Should Catholic priests be allowed to marry?

dlofnep

Does it state anywhere in the bible that a priest may not marry? If not - then why should they not be allowed to marry. Surely, with the high number of rape cases - it's time to revamp the church and give priests someone to spend time with, instead of turning "some of them" into evil monsters who prey on children.

This is a serious question and is certainly worthy of a discussion. What do you feel? Would it change your life as a Catholic in anyway if your local Priest had a wife? Would it really affect their ability to preach catholicism-based views?

seanybiker

Course they should be allowed married but keep the celibacy thing there just to annoy them.

bushy...

For sure , among all the other reasons , it might keep away the ones who are too mean to pay for therapy so instead haunt them by calling around for *"tea" for hours.

*tea = whinging/complaining etc in this case

Tellox

Yes, definitely.

The Catholic religion is extremely outdated in terms of practice, and most people have lost their faith due to church officials eventually being overcome with a normal human sexual instinct - and taking it out in a completely evil way, and destroying the lives of innocent children amongst others.

I would think that if any faith is to be kept in this outdated and in my opinion, disasterously destructive religion, a massive reform is required. The very first of all being to allow Priests to engage in the most basic human "requirement" (if you will) of love and sex.

It makes no sense at all that a Priest should torture himself in this life for the supposed glory of the afterlife. It's like going to a steakhouse and demanding an undercooked steak, telling yourself you'll order a nice one next time. Why not just have a nice steak both times?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Anything to stop them sodomising kids :pac:

philologos

Yes, ministers / priests should be allowed to marry. The Bible outlines both for Judaism (Exodus) and Christianity (1 Timothy, Titus) that priests should be allowed to marry.

The criteria in Judaism is that the priests wife must be a virgin, the criteria in Christianity is that the priest can only marry once.

Ultravid

Tellox wrote: »

Yes, definitely.

The Catholic religion is extremely outdated in terms of practice, and most people have lost their faith due to church officials eventually being overcome with a normal human sexual instinct - and taking it out in a completely evil way, and destroying the lives of innocent children amongst others.

The men who abused were, in the vast majority of cases, homosexuals. Marriage would hardly interest them. Study the report and you will see that this is so. Many more boys than girls were abused sexually.

Marriage is not a solution for sexual deviants. Most of the abusers were damaged young men who joined the religious life to escape and acted out on young males.

Celibacy was not the problem; homosexuality was.

dlofnep

Ultravid wrote: »

The men who abused were, in the vast majority of cases, homosexuals. Marriage would hardly interest them. Study the report and you will see that this is so.

Marriage is not a solution for sexual deviants. Most of the abusers were damaged young men who joined the religious life to escape and acted out on young males.

Celibacy was not the problem; homosexuality was.

Eh, disagree. Homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked. If they were gay, then a boyfriend would be just as appropriate as a girlfriend. But then, it would bring their religious views into question - given the Catholic church's view on homosexuality.

There is also the possibility for many of them being bisexual. But that's neither here nor there. I don't want to turn this thread into an attack on the G&L community. Let's try stick on topic. Thanks.

prinz

dlofnep wrote: »

Eh, disagree. Homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked.

Actually I think the poster has a point. Having read sections of the report, the abuse by priests of girls is minimal compared to the abuse of boys. It is also imo linked to the reports of sexual abuse in the seminaries etc, so I think that there is an issue to be addressed there. What I am NOT saying is that I think homosexuals are paedophiles, but in the case of the institutional abuse I feel like it is an avenue to be explored, the repression and attitude towards homosexuality at the time, which IMO led many into the Church, no better closet to be in, in Ireland in the 1930's and 1940's.

As for priests being allowed to marry, it is honestly something I cannot decide for, I can see the arguments on both sides tbh.

Plus as we have seen in cases in England, allowing your clergy to marry is no guarantee to prevent child abuse.

dlofnep

prinz wrote: »

Plus as we have seen in cases in England, allowing your clergy to marry is no guarantee to prevent child abuse.

Perhaps not - but sexual repression is certainly a factor I believe, and while it may not stop child abuse - it might perhaps lower it. Surely this is worth it?

GBX

dlofnep wrote: »

Perhaps not - but sexual repression is certainly a factor I believe, and while it may not stop child abuse - it might perhaps lower it. Surely this is worth it?

I think they should... allowing to marry will not eradicate the abuse issue, but imo it will reduce it as their urges will be elsewhere/attended to.

prinz

dlofnep wrote: »

Perhaps not - but sexual repression is certainly a factor I believe, and while it may not stop child abuse - it might perhaps lower it. Surely this is worth it?

That depends on how it would go about lowering child abuse. Would the same people not have been drawn to the Church as a vocation in the first place? Would the people that have abused kids, not have because they were married (unlikely if they were real paedophiles - being married will not cure or stop that, as many cases have shown). tbh I know of plenty bachelors but they don't turn to abuse.

If allowing the priests to marry would help prevent abuse and corruption then of course it would be an option to take, but based on why it would.

Many paedophiles (lay and clergy - married and not) went into jobs where they knew they would have responsibility for and access to children (priests,nuns,teachers,swimming coaches etc) however I do not believe that all of the Institutional sexual abusers were inherently paedophilic in nature, given the sheer numbers of abusers and prevalence of abuse.

I think what I am trying to say is that allowing the clergy to marry may reduce child abuse, but the extent to which it may might be overrated.

Ultravid

dlofnep wrote: »

Eh, disagree. Homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked. If they were gay, then a boyfriend would be just as appropriate as a girlfriend. But then, it would bring their religious views into question - given the Catholic church's view on homosexuality.

There is also the possibility for many of them being bisexual. But that's neither here nor there. I don't want to turn this thread into an attack on the G&L community. Let's try stick on topic. Thanks.

So many assumptions you've made in that one post.

Aren't they linked? Study the facts for yourself.

Most of the abuse that has occurred in the Catholic Church has been on adolescent boys, not children, committed by gay men.
Disorder begets disorder.

If I may, I'd ask you why homosexual activists seek to get the age of consent lowered, seek access to children to teach them about homosexuality in schools, desire to adopt children etc... Consider that Oscar Wilde, and many other prominent homosexuals, had relations with boys and even supported changes in the law to allow it.

dlofnep

Ultravid wrote: »

So many assumptions you've made in that one post.

Aren't they linked? Study the facts for yourself.

Most of the abuse that has occurred in the Catholic Church has been on adolescent boys, not children, committed by gay men.
Disorder begets disorder.

If I may, I'd ask you why homosexual activists seek to get the age of consent lowered, seek access to children to teach them about homosexuality in schools, desire to adopt children etc... Consider that Oscar Wilde, and many other prominent homosexuals, had relations with boys and even supported changes in the law to allow it.

I'm not even going to bother with this post. You can keep your anti-gay rhetoric to someone who's willing to entertain your nonsense. IF you have an issue with homosexuality, take it up in the G&L forum. This is a discussion about priests and on whether they should be allowed to marry or not.

AtomicHorror

Ultravid wrote: »

So many assumptions you've made in that one post.

Aren't they linked? Study the facts for yourself.

Most of the abuse that has occurred in the Catholic Church has been on adolescent boys, not children, committed by gay men.
Disorder begets disorder.

If I may, I'd ask you why homosexual activists seek to get the age of consent lowered, seek access to children to teach them about homosexuality in schools, desire to adopt children etc... Consider that Oscar Wilde, and many other prominent homosexuals, had relations with boys and even supported changes in the law to allow it.

Reported for the bigotted crap it is.

Black Swan

dlofnep wrote: »

Does it state anywhere in the bible that a priest may not marry? If not - then why should they not be allowed to marry. Surely, with the high number of rape cases - it's time to revamp the church and give priests someone to spend time with, instead of turning "some of them" into evil monsters who prey on children.

These are two very different issues, and should be dealt with separately?

(1) Priests: Should priests be allowed marriage? (Yes, IMO)

(2) Potential rapists: There are far too many people convicted of rape that are married and not priests, to assume that marriage in and of itself will serve to prevent rape by some sicko.:rolleyes:

Lastly, if someone is a potential rapist, and they marry, what's the likelihood that they will end up raping their wife (forced sex) or children (incest)?

dlofnep

You've completely missed the point. I suggest you re-read this thread.

Black Swan

dlofnep wrote: »

You've completely missed the point. I suggest you re-read this thread.

I still see two completely different issues raised in your OP:
(1) Should priests be allowed to marry?
(2) Potential rapists; i.e., a small minority of sexually dysfunctional priests that may benefit from marriage and not become "monsters?"

Perhaps you have another meaning for your below OP statement, other than introducing a completely different topic, that being the mitigation of sexually aberrant behaviour? (Marriage is not the solution to sexually aberrant behaviour, especially as pertains to rape or pedophilia)

dlofnep wrote: »

Surely, with the high number of rape cases - it's time to revamp the church and give priests someone to spend time with, instead of turning "some of them" into evil monsters who prey on children.

Would you care to clarify the above statement, and how it relates to priests being allowed to marry?

philologos

prinz wrote: »

Plus as we have seen in cases in England, allowing your clergy to marry is no guarantee to prevent child abuse.

Would you mind citing some of these?

If abuse has happened in the COE, it has been on a minimal scale compared to the Catholic Church.

dlofnep

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Would you care to clarify the above statement, and how it relates to priests being allowed to marry?

That by allowing priests to marry or have a partner, it would reduce the amount of molestation cases. Ask yourself - why is molestation high in catholicism, but not so high in protestant churches. What are the fundemental differences that might affect that?

If you think that being forced to be celibate for 50 years doesn't affect a person, then you're absolutely wrong. As I have stated - I never stated this was the case for all cases, but "for some". Had you have read that in my initial post, you'd see that that was the case clearly.

studiorat

Only if the really love each other :pac:

I suppose they should, they were in the past no? I guess the choice would nice...

The thing is though if they were allowed marry what then would make them different from regular lay people?

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a nun some time back and I asked her why she thought religious orders were in decline. One of the reasons she stated was that it wasn't as much of a challenge these days as it was before. I took it to mean that it must have felt pretty special to take on something like that then. If the gravity of the oath or whatever they take is diminished by allowing marriage for instance, surely it gets to a point where they would be better off living like everybody else and joining the congregation and just being active in the church...

prinz

Jakkass wrote: »

Would you mind citing some of these?

If abuse has happened in the COE, it has been on a minimal scale compared to the Catholic Church.

I didn't specifically mention the COE. My point is that ability to marry may not have such an effect on child abuse by religious as many claim. This is not about comparing who did what.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/5129386.stm

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-174036955.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1566826/C-of-E-child-abuse-was-ignored-for-decades.html

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23402024-details/Child+porn+vicar+turned+in+by+his+wife/article.do

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/01/30/church-in-wales-expels-child-porn-vicar-91466-22815047/

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Wales-Reverend-Richard-Hart-Sentenced-For-Making-And-Possessing-Indecent-Images-Of-Children/Article/200809415106750

Overheal

I think its unfair to the priest to deny them a very central part of life. Beside that you need experience to lead. How can a priest properly tell you how to live your love life if he supposedly never gets one himself? He'd know nothing about it.

mikemac

I didn't realize so many non-Catholics would be browsing this forum.
Sure on percentages alone you'd imagine most Irish posters on boards would be Catholic, no?

Just suprised that Poll option 3 has almost twice as many votes as option 1

Everyones vote is valid, I just find it surprising that's all.

prinz

Overheal wrote: »

I think its unfair to the priest to deny them a very central part of life. Beside that you need experience to lead. How can a priest properly tell you how to live your love life if he supposedly never gets one himself? He'd know nothing about it.

Because they experience the true love of Jesus, and his message of how people should live in order to be happy? tbh I have never received anything but excellent advice and help from priests, relating to all things, including sex.

Special K

Yes I definitely think they should be allowed to marry. It's a natural urge to have sexual desires, and I think had they been allowed to marry or lawfully have girlfriends etc, many of the abuse cases would never have happened. I am in no way making excuses for them, as it was wrong no matter what way you look at it, but I can't help thinking that if they weren't sworn to a life of solitude, it may not have happened.

