Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/15/incel-theology.html
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And why not? The Celibate clergy was a systemic response to the homosexual population back in like the 13th century. Timmy likes boys but we cannot have that so lets make him a priest cause priests cannot fuck.
We all know that when someone tries to hold back something as primal as their sexual selves it will eventually act out on itself and in most cases in unhealthy ways.
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celibacy != need to rape children
What a completely fucking bat-shit insane argument.
Fuck all these people.
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…with children?
(I’m sorry, that was a little vague… I just get a little steamed with the idea that sex cures pedophilia. To me that argument is akin to the idea that a healthy sexual relationship prevents rape.)
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Or the right opposite sex partner can fix homosexual attraction.
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I’m not sure that’s true. I’ve seen several reasons given why celibacy prevailed over married priests.
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If the RCC wants to survive, one way or another it have to find ways to make its clergy not appear to be a haven for people who are suppressing or repressing their own sexual desires (healthy and unhealthy). Otherwise its leaders can expect that the revelations of sexual abuse and abuses of authority will increase as fewer people can be intimidated or bought off for peanuts by their rotten institution.
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409 recommendations? Hopefully the first one is, Dont have sex with children
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celibacy == need to hide the sex you are having
One way to do that is to have sex with people you can coerce into staying quiet.
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The way I had it explained to me by serious Catholics, the church has no specific rules against priests not having sex. What is forbidden is getting married. Everybody already can’t have sex without getting married. This is related to the episcopalian loophole, where married episcopalian priests convert to Catholocism, and because they can’t get divorced (which again is forbidden), they become married priests. They aren’t forbidden to have sex with their wives.
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Eastern Rite churches, who are in communion with the RCC (that is, they accept the authority of the Pope), allow their priests to be married. So this isn’t some wild suggestion out of nowhere, and you don’t have to reach back to the 13th century to find married priests in the Church.
The unverified story I heard was that the Church mandated priestly celibacy to clamp down on family heirs squabbling over land rights inheritance. If you make one of your sons join the Church, that’s one less heir apparent to fight over the land. Eh, it’s probably an apocryphal explanation, but I imagine that did happen in certain medieval families.
Another surefire way to reduce priests raping children (and let’s call it for what it is…I fucking hate the word “scandal”, as if it were some guy cheating on his wife or embezzling money) is to admit women into the priesthood and bishop-hood. (is that a word?) I suspect women would be a wee bit less tolerant of kids getting raped. But maybe that’s my Man’s Intuition pointing me in the wrong direction, which it often does.
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What really needs to happen is for people to stop standing around waiting for other people to come up with new child rape mitigation policies in a global organization and instead for individuals actually take responsibility and ownership of thier support of organizations that come even fucking remotely close to allowing children to be raped.
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Then you better get Francis I on the phone and have him extradite Cardinal Bernard Law back to Massachusetts to face the music.
But thank you for your vision of unicorns and rainbows. This is the RCC we’re talking about here, bub, not some do-gooder NGO helping people to register to vote. The best we can do for that corrupt, shit-filled behemoth IS to set up child rape mitigation policies. Child rape mitigation policies is better than the previous policy, which was cover up, shuffle child rapists from parish to parish, and make secret settlements.
Give me women and married priests over that any day.
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The one I heard, IIRC, was that mediaeval western Europe didn’t have much in the way of a cash economy until quite late on. If you wanted to pay someone, you gave them some land, and they took an income from that. So clerical celibacy was intended to prevent alienation of the Church’s land by priests’ heirs and/or a loss of control over who got to be a priest (jobs being regarded pretty much as hereditary as land, back in the day).
In eastern Europe and western Asia, where the Roman Empire hung on till the mid-15th century (just), this was never so much of a problem; hence why Orthodox priests have always been able to marry (unless they want to be bishops, in which case they have to be monks anyway).
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Hmm… if I follow the logic:
- Priests rape children.
- Give priests more liberties within church law.
- ?
- Justice!
Forgive me for thinking that ending mandatory chastity will neither (1) bring justice to children (or adults) raped by pedophile priests, and (2) not in any way lower rates of pedophilia.
Also, language nit pick:
“Celebacy” mean intentional unmarried state. “Chastity” means intentionally not having sex. While the former is used to mean the later in everyday experience, the difference is recognized by the church, and separate doctrines motivate their prescription.
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The reason for the recommendation is because a lot of kiddie-fiddling priests used to interpret celibacy as meaning nothing could happen between a man and a woman - and therefore whatever they did with the children in their care didn’t count.
Oh, and Denis Hart has said he’d rather go to jail than give up a priest who confessed to him that they molested children, so he can go and get fucked.
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This was pretty full-on…
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/undeniable
(I think you’ll need a proxy if you want to watch it outside Oz)
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Forgive me to being snarky, Localhost. I grew up in the RCC, and I know firsthand that the notion of prying truly devout Catholics from the Mother Church is more or less laughable, unless you somehow embrace humanism/rationalism or actually got raped by a priest. I fall in the former camp, thanks be to God. The vast majority of Roman Catholics are good people, utterly horrified by child abuse. But they cannot separate the child rape-enabling bureaucracy of the Church from God’s Will. Sort of how otherwise decent, compassionate evangelicals can vote for rapists like Trump and Moore. If you try to inject rationality and logic into this issue, you’re running down a blind alley. The only way to combat this madness is to think like a religious fanatic, but one that does not tolerate child abuse. Once we can inject the utter rejection of child abuse into religious mysticism and mythology, we might make a little progress. Married and female priests is a step in that direction.
I’m sorry. Pragmatism gets the man on the moon and treats cancer. The same principle applies to this “child abuse scandal”. You crusading liberals could use a little theological awareness in your crusades.
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Um, considering that Orthodox and Anglican priests can marry, it really is not really defensible that roman catholic priests can’t.
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I disagree. Child rape, like many crimes, is a crime of opportunity. This has nothing to do with the interpretation of celibacy or any pedophile trying to “cleanse” himself. Because the RCC enables and protects pedophiles, of course a pedophile would pursue the priesthood. It’s ripe pickings full of little kiddies, everyone trusts you, and it literally takes heaven and earth to get you away from your victims. I suppose part of the “reform” Benedict and his successor Francis has launched is the astonishing, mind blowing notion that child rapists should be punished and children should be protected from predators. So Hallelujah on that front. But as long as any profession gives you access to children AND makes it easy for you to rape children (be it teacher, cop, minister, or social worker), this abuse will continue.
Take away: The bureaucracy must be reformed and molded so pedophiles find raping children a daunting task in that profession. How we go about that, that I have no glib, easy answers.
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