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To: Lane3 who wrote (1451)	3/6/2002 9:11:40 AM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

You know, the thread started out with a thoughtful discussion on the subject of the priests and child molestation Then, all of a sudden--do not pass go, do not collect $200--the discussion was about the gay "movement," less thoughtful, more frantic. Would this be an example of "thoughtful discussion"? The whole institution [the Catholic Church] can fold for all I care. Folding would be too good for them... Just trying to understand what the term "thoughtful discussion" means, Karen. JC

To: Lane3 who wrote (1451)	3/7/2002 5:22:25 AM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 21057

I don't know if you saw this Slate article: admittedly, the title puns at the beginning are... dire. The rest of it is intelligently balanced. Excerpts... Booty and the Priest Does abstinence make the church grow fondlers? ... When opponents of the celibacy rule—let's call them reformers—talk about celibacy causing molestation, what they mean is that in some cases, given additional factors, celibacy pushes priests over the edge. Conservatives treat causation as an all-or-nothing idea. To them, if celibacy isn't necessary to provoke sex abuse (since some non-celibate clergy are also guilty), or if ending the celibacy rule isn't sufficient to end sex abuse (since abusers of 10-year-olds, if not abusers of 17-year-olds, won't be sated by adult sex), celibacy can't be said to cause abuse. But that's a metaphysical assumption. It doesn't answer the empirical claim that celibacy is a factor. Reformers play a metaphysical game of their own. They extrapolate from pedophile priests and celibacy to Catholic teachings against contraception and masturbation, suggesting that the church is defying human nature and provoking a backlash. "The whole system of teachings on gender and sexuality is being questioned," former priest Richard Sipe told Newsday. But the notion that rules force people to find "outlets" also rests on a metaphysical assumption: that people behave like objects. As Catholic theologian Richard Neuhaus points out, reformers ignore the alternative possibility that people have free will and that the solution to violations of celibacy is to stop violating it. ... If conservatives are right that celibacy doesn't cause pedophilia, they're left to explain why, for example, more than10 percent of the priests in the archdiocese of Boston have been accused of sexually abusing minors. Does the priesthood attract men with sexual problems? If so, why? Again, reformers blame celibacy. They note, as Andrew Sullivan observed, that "many sexually conflicted men gravitate to the priesthood precisely because it promises to put a straitjacket on their compulsions and confusions." According to Newsweek, researchers think some pedophiles join the priesthood because "they hope it can help control them." This, too, is a causal theory: Celibacy creates pedophile priests not by turning priests into pedophiles, but by turning pedophiles into priests. Most conservatives think pedophiles become priests, rabbis, teachers, or Boy Scout leaders for a simpler reason: to get access to kids. The solution, then, is to become more astute and diligent about screening seminarians and priests for sexual problems. But reformers believe that the celibacy rule scares away so many applicants that the church can't afford to weed out its pedophiles. "The pool [of priests] is so small, they don't have enough to let these guys go," a Catholic anti-celibacy activist told the Courant. As the debate progresses, each side is absorbing the other's criticisms and refining its own arguments. Reformers are retreating from the crude idea that horniness turns normal men into molesters. They're building a more sophisticated theory of character formation, according to which premature training for the priesthood interrupts psychosexual development and makes young priests susceptible to adolescent crushes. Meanwhile, conservatives are acknowledging that seminary teachers need to know enough about sex to prepare aspiring priests who can handle celibacy and to weed out those who can't. Increasingly, the question of what will happen to the celibacy rule isn't whether it will stay or go, but how it will change. slate.msn.com