Problem with my chruch.

[Hector Medina]

How ya'll doin',

I feel it is time for me to make a post out of this.

CELEBACY AMONG PRIESTS

We Catholics wonder why priests molest children and such.
That is why.

Now don't get me wrong,I'm sure there are some non-catholics who do the same,as we are all sinners.

But with us Catholics,that has to have a tremedous amount to do with it.

Just imagine if you're a 35 year old man that happens to be a Catholic priest and you want to be with a women,BUT YOU CAN'T ,don't you think thats going to tempt you just a little bit when you see a cute looking child or a young person???

I myself, am only 21 year old male and I can't help but to stare at good looking women,even the old ugly looking ones(or at least my group would consider them to look ugly) sometimes attract me.

I could not see myself surviving as a catholic priest?

I heard It wasent like that in the past.

And I heard that certain priests who come from other chruches and/or are already married when they become catholic can keep/have spouses.

And even know I really don't know many details about the sacrifice they makie to the lord(they marry him or someting) if I found out more it would have to BE pretty convincing for me to agree.

REALLY CONVINCING AND IN THE DEMENSION

I am proud to be Catholic and hate to disagree with the one ture chruch.
I believe we can make thing better.

Are you with me on this?!?


God Bless,

Hector

 

[Hector Medina]

I might also add:

Every person has a breaking point.
And when you have to go through that everyday for the rest of your life..............

I hope you get the picture

-Hector

 

[jukesk9]

Today at 07:37 PM Hector Medina said this in Post #1



Just imagine if you're a 35 year old man that happens to be a Catholic priest and you want to be with a women,BUT YOU CAN'T ,don't you think thats going to tempt you just a little bit when you see a cute looking child or a young person???

No.  And it doesn't tempt normal, heterosexual priests, either.  I by no means am an expert.  But I graduated with a Bachelor's from the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas and had a chance to study a little on pedophilia.

Pedophiles are attracted to children.  There are pedophiles who are married (and have been for a long time) and who have children.  They're married to give their life an appearance of normalcy.  Sexually, they have little to no interest in the opposite sex.

Celibacy is not the reason that certain priests are pedophiles.  It has nothing to do with it.  The Church has got to do a better job with background and psychological tests. 

Here's my vast right wing conspirist theory:  Christ promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church.  But, He never said the gates of hell wouldn't try.  Satan tries.  And the child abuse scandal is just a small part of him trying to overcome the Pillar of Truth.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Marriage won't change a pedophile. I recal that most child molestation is done by the child's father or something to that effect.

 

[seebs]

Today at 08:01 PM jukesk9 said this in Post #3 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=680489#post680489)
Pedophiles are attracted to children.  There are pedophiles who are married (and have been for a long time) and who have children.  They're married to give their life an appearance of normalcy.  Sexually, they have little to no interest in the opposite sex.

Er. They have little to no interest in *adults*. It's not a same-sex/opposite-sex thing; they're totally unrelated.

 

[Loki]

Perhaps such people are deeply religious and disturbed by the thoughts, and thus try to use the priesthood as an escape?

 

[Theresa]

We've had two major scandals in my area of small town Saskatchewan. One here that was very close to happening to me and I have no doubt that I was protected by God's hand because the only thing that kept me from being molested was that I accidently spilled a cup of coffee in an open drawer in the locked room where someone from the skating rink was tempting me with candy, anyways, in both cases, one minor and one in another town that was MAJOR, none involved any Catholics I knew and they were all married and of course not priests.

And then I remember my favorite priest saying at the pulpit that he doesn't want the law to change, etc.,etc.

The Church has the power to bind and loose, and allowing priests to marry is one of the things in this jurisdiction. It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us.

Theresa

 

[Theresa]

Sorry, I wanted to tell Chelsi that I got her PM and I sent two back although I don't know if it worked.

 

[patriarch]

Anyone wishing to bring him/herself completely up to speed with the causes of this scandal in the Church in the U.S. should read The Courage to Be Catholic by George Weigel.

