Catholic Sex Abuse is Result of Celibacy, Says Irish Priest Tony Flannery

[SecularMotion]

An Irish priest who has been threatened with excommunication from the Catholic Church has said there was a link between clerical sex abuse and mandatory celibacy.

Tony Flannery, who has been warned about his outspokenness by the Vatican before, said that the celibate lifestyles that priests were forced to live led to a struggle over sexuality and could, in some cases, result in children being sexually abused.

He was preparing to launch his book, A Question of Conscience, which questions the Vatican watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), in the methods it uses to "stamp out" anything it regards as dissent.

Flannery was a founding member of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland. In February 2012, the CDF became unhappy with some of his writings relating to the Church and he was summoned to Rome, where he was ordered to step down as ACP leader.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/504722/20130909/irish-priest-tony-flannery-clerical-sex-abuse.htm

[earthside]

1. Duh.

Forcibly repress any natural human biological function and it is bound to result in some kind of deviant behavior or psychology.

[cleanhippie]

2. Not just celibacy, but an institution that covers it up and adherents that enable it to continue.

Theres more than just the celibacy at work here.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. I think he's at least partially right, and I think

that if the RCC is going to continue it's policy of males only in the priesthood, they're going to have to change the celibacy rule. It wasn't even the church's policy for the first several hundred years. I've read that the Orthodox churches allow their priests to marry, but they require their bishops to be unmarried. That seems like a compromise that could work.

[rickford66]

4. this doesn't sound workable

Isn't a bishop usually a priest first? Then he would have to get divorced or be a widower to become a bishop. But, one can remain celibate within marriage as many well know.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. I guess that if an Orthodox priest is married, he forfeits

his chance at becoming a bishