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| Author |
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| 25 new of 89 responses total. |
jmsaul
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response 50 of 89:
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Jun 4 13:38 UTC 2002 |
I dunno. Priests are sexually abnormal by definition.
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jep
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response 51 of 89:
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Jun 4 15:56 UTC 2002 |
So are gay people. Many people would not trust their kids to a gay
person for that reason.
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jmsaul
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response 52 of 89:
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Jun 4 16:13 UTC 2002 |
You're acting as if these are two non-overlapping categories...
Personally, I'm more concerned about the stability of people who are
intentionally celibate for life than that of people who are attracted to the
same sex. Remember, we aren't talking about people who haven't gotten
laid in a while, or who want to but can't hook up with someone -- we're
talking about people who, for whatever reason known only to them, decided
not to ever have sex for their entire lives. To me, that suggests some
deep-rooted sexual pathology... and if they didn't have one to start with,
they might eventually.
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brighn
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response 53 of 89:
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Jun 4 16:18 UTC 2002 |
Priests are not sexually abnormal by definition. Gays are.
However, gays do not need to be denying their sexual drives. Priests do
(unless they're aberrational and have no sexual drives).
Repressed people are, by and large, less stable than non-repressed people.
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jmsaul
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response 54 of 89:
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Jun 4 16:18 UTC 2002 |
You don't think permanent celibacy is "sexually abnormal"?
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rcurl
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response 55 of 89:
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Jun 4 16:35 UTC 2002 |
It would be unusual to have the options in #49. Usually one must choose
among a very small number of high school or maybe college students that
are willing to childsit. These are also usually women. During the day it
is called "childcare", and when done in a home it is usually a group
situation. Otherwise, I see no necessary connection between the person's
profession and their reliability, although I would want to know that the
person would keep their profession out of their care responsibilit (unless
it were a care profession, such as nursing).
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jep
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response 56 of 89:
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Jun 4 16:53 UTC 2002 |
We're talking about people who have dedicated their lives to leading a
religious community, not people who have decided to just give up sex
and then found an occupation which fit their chosen lifestyle.
I couldn't find the specific information I was looking for about the
procedure to become a priest, but there's a little information at:
http://www.vocationsdetroit.org/html/priestquestions.htm
Requirements include a degree and a master's degree at a seminary, but
there's a selection process in addition. The link is clearly for kids
who are thinking they might want to become a priest; it doesn't give
much detail or any potential obstacles. I don't think the priesthood
is a club for guys who don't want to have sex, though.
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brighn
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response 57 of 89:
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Jun 4 17:27 UTC 2002 |
#56, para 1> Are we? Are you so sure that at least some priests don't go into
the priesthood because they have what they consider to be inappropriate sexual
urges (esp. gay and pedophiliac ones), and therefore go into the priesthood
hoping the discipline of the Vow of Celibacy will keep them on the straight
and narrow (pun intended)?
#54> Not by definition, no.
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jep
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response 58 of 89:
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Jun 4 19:28 UTC 2002 |
re #57: I feel confident that the Church expects a little more than
that as the reason someone becomes a priest.
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brighn
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response 59 of 89:
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Jun 4 19:35 UTC 2002 |
#58> The Catholic Church requires a knowledge and commitment to the teachings
of Christ. I don't believe they, at any point in seminary, ask, "Are you
interested in becoming a priest because you've had fantasies about screwing
altar boys?" If you fulfill their requirements in seminary, that's their major
concern. (They MAY ask that question in the process of mental health
counselling, but then I doubt they turn someone away if they say, "Yes.")
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jep
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response 60 of 89:
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Jun 4 20:21 UTC 2002 |
re #59: I think that's unrealistic. A priest is expected to fill a
whole range of roles; he doesn't just celebrate Mass and then wait for
the next Sunday. He's the parish organizer, community leader,
counselor, confessor, confidant, advisor... he's the center of many
people's lives in his congregation. The Church expects a lot out of a
priest.
They may not have done much investigation in the past about pedophilic
tendencies, but I'm pretty sure, given the current huge problem, that
they will in the future. People expect a lot from the Roman Catholic
Church. The Church is going to have to deliver.
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brighn
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response 61 of 89:
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Jun 4 20:34 UTC 2002 |
#60> My father is a United Methodist minsiter, John, I'm very aware of the
responsibilities of ordained, professional clergy. My comments stand.
The Catholic Church will be on vague guard for pedophiles for a year or two,
until this maelstrom blows over. Then it'll be back to the old ways. The
Church was already hurting for recruits. If they really did the sort of
investigation they'd need to do to ensure that this never happens again,
they'd run out of priests.
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drew
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response 62 of 89:
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Jun 4 20:59 UTC 2002 |
Re #52:
I'm curious as to why you think that those who choose celibacy, and
especially those who choose a way of life for which celibacy is part of
the cost, are more likely to be unstable. Is the sex drive so powerful as
to make the idea of willingly foregoing it unimaginable?
For the record, I was never much enamoured with the Catholic faith;
and I did end up not liking a couple of the priests in my school's parish.
However, I have *never* known any of them to have sex with one of the
students, male *or* female. For that matter, the idea was never even hinted
at in the students' gutter talk.
Perhaps people who choose this way of life actually buy into its
teachings. Maybe they believe that the deity of this church actually
exists, and will help them with the urges. Some will certainly claim *this*
to be a delusion. However, society does recognize it as normal.
Now it is obvious that the position of priest is going to *attract*
people such as you describe. But as JEP point out, there is a selection
process. (JMSaul, I'm pretty sure that you attended at least one of Brother
Guy's panels. Were you at the one where he talked about how he became a
brother?)
(And besides, if someone with urges to molest agrees that acting on
them is wrong and takes steps to try to prevent it, that's at least
*something*. Would it be better that he just said the heck with it and did
whatever he felt like?)
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brighn
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response 63 of 89:
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Jun 4 21:28 UTC 2002 |
#62, last para> That's a good point. It raises the question: If 1 out of 20
priests has pedophiliac tendencies, and 99 out of 100 pedophiliac priests
successfully use their faith as a means to stem the urges, isn't that really
a good thing in the long wrong (if, in contrast, only 1 out of 100 of the
general population has pedophiliac urges, but half those people with urges
act on them). That is, if the priesthood is seen as a cure for pedophilia by
at least a portion of thsoe attracted to it, shouldn't we be taking into
account those for whom the cure was successful, as well as those for whom it
failed?
(My numbers, by the way, were completely random and were not meant to imply
any relation to actual statistics. They are provided to make my argument
clearer, nothing more.)
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cmcgee
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response 64 of 89:
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Jun 4 21:34 UTC 2002 |
A good thing in the long wrong?
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oval
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response 65 of 89:
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Jun 4 21:45 UTC 2002 |
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russ
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response 66 of 89:
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Jun 4 22:07 UTC 2002 |
Re #43: If I have the quote correct, Mother Theresa also said
"The suffering of the poor has great spiritual value." This spiritual
value apparently did not apply to her own situation; when she needed
medical care she got it in a modern hospital (not one of her own) and
she had the benefit of modern analgesics not provided by her organization.
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jep
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response 67 of 89:
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Jun 4 22:55 UTC 2002 |
re #66: She does seem to have done a lot for the poor of India, even if
she didn't live like them. Anyone who has done more should freely
criticize her and feel morally superior.
Me, I eat enough to feed 4 people in India, and throw away enough for 2
more without thinking about it. I use enough gas in a day to plow a 10
acre field. If I lift a finger when I'm home, it's to get my TV remote
or to decide which book I want to read as I lounge on the couch. I've
never done anything for the poor or sick, and I'm not about to start
criticizing Mother Theresa because she had the choice of using modern
hospitals and did so. Come to think of it, I'd do that, too, and I do.
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jmsaul
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response 68 of 89:
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Jun 4 23:07 UTC 2002 |
Re #62: The sex drive is powerful enough to make me wonder about how
professional permanent celibates are sublimating it, and to classify
such people as "abnormal." "Abnormal," of course, just means "not
normal," and it could just be that they have unusually strong
strength of will or unusually low sex drive.
My main concern about priests and kids, though, is the point you
make that the profession is likely to attract people with sexual
issues. I don't think that all priests are nuts, by any means, but
I think that many of them may have chosen the path because of
social pressure against their sexual orientation. If that's just
because they're gay, no big deal; gays have no more interest in
children than heterosexuals do. If they're suppressing something
genuinely dangerous, though, that's something to worry about because
they may not succeed in suppressing it forever.
So... priests are a population that is likely to have a larger
proportion of people with sexual issues than the mainstream, is
likely to have otherwise normal people (and I count gays here)
who are seriously sexually repressed, and thus isn't necessarily
*statistically* a population you want to trust your kids with.
This doesn't mean that *all* priests are a problem, or even that
*many* are, just that the problem people will be more common than
in the population at large.
I didn't hear Brother Guy's talk about how he wound up joining
the priesthood, no.
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jep
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response 69 of 89:
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Jun 4 23:27 UTC 2002 |
I consider priests to be a population of very dedicated men who have
chosen to spend their lives serving others. There are some bad apples
amongst them as there are in any large group. I would regard the rest
with sufficient esteem and trust that I think they... well, you can
hardly say they make up for child abusers, nothing can do that. The
whole group doesn't deserve to be depicted as villains because of a few
really bad people. I think most priests are really great people.
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eskarina
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response 70 of 89:
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Jun 4 23:35 UTC 2002 |
How about we figure out the psychological process about why people become
pedophiles, and actively try to prevent it?
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jep
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response 71 of 89:
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Jun 4 23:55 UTC 2002 |
Sounds good to me.
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mary
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response 72 of 89:
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Jun 5 00:09 UTC 2002 |
Most everyone seems so focused on the pedophile priests. Yep, they
are very sick and should be prevented from hurting more children. And
punished, and given psychiatric help. But what about the mentally
competent bishops and other church leaders who knew about these crimes
yet paid off the parents and quietly shuffled the predators off to other
parishes? Had priests been murdering children, and had they likewise
chose to handle it "internally", all hell would come to bear and they'd
be finding their blessed asses in jail. But the victims here had
little voices and no advocates, evidently.
If the Catholic Church was really more interested in turning a new
page of decency here they'd be firing every leader involved in the
cover-up and turning over information to aid their prosecution.
I'm not holding my breath.
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jep
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response 73 of 89:
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Jun 5 02:24 UTC 2002 |
The Catholic Church leaders involved deserve to be fired and penalized
and everything else you said, Mary. So does anyone involved in
committing or concealing such crimes -- no more and no less than the
Catholic Church leaders. Others aren't all being brought to justice,
and neither are these folks.
I'm 100% in favor of prosecuting anyone who does that sort of thing to
the fullest extent of the law. I am *not* in favor of a bloodbath or
witch hunt of just Catholic leaders, or just religious leaders.
Religion, and the Catholic Church as an entity, are not responsible for
these crimes, not according to the facts I know of, anyway. Some
rotten people are responsible. I hope the Catholic Church expels them
and helps to prosecute them.
I'm not holding my breath for that, either. There's a lot of reason
for the Church to minimize the problem and do everything it can to
avoid being associated with it more than it is already. There are too
many people ready to attack the Church and it's principles because
they're anti-Catholic or anti-religion. I think I'm seeing some of
that right here in this item. On Grex, of all places.
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jmsaul
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response 74 of 89:
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Jun 5 03:54 UTC 2002 |
The Catholic Church is responsible for the sex crimes the same way the LAPD
was responsible for the excesses of the Ramparts crew: they set up a culture
that allowed it to happen, covered it up when they found out about it, and
refused to do anything until their noses got rubbed in it big time. You can't
really deny any of those allegations.
I'm *not* claiming that molesting kids is Church policy, or even that the
Church leadership thought it was okay. I *am* claiming -- and the facts back
me up -- that the Church knew it had a problem, did nothing for the victims
and little to help the perpetrators cut it out, and swept the whole thing
under the rug instead of facing up to it and making it stop. This problem
wasn't localized in one or two areas, either; it was systematic.
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