As Scandal Keeps Growing, Church and Its Faithful Reel

NY Times | 3/16/02 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ALESSANDRA STANLEY

[mercy]

Somebody needed to say it. Leg touching, indeed! Sorry to all about the double post. There's a weird delay around here these days.

[edwin hubble]

#24 Hubble: It is interesting that for the Roman Catholic Church, celibacy of priests is not faith-based doctrine, but merely a tradition. Actually many Catholic priests are married.

#26 annie: "It is the traditions of men (not to mention the soteriology) that I find curious"

Me too...
... But my thought, in this thread about the scandal, is that allowing priests to marry wouldn't be a big theological change for the Church. The point has already settled in principle.(see#24).

I will leave soteriology: (theology dealing with salvation, especially as effected by Jesus Christ) for another time and place.

[The Cuban]

Where you there when this happened?

Do the allegations number in the thousands?
Do the allegations all involve allegations of completed sodomy?
Were all the victims boys?
Did what is alleged actually happen?

[mercy]

Well I'm going to take you at your word and assume you are simply ignorant. Do a search. Just this forum will blow you away as to the depth and bredth of this tradjedy. Are you aware that older Jesuits have charged that the entire order is now a homosexual organization? It is a huge well documented scandal.

[cicero's_son]

"I'd really like to see the statistics of how many of these priests were ordained since 1965.

You can be sure, sinkspur, that someone in Rome has those statistics...

[father_elijah]

This is not a vain hope of mine, but I am praying that the Holy Father will name Fr Benedict Groeschel as Archbishop of Boston (and then Cardinal). He is the only one I know who could clean things in Boston up and sustain the faithful in their time of crisis.

[The Cuban]

Isn't all the evidence you point out to me merely hearsay? Can you vouch for the veracity of the information spoken, or the quality of the recollection, or the accurateness of perception, or the reliability of the communication? I am sure many like you have stated that thousands of little boys have been raped, but that is as credible and carries about as much weight as me saying that Al Gore is president.

[Torie]

The same old record has been played over and over again. You cover up a terrible wrong, you trim, you sanitize, and the whole thing metasticizes, and becomes a nuclear bomb. It brought down Nixon, and it will bring down Arthur Andersen. And the church does not seem to have "confessed" yet. It is still in a state of denial. It needs to make official public statements of contrition and shame. It needs to describe its program for change. It needs to ask for forgiveness. I say this as one outside the church, or any church. But I know I think what generically is needed to contain the disease.

It will be sad if this great institution, which has done so much good, particularly through its parochial schools, becomes mortally wounded in the US, and ceases to have much force in American affairs. As it was, a certain anemia seemed to be present.

[livius]

Sorry, sinkspur, it won't work.

Having spent much time among the Orthodox (where priests are allowed to marry), I can tell you that marriage is not the thing that is going to stop homosexuality from taking over seminaries and the religious life. Orthodox seminaries in the '70s were plagued by it; the Dean of St. Vlad's had to tell the school that he was not going to be Dean of a seminary full of "pot-smoking homosexuals," and then he had to go and clean house.

I had a friend who was in an Orthodox seminary at the time, and he said that he didn't even want to take showers any more, because the homosexual mafia used to lurk in the shower room. Of course, they were all engaged to be married. They usually managed to get married before ordination, generally to the desperate young women who went to seminary, in theory to study "religous education," but actually to snag a priest for a husband. (Why they'd have wanted one, I don't know.)

The Orthodox Church had many scandals with (married) homosexual clergy, and the Anglicans have had similar problems.

I don't think marriage is the solution. Anybody can pretend long enough to get married. The solution is simply to be very firm on this, don't accept candidates in seminary if there's any suspicion that they're homosexuals, and dump them immediately if anything emerges later on.

Navarro Valls (Pope's spokesman) suggested finding a way to "annul" ordination, and I think this is probably the way to go.

That said, I also wish to challenge the description of Law as "Vatican loyalist." He never has been and he never will be. He's just sneaky, and about as addicted to weasel words as Bill Clinton. He probably wrote the Pilot editorial himself.

[Torie]

Maybe the trick is to ordinate only folks that are married. THAT would be a radical step. I think I read somewhere Episcopaleans have a high incidence of homosexual priests as well. I know one "married" a good friend of mine in a gay marriage.

[The Cuban]

I don't feel that that anemia is sex abuse by priests. That is rather peripheral and merely symptomatic of the central problem with the American Catholic Church. In its quest to be modern it has lost its soul. Practices and traditions with a small "t" have been cast out with nary a second thought. Though the Church still claims the same central dogmas tenets and such as it always has it has destroyed much of its cultural uniqueness and relevance. The mystery so central and benign that once permeated every part of church life is gone, and for no good reason.

[IronJack]

Seems odd that the same public that is now supposed to be so interested in sexual dalliances by parish priests didn't give a whit about the sexual straying of a certain ex-president. Also seems mighty odd that that ink-smeared buttwipe called the New York Times stands so appalled at the former yet was so quick to defend the latter.

None dare call it hypocrisy. Oh wait. I do.

[St.Chuck]

Am faithful....not reeling. The enemies of the church will use this scandal to push their agendas, but the church will prevail. Be not afraid.

[Palladin]

There you go again, old Smedley, pointing your finger at those awful Protestants. Yes, right, everybody's doing it. Yeah, that's it! You just gave the Bishops a new excuse.

As me sainted mother used to say: "If you saw a hundred Protestants jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you jump, too?"

Apologies to all Protestants.

[Torie]

Clinton wasn't a pedophile, and did not have the same fiduciary in loco parentis relationship. You seem off key today. JMO.

[Torie]

I don't feel that that anemia is sex abuse by priests

That certainly will contribute to the anemia if the issue is not faced with candor and transparency, and concrete action, and public statements of contrition and a described program of action. JMO. The silence is eerie and ominous from the hierarchy.

[ejo]

Another reason why the faithful should not abandon the Church. We have to voice our conservative opinions, perphaps with Fr. Benedict Groeschel at the helm this can be accomplished......Welcome back fr.elijah

[anniegetyourgun]

The Episcopalians seem to be moving ever close to embracing the concept as they move further an further from biblical standards. Sadly, most mainline denominations seem to have strayed into the land of "we make it up as we go along."

[anniegetyourgun]

Though I am not Catholic, I am well aware that the Church will prevail because of Him who died for her.