The premise is this. Annalex seems to think that the RCC's insistence on the clerical celibacy rule is part and parcel of the RCC's powerful witness to the world of the godly, sexually chaste life.
But that is clearly delusional. "By their fruits you shall know them." In judging reality as Christians we are to look at actions much more than words.
And by its well publicized actions, the RCC's witness to the world is anything but that of godly sexual morality, as Annalex would have. Quite to the contrary. The RCC's witness to the world is one of the most vile sexual license without consequence. The RCC's witness to the world - as my friend and my nephew and thousands of others can readily attest - is one of unpunished perversion of the most destructive kind.
You can blink your eyes real hard, put your pinkies in both your ears and scream "la-la-la-la" at the top of your lungs all you want. Reality is what it is. Denying it doesn't change it. And clearly the reality here is that the RCC's witness to the world - by its many actions and inactions, including especially its clinging to the clerical celibacy rule - is nothing other than Sodomy Enthroned.
I can have nothing to do with it. You seem a good person, and I wish you well. But it hurts me that good people like you and Annalex fail to see the unspeakable spiritual carnage your refusal to embrace the reality of the situation - including especially the clerical celibacy rule - has wreaked on the RCC. The RCC just lost Catholic Ireland. It probably lost Catholic Poland. It certainly lost me, many of my family and friends who were among its most ardent believers. What will it take for your to look reality in the eye?
I don't "seem" to think, I just think, and I believe I express myself clearly. No?
Of course celibacy in itself is a witness, and the only way to drive the lavender mafia out is to insist on it.
Or do you seem to think that giving horny men a sexual outlet will make them a better witness for Christ?
Here's interesting read:
This should be a wake-up call for all Christians in Britain. It is time for Protestants who have complacently dismissed church abuse as a Catholic problem to face the reality that abuse is endemic across denominations. As a Christian, and as someone who writes and teaches about religion and sexuality, I have heard far more stories of sexual abuse than I can count along with stories of cover-ups, sexist responses, victim-blaming and repeated failures to take allegations seriously.In terms of abuse in British churches, the 1,885 cases announced by the Methodists are undoubtedly the tip of the iceberg.
Only a few years after the Catholic child abuse scandals, we are on the brink of a new scandal. This time it will be about abuse across churches, probably mostly of adults. It can no longer be blamed simply on Catholic doctrine or clerical celibacy.
Protestants can no longer dismiss abuse as a Catholic problem
It’s not celibacy — it’s homosexuality that is the problem.