One of the reasons the Church seems to be against priests having relationships is because they think the family life will take priority in the life of the priest and he may no longer be so readily available to the parish. This is true to an extent, but professions like doctors etc are vital in a community and the same "risk" has never been an issue.

I also think more people would be encouraged to join the priesthood if they were not to endure a life of celibacy. It definitely needs to be revamped.

prinz

mikemac wrote: »

I didn't realize so many non-Catholics would be browsing this forum.
Sure on percentages alone you'd imagine most Irish posters on boards would be Catholic, no?

Just suprised that Poll option 3 has almost twice as many votes as option 1

Everyones vote is valid, I just find it surprising that's all.

Simple. While percentage-wise Ireland has a 'Catholic majority', the actual number of 'Catholic' Irish people interested and involved in exploring and developing the Catholic/Christian faith is negligible, while other denominations are much more interested in immersing themselves in the Christian faith, because they tend not to be 'cultural or social' Christians like most of Ireland's Catholics.

Thus Catholic posters on this forum are actually AFAIK in the minority.

Special K

prinz wrote: »

Because they experience the true love of Jesus, and his message of how people should live in order to be happy? tbh I have never received anything but excellent advice and help from priests, relating to all things, including sex.

Really can't imagine getting sex advice from a priest! *cringes

prinz

Special K wrote: »

One of the reasons the Church seems to be against priests having relationships is because they think the family life will take priority in the life of the priest and he may no longer be so readily available to the parish. This is true to an extent, but professions like doctors etc are vital in a community and the same "risk" has never been an issue.

The inverse of this is also true. What kind of home life could a Catholic priest provide his family? Given the demands and roles expected of them, especially in this country.

Special K

Yes but there are many professions which are demanding - I suppose it's up to the individual whether family life is suitable for them or not, but they should definitely be given the choice.

Jason Mc

I see no reason why a Priest should not marry apart from the catholic church maybe not wanting to keep their widows in a nice home and pension after he's dead.

I also do believe (just my opinion) that the life of celibacy has played a part in their deviance.


This country is riddled with sick paedos and it has been proven that a person who was abused as a child has much more chance of being an abuser. The RCC has a lot to answer for.

mrgaa1

correct me where I am wrong but I am led to believe that if you were a priest in another religion and married and then converted to catholism you could stay married and become a catholic priest.
Its only a church law voted in by some synod from years gone by because they couldn't keep their trousers up.
The bible is full of couples - let priests marry and they too can see what married life is all about.

hiorta

Why not? It would serve them right! :D:D

Jason Mc

hiorta wrote: »

Why not? It would serve them right! :D:D

Pwnt!!!

kgpixels

Of course they should be allowed to marry, they are only human after all. The Catholic Church needs to modernise itself.

Fanny Cradock

Ultravid wrote: »

So many assumptions you've made in that one post.

Aren't they linked? Study the facts for yourself.

Most of the abuse that has occurred in the Catholic Church has been on adolescent boys, not children, committed by gay men.
Disorder begets disorder.

If I may, I'd ask you why homosexual activists seek to get the age of consent lowered, seek access to children to teach them about homosexuality in schools, desire to adopt children etc... Consider that Oscar Wilde, and many other prominent homosexuals, had relations with boys and even supported changes in the law to allow it.

Generalisations like this are not acceptable. This is not the forum to be making allegations about your unsubstianted belief that a person of a particular sexual orientation displays a marked propensity to abuse children over another. Take it to a different forum.

philologos

kgpixels wrote: »

The Catholic Church needs to modernise itself.

Yes, and no.

The Catholic Church needs to take a new look at the Biblical text on the view of celibacy in my opinion.

However, the Catholic Church should not conform to the way the world operates if it contradicts the Biblical text. If "modernising" means changing for the sake of the way others in the world who aren't involved in the church demand it to be I think that's not the right way to deal with it.

Black Swan

dlofnep wrote: »

That by allowing priests to marry or have a partner, it would reduce the amount of molestation cases.

This is very misleading and an oversimplification of a complex mental problem that should be dealt with separately, and not conveniently lumped in with another complex issue and used as justification for priests to marry.

