because of how underreported the crime is. The reality is that nothing seems to support your claims that pedophiles are attracted to children simply because they're children. They seem to be attracted to those they can readily victimize, in this case, kids. Place that same person who would have become a pedophile elsewhere and they may just as easily have become a rapist or a serial killer. Talk about bashing as much as you want, the evidence suggests pedophiles are conditioned. Not born.
 
I think this is a choice left to the Catholic Church and its members so I cannot say.
 
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.
 
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?

So on balance I have to say yes, my Honest opinion as well as yours and everyone elses opinion does and indeed should count.
 
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?

What are the chances of any of these things applying to you unless you are or were catholic
 
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