Posted on 11/15/2004 11:51:23 AM PST by JZelle
Starting today, 290 of the nation's Catholic bishops will meet at the Capitol Hyatt for their yearly business meeting and to tie up loose ends on the massive sexual-abuse crisis that has shaken the U.S. Catholic Church to its core in the past two years. Although it's been less than a year since the church revealed that there were 10,667 cases of abuse c
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
It certainly can get away with it. It's just that most bishops don't have the guts to. I'd say that most members of the Catholic Church are strongly hetero too.
" Based on his 17 years in the priesthood, he estimates that 60 percent of the Diocese of Arlington's 127 diocesan priests are homosexuals, which is high compared with national estimates of 30 percent to 50 percent from other authorities on the priesthood.
"Psychotherapist Richard Sipe, a former Catholic priest who has written and spoken widely on the priesthood, says 15 percent of homosexual priests are sexually active.
"If all homosexual clergy were to leave the U.S. Catholic Church now, the church would lose one-third of its bishops as well, added Mr. Sipe, whose new book on priestly sexual abuse dating back to the fourth century, comes out Nov. 15.
The problem with this report is it focuses on Roman Catholicism's problems. Forty years plus of clinical experience convinced me that the incidence of homosexuality was quite high in the Protestant clergy. For that matter, the incidence of homosexuality in psychiatrists was about as high or higher depending on where you took your statistics.
The other problem is the insistence of many that this is a "pedophile" problem. It is not. The ultimately desired sexual object by many male homosexuals is a pubescent or prepubescent male.
The final problem is that many, but not all, homosexuals basically believe they are "normal." What they mean by that is usually unclear but usually man and boy relationships are not seen as pathological. This is where the elites in the clergy as well as in my profession fail to understand the issue for the average person.
The average male heterosexual has a hard time agreeing that homosexuality is normal because sodomy and fellatio between men is not seen as biologically normal. Further, the relatively low prevalence (4% or less) of homosexuality at any given time also augurs for abnormality. Finally, the average heterosexual male does not experience "fear" of homosexuality (a Freudian concept) but rather disgust. Renaming homosexuality as "Gay" and ascribing critics as "homophobes" is a political, not a scientific, argument.
Like most serious psychological problems the afflicted deny the existence of pathology. This seemed avant guarde and reasonable when both the American Psychological and Psychiatric Association declared homosexuality as "normal" and above any kind of diagnostic description; however, since these decisions were made by political means many, if not most, mental health professionals will indicate (if pressed and not exposed to publicity) that homosexuality is a disorder of some form or another.
Recent election experience to the contrary, the purpose of homosexuals marrying for the most part is to force heterosexuals to see them as "normal." By making homosexual marriage a societal requirement, the elite thinkers in the radical homosexual movement hope to cement in the public mind they are indeed "normal." Ditto for all the "sex education" efforts in our public schools and other post-modern, political arguments supposedly proving homosexuality is "normal" and accepted by society.
I am smart enough to see some of the problems, but not smart enough to see the solutions. It would seem reasonable that no matter what the average heterosexual person is taught or forced to believe it is unlikely such a person will accept homosexuality as "normal" on an intuitive and reasoned basis.
I did and I have an opinion. Does attacking my opinion make you feel better about yourself?
I did not say it would solve anything. I simply stated an Opinion that married Priests might be good for the church.
What did I say it would solve? I stated a long held personal Opinion.
Of course you implied that marriage would solve the problem.
If celibacy in general were causing this kind of abuse then you would see a far greater amount of priests abusing teenage GIRLS and women (or half anyway, if you use the 50% cited in this article). But the fact is that 98% of this problem is homosexual pedophilia.
Thank you for that. Not sure why stating a personal opinion on this board can cause some to attack you. Many Popes and Priests were married until the 11th century and the practice was ended due to monetary, not religious reasons.
You're very welcome. You have surely noticed by now that there are conservatives and "true" conservatives, Christians and "true" Christians. The Uber-types tend to get very defensive of their "true" beliefs.
As for the 'stupid people' and their 'unreasoned hatred', all I can say is that any lawbreaker, be he hetero- or homosexual, is assured of eternal Hell fire if he refuses to repent and reject his sinful nature, thereby denying the efficacy of Jesus Christ's atoning work on the cross. This rejection of Jesus Christ's sacrificial death is the unpardonable sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ warned pilgrims to take the narrow way, all other avenues are dead ends.
In retrospect, it was poor judgement (IMVVHO) to dismiss any priest or religious who married after V II.
Married men obviously would not prevent homosexual liasons. But if the ten thousand or more Catholic heterosexual priests who left the priesthood because they married a woman were still priests (or, by now, seminary directors and bishops), the overwhelming influence of gay priests would be both lessened and more in th open when and where it occurred.
Actually, I think the purpose is to force themselves to see what is abnormal as normal.
Much as we like to think that we are the intended audience for a lot of acting out and acting up, the gays themselves have issues with just how normal they are.
Lots of what we see today is just straightforward reaction formation and it's not about us at all.
No, but most of them are. I had two that were single between 1961 and 1968, and both were predatory homosexual pedophiles.
the thread you posted is also a duplicate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1280262/posts
here is the original
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1280247/posts
Agree. Pedophilia is Pedophilia married or not. That's a very silly argument.
LOL..thanks
You've heard of the Village People. Their songs revolve around "In the Navy", "YMCA" ... and dress as cops and construction workers. They may as well have dressed as priests. Homosexuals congregate in areas with a heavy male presence.
Homosexuals enter the priesthood to prey on other so-inclined males ... and to prey on young male Christian followers. It's insidious and the Catholic Church should be far more agressive in stopping this behavior.
I think implied in your comment was that if only these guys, their testosterone raging, could marry women, it would end the problem of homosexuality and pedophilia in the church. Please accept my apologies if I was mistaken.
I am not a Catholic, but it is scriptural (Paul's writings) that some are called by God to be celibate, and there certainly is historical precedent for folks who are successfully celibate.
You may be able to argue that some folks enter the priesthood because they are not comfortable with their sexuality and hope to avoid the issue.
Christian faith enables individuals to make choices and to overcome sin. Destructive sexual behaviors, though addictive, are not uncontrollable (unless, I suppose, you're a rabbit or a tomcat.) Even those with homosexual or pedophilia tendencies can make a conscious decision, with God's help, not to indulge in their fantasies.
It is up to the Catholics, certainly, whether they want priests to be able to marry. I understand that the Catholic church is accepting some who are already married. And it might change the mix of folks willing to go into the priesthood. However, celibacy does not turn a person into a pedophile, nor the ability to marry prevent pedophilia.
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