Here’s a quick AI response. I thought that a Pope had initiated the tradition:
Pope Gregory VII, who reigned from 1073 to 1085, is credited with mandating celibacy for priests in the Roman Catholic Church. He established this requirement to enhance the prestige of the priesthood and to prevent issues related to inheritance and church property.
A statistic that came out of the original Boston Globe reporting in 2002 was that only about 50% of priests are actually celibate. Most of the ones having sex are engaged with other adults but it creates a culture of secrecy that provides cover for abuse. The church has responded to the crisis like any other big organization with a lot to lose. CYA. It’s sad to see all these sincere Catholics who still think the Church has some moral authority.
Porphyry, got any insights into what we can expect from Leo?
Am I the only one who finds it outrageous that such a problem continues on and on in the Catholic church? The pope and the priests are supposed to be indwelled with the Holy Spirit of God, no less. How can such a situation be allowed to continue? Look at Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. When a dorm matron was found to be molesting the students, Oprah took care of the problem
once and for all. I believe the Catholic church should care enough about children being abused by its priests to prevent it. Why don’t they?
Porphyry, got any insights into what we can expect from Leo?
It’s early, and I knew literally nothing about him when I heard his named announced. But I think I have a decent read , all things considered:
Liturgically, he has conservative leanings. He’s not a traditionalist, but I expect him to do traditional sort of things.
Theologically, he is not the sort that tries to soft-pedal or run away from dogma. He really believes, and he thinks it is his vocation to preach the fullness of the (Catholic) gospel, not rewrite it. Even if he ends up being a liberal he will be a Rahner liberal, not a Kung liberal (by which I mean, he is playing the same game by the same rules, rather than flipping the board over).
Temperamentally, he is sincere and humble. I think he will have a genuinely pastoral heart.
Intellectually, I sense some squishiness, but he is a million times clearer and more coherent than Francis was. We’ll see as he has a chance to start saying more.
Overall, I’d say he is a centrist, but rightward leaning. If he is a full-blown liberal, he hides it scarily well. It is interesting that both the right and left seem to be pretty happy with him.
Honestly, as far as the Catholic right is concerned, he is a dream. They were stealing themselves for some really bad options (from their perspective), and he is better than they could reasonably have hoped for.
Pope Gregory VII, who reigned from 1073 to 1085, is credited with mandating celibacy for priests in the Roman Catholic Church. He established this requirement to enhance the prestige of the priesthood and to prevent issues related to inheritance and church property.
Is this when priests began dating men? (mandating)
People committed to truth and honesty shouldn’t be afraid of talking about anything.
Indeed.
When I was a kid and had to go to church, I was usually pretty bored and would often daydream. However, there was one priest who actually had me listening, which was no small thing. Eventually, though, he would give up the priesthood to get married. I don’t suppose back then it even crossed my mind that there were gay priests. As the years passed, however, I began to think that many, if not most, were.
If this is the case, it would be prudent for the Church to accept this and change its attitude toward homosexuality. What are the largest stumbling blocks to this happening?
I think the only place to begin is to change the celibacy mandate. Nevermind homosexuality. I mean or call celibacy “asexuality”.
Yes, that might be the best place to start. At some point, however, it’s going to be necessary for them to deal with their position concerning homosexuality.
Judith wrote:
Perhaps the problem of priests abusing children is so all-pervasive that it cannot be resolved without undermining the Catholic church itself.
One does wonder how pervasive the abuse is.
I think we can safely assume the reported abuses are a fraction of the ones that actually occur. What fraction that is I think is anyone’s guess.
I don’t know. However, I feel that allowing marriage would allow for a more normal atmosphere of marriage and family. As it stands now, marriage and family is kind of an outsider’s realm. It’s almost as if homosexuality (and possibly even pediaphile grooming) is encouraged by discouraging normal heterosexual behavior. It begs a mens’ club atmosphere. I know that might sound biased and really out there, but I think somewhat credible?
This would of course not solve a homosexuality ‘problem’ but at lease child abuse could be policed.
Imagine what it must be like in countries where the church dominates culturally and politically and there are weak secular institutions?
Nothing will change until the laity wakes out of their denial. Change will have to come bottom-up.
I suspect the church will go like the Soviet Union. Rotting from the inside until it simply collapses.
Nothing will change until the laity wakes out of their denial. Change will have to come bottom-up.
That’s going to be slow coming. The Catholic Church is hierarchical; the only real lever the laity has is the power to walk away.
But if you are a believing Catholic (the sort that believe what is in the Catechism), you believe that Christ founded this specific institution, endowed it alone with the fullness of means for salvation, commanded everyone to be a member of it (so leaving it would itself be a sin),
So you think you have to be a member of the Church and that you have to attend mass at the Church.
Does the widespread moral failure of Church leadership make you question your faith? I guess it could, but although you believe Christ made many promises to the Church, he never promised that the Church would have worthy priests and bishops; Their individual failings don’t directly undermine Christ’s promises (I mean, that the Church has had some really bad leaders in the past is no secret). There is actually a cliche: Don’t abandon Christ because of Judas.
The Church is facing financial problems and those do hurt, but I think the really imminent crisis is the lack of vocations. Not many people want to be a priest anymore. Interestingly the places with the strongest vocations are those that tend to be most conservative, which sort of makes sense; the people who really believe the dogmatic claims will be the most willing to be priests, and they are going to want to join places that are similarly dogmatic.
Whether on the donations front or on the vocations front looking at it as a branding issue is illustrative. The Church has spent centuries building a brand by making certain key claims that distinguish them from the other Christian denominations. Their best chance to stay afloat it is hold onto the brand they have built, even if the demographic they are catering to is shrinking. Suddenly changing their core selling point and becoming knock-off Episcopalian Church is only going to alienate their most loyal and engaged customer-base.
They are sort of painted into a corner. They could try to cater to the cultural Catholics, but the thing about merely cultural Catholics is that they are no where near as motivated or loyal as the dogmatic Catholics. Cultural Catholics don’t generally become priests, and they only go to mass on Christmas and Easter.
So, sure the Church could come out and reverse its teaching on homosexuality, or contraception, or any number of other issues, and that would make a lot of cultural Catholics happy. But it is going to make the die-hard Catholics walk.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert
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