Why is this treatment of associating priesthood marriage and pedophilia problematic?

• Pedophilia is classified as a mental disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV). Therapy was required to mitigate this condition, not marriage.
  
• Approximately half of pedophiles began their sexually abusive behavior in their youth (This is before someone could become a priest). "Research studies report that 47% to 58% of adult sex offenders committed their first offense during adolescence or younger" (Bartol, C.R., and Bartol, A.M., 2008. Introduction to Forensic Psychology, 2nd ed. Sage Publications).
  
• Pope Benedict XVI pledged that pedophiles would be kept out of the priesthood, suggesting that the Church will attempt to identify and selectively exclude them in the future (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,547996,00.html).
  
• Marriage is not the silver bullet to cure these aberrant sex offenders, because many of them are married before they have incest with their children (i.e., incest is a major source of pedophilia), or sexually abuse others they are familiar with in their neighborhoods after marriage (i.e., DSM-IV “nonexclusive” type pedophilia).
  
• “50% of the abusers were parents of the children. 18% were relatives. This means that almost 70% of children were molested by family members, fathers, uncles, and grandfathers – males they trusted” (http://www.registeredoffenderslist.org/what-is-pedophilia.htm).

dlofnep wrote: »

If you think that being forced to be celibate for 50 years doesn't affect a person, then you're absolutely wrong. As I have stated - I never stated this was the case for all cases, but "for some".

The same argument could be made that they were pedophilies, or had pedophilic tendencies consistent with DSM-IV, before they entered the priesthood, and that associated stresses were cause for them to break their vows and give-in to their mental condition. If this was the case, the prescription would be therapy, not marriage (where incest could occur, perhaps followed by a divorce if discovered).

Although the time periods are different, it would appear that the incidence of pedofilia in the general USA population (4.0%) is similar to the incidence of priesthood pedofilia (4.0%), suggesting that the same incidence of this mental condition occurs in the general population without the pressures of celibacy?

• “Four percent (4.0%) of the population suffers from sexual orientation toward children. In 1999, 93,000 kids were sexually abused” (http://www.registeredoffenderslist.org/what-is-pedophilia.htm).
  
• “The total number of priests with allegations of abuse in our survey is 4,392… there were 109,694 priests reported by dioceses, eparchies and religious communities to have served in their ecclesiastical ministry from 1950-2002. Using this number, 4.0% of all priests active between 1950 and 2002 had allegations of abuse” ( http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2004_02_27_JohnJay/index.html#prev1).

Anecdotally, I am quite familiar with the struggles of one particular priest, as well as one particular nun, who solved the stresses associated with celibate sexual deprivation by not becoming pedophiles, because they did not have this mental condition to begin with, but rather they broke their vows and married each other (This former priest was my statistics professor, and we discussed this issue with his former nun wife years after the news broke about pedophile priests in 2002).

Podge2k7

Yes, they should be allowed to marry!

postcynical

I didn't vote. At the time of posting, the score was 17-1 (Catholics) and 28-0 (non).

Firstly, priests can marry and married people can be priests in the RCC. The traditional practice of celibacy is not dogmatic and can and has and will change over time.

It appears to be a little-known fact that a married man can become a priest once his children have grown up. I see this option becoming more common in the future in countries like Ireland, where young Catholic men are increasingly called to marriage.

A married priest in the Anglican tradition can also convert and be a RCC priest, and a family man. There was a nice photo in the Irish Times a few months back of a father and son who were recently ordained. The son is celibate I guess, but the father was a convert from the Church of Ireland. (Details a bit sketchy here)

I don't have a clear position on this issue. I see no reason why priests should be celibate, especially when diocesan priests are not required to take a vow of poverty. I am glad that they are celibate, to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Also the call to celibacy applies to all Christians until marriage, so in an ideal world the priest's lot is no different from that of the single man.

My instinct is that these rules will change soon. And that external pressure will not hasten this decision in the slightest. Probably the Orthodox model will be adopted; from what I understand of it, it ticks all the theological boxes.

Finally there are some odious expressions on this thread, which are untypical of this forum. To relate celibacy or homosexuality with a desire to abuse children is either the product of a stupid or a nasty mind.