There is a rumor that the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church is a problem, so the church spent a couple of million dollars to look into the matter. It took four years for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conclude that the problem is this: a lot of those priests were alive during the 1960s.
That did it! Pot, sex, permissiveness, loud music, booze, long hair. The obvious outcome: buggering little boys.
(Want to take a barf break?)
It has nothing to do, the study concluded, with enforced celibacy. And nothing to do with a massive cover-up. It is, apparently, just an accident of history.
Baloney! The church has required celibacy of its priests. The obvious result is that young men (in this lamentable case) who might otherwise desire ordinary sexual relations have to suppress it. Other young men, who are not interested in heterosexual relations, anyway, are drawn to a fraternity of males who have renounced marriage. It is a hothouse.
The Catholic Church, and even most of its Protestant offspring, have an unhealthy attitude toward normal sexuality. God is a solitary male. The ideal woman--the Blessed Mary--was a virgin who gave birth to a child. Jesus is a bachelor Lord. The Apostles were all males. Priests have to be male, and celibate. Women have been encouraged for centuries to go into cloisters; men into monasteries. Men are to rule over their households like Christ rules over the Church. Family planning is denounced. Birth control is a sin. Abstinence is a virtue. Abortion--one of the most common natural responses to developmental problems--is forbidden, even if the life of the woman is at stake.
It is a perverse and destructive attitude toward sex, and women in particular. It is a macho, male ethic.
Can any good thing come out of such a culture and religion? No, not with regard to a healthy sexual ethic!
The Church has fostered a culture of sexual abuse, covered up for it, denied it, and paid huge reparations to the victims of generations of child abuse.
Nobody should expect either moral guidance or justice from an organization like that.
That did it! Pot, sex, permissiveness, loud music, booze, long hair. The obvious outcome: buggering little boys.
(Want to take a barf break?)
It has nothing to do, the study concluded, with enforced celibacy. And nothing to do with a massive cover-up. It is, apparently, just an accident of history.
Baloney! The church has required celibacy of its priests. The obvious result is that young men (in this lamentable case) who might otherwise desire ordinary sexual relations have to suppress it. Other young men, who are not interested in heterosexual relations, anyway, are drawn to a fraternity of males who have renounced marriage. It is a hothouse.
The Catholic Church, and even most of its Protestant offspring, have an unhealthy attitude toward normal sexuality. God is a solitary male. The ideal woman--the Blessed Mary--was a virgin who gave birth to a child. Jesus is a bachelor Lord. The Apostles were all males. Priests have to be male, and celibate. Women have been encouraged for centuries to go into cloisters; men into monasteries. Men are to rule over their households like Christ rules over the Church. Family planning is denounced. Birth control is a sin. Abstinence is a virtue. Abortion--one of the most common natural responses to developmental problems--is forbidden, even if the life of the woman is at stake.
It is a perverse and destructive attitude toward sex, and women in particular. It is a macho, male ethic.
Can any good thing come out of such a culture and religion? No, not with regard to a healthy sexual ethic!
The Church has fostered a culture of sexual abuse, covered up for it, denied it, and paid huge reparations to the victims of generations of child abuse.
Nobody should expect either moral guidance or justice from an organization like that.
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