Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S
Considering the trouble the church has had with priests molesting children, should the marriage ban be removed? The bible does not call for it, and it seems exclude those would otherwise consider being a priest while attracting people that are running from their perverse sexual impulses and hoping priesthood would cure them.
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First let me say this; the fact that there were priests who took advantage of their position to abuse children sexually is deplorable, should never have happened, and any priest that is found guilty should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Okay, that being said, let's look at what were actually saying here.
No, I do not think the marriage ban should be removed. Your statement is a common one and is a result of the inaccurate coverage of the sex abuse scandal by the media. However, this statement is based off of two assumptions that statistics tell us are false.
The first assumption is that since priests are celibate, they must have no outlet for their sexual desires and they in turn look for whatever they can conviently find to satisfy their urges. The main reason this assumption falls apart is the simple fact that Catholic priests have a similar to significantly lower incidence of pedophilia than the general population.
link link. Logic would tell us that if celibacy drives priests to pedophilia, then there should be a significantly higher incidence among priests. Reality tells us this is simply not the case.
The second assumption flows from the first. We've already observed that celibacy does not increase the rate of pedophilia. So the second assumption is that marriage will help cure those attracted to pedophilia. Sadly, this is also not true. With few exceptions, pedophiles do not abuse children because they don't have an outlet for their sexual desires. They practice pedophilia because they have a psychological attraction to children. Marriage does not cure this as it does not simply flow from a need for sexual intimacy, but a disordered desire for sexual intimacy for children.
Put simply, celibacy is not the issue because celibacy has no correlation with pedophilia. Priests who can't deal with being celibate, leave the priesthood and have normal relationships with consenting adults.
Now the statement that pedophiles are running to the priesthood to be "cured", doesn't make sense either. As we saw above, priests abuse at a similar to significantly lower rate than the general population.