He emphatically makes the point that the overwhelming number of abuse cases were directed, not against girls/women, nor against pre-puberty children, but against post-puberty males (there is perfectly legitimate word for this  which cannot get by the word screener. That word is pre or post p u b e s c e nt)

In other words, by and large, this is not a pedophilia problem.

He has a great deal to say about the causes of this epidemic, all of which seems very much on the money to me.  The book is currently in print,

 

[seebs]

Yeah, I've noticed that a lot of the "pedophilia" isn't close to the technical definition. Yay for oversimplification.

 

[nyj]

Yesterday at 07:37 PM Hector Medina said this in Post #1 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=680431#post680431)

I could not see myself surviving as a catholic priest?

Matthjew 19:12
For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.

Obviously Hector, you cannot receive this, so don't try. However, just because you can't receive it, doesn't mean that everyone else cannot either.

 

[Theresa]

The Sacraments- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

"The Call from God

In the fifth chapter of Hebrews, verse four, there is written: "His
vocation comes from God, as Aaron's did; nobody can take on himself
such a privilege as this." When a priest receives the call from God,
something happens to his soul, like that which happened to Peter in his
barque one dark night when Christ entered it. The young man with a
vocation reacts as did Peter: "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a
sinful man." There is a double tension: one of attraction to the
divine, the other, subtraction, because of one's own unworthiness; a
desire to approach the All-Holy, and a shrinking because of one's own
sense of inadequacy.

Then begins a minimum of six years of difficult study and moral and
spiritual discipline, as one asks himself a thousand times if he is
worthy. Either with the crucifix that hangs on the wall of his simple
room, or to the crucifix on his desk, he carries on a constant
dialogue.

The seminarian knows how human he is, and yet, like Christ on the
Cross, suspended between heaven and earth, abandoned by one and re-
jected by the other, the world expects him to be more than human.
Called to be as pure and as holy as an angel, he is conscious of his
own weakness, bearing about as he does the rich treasure in a frail
vessel. And yet he must fulfill the words of his Master: "Thou hast
sent me into the world on thy errand, and I have sent them into the
world on my errand" (John 17:18). From now on, he no longer takes the
short breaths of the world; he must draw in strength from the world of
the spirit.


The Priest and Celibacy

Our Lord wished to have a group of men who would have the freedom to
give full time to His service; hence He ordained in order that they who
served the altar were to live by the altar. Celibacy in the Latin Rite
stresses this quality of total dedication. The priest is a celibate in
order that he might not have the cares of family and, therefore, not be
afraid to minister to people in plague or to give the last rites to
soldiers dying in battle. St. Paul, speaking of celibacy as a spur to
undivided service, writes: "And I would have you free from concern. He
who is unmarried is concerned with God's claim, asking how he is to
please God" (I Corinth. 7:32).

Chastity, however, is not something cold or negative. It is, as Francis
Thompson called it, "a passionless passion, a wild tranquillity." A man
cannot live without love, though he can live without romantic love or
the Eros. The divine command, "increase and multiply" (Gen. 1:28) may
be verified not only with reference to the body, but also to the soul.
There can be increase of man in the cultural, moral, and religious
spheres. The priest is called a "father," because he begets souls in
Christ. As St. Paul wrote to the Galatians: "My little children, I am
in travail over you afresh, until I can see Christ's image formed in
you" (Gal. 4:19). The purer the mirror of his humanity is, the better
he reflects the image of Christ.

Though a priest is called a father, nevertheless, he is also a "mother"
of children. Our Blessed Lord used two analogies to describe His
attitude toward the city that He loved, and also to all humanity. He
said that He loved Jerusalem as a hen who gathers her chickens, but the
city refused His love. The night of the Last Supper, He used the
similitude of a mother about to bring forth a child, implying that He
would be in labor in His Crucifixion, but would bring forth new life in
His Resurrection."

 

[Lills6]

I would like to see the church develop programs to help bring those hurt by these violations of trust, back into the fold. It's cold out there. Ask in your own parishes if there are any outreach programs to help welcome back survivors of alleged abuse.