I don't have a problem with celibate priests; I have a problem with the hypocrisy where people claim to be celibate and then actually are not.... especially when it turns into sexual abuse.
The Roman Catholic church is the one with the problem---CLEARLY. The many millions of dollars paid out to victims is the proof, so maybe time for them to have some different policies.
I am not attacking Catholics; I like Catholics. All I am saying is what everybody pretty much already assumes, and that is the fact that very few people are actually capable of being celibate.
Problem is that it is more than just a few slipping through. And apperently the child molesters are just the tip of the iceberg; many more are NOT being celibate, and even while not molesting children they are living a sham existence and a lie; a problem which is a corrupting influence on what should be faithful service. So, the easiest answer would be to allow for priests to be married. Even the apostle Paul who asked men who would be leaders in the Church to devote all of themselves to service admitted that if a man could not do that, then better to marry than to "burn with lust" as he put it. And that is EXACTLY what happens when you believe you can demand celibacy, people end up burning with lust because celibacy isn't a natural thing generally.
I think you keep missing my point. Of course there are pedophiles who seek out certain jobs to be near children as a means to exploit them, but that is not what I and others are claiming about the Catholic priests. Sure, a few may do that, but that isn't most of them. Most enter in thinking they can be celibate and then they find out they can't. Many of them where probably homosexuals who had tried to repress their homosexuality due to ingrained cultural and moral conflicts. So they then thought maybe being a priest and living an asexual life would solve that confilct, but then find out as anyone would expect that it won't solve that conflict. Then you have a situation where you have men with terrible sexual conflictions in positions where they are in charge of young boys and men and then we wonder why things go wrong? And on the female side you have homosexual women who also went into a convent believing to do a life of service and be celebate who also were likely conflicted homosexuals, and then you have all of these women concentrated and living together. This is something you see all the time; nuns leaving the order and then openly coming out as lesbians.
Well for one, it isn't something required by the scriptures; the Catholic church pretty much just made that requirement up. Most of Christianity does not require celibacy for a reason, it was not a mandate in the bible to do so. And as I said earlier, Paul himself said better to marry than burn with lust.
Where did I say that it did? However being unnaturally suppressed and conflicted sexually MAY lead to all kinds of problems, and sometimes people act on those problems in very damaging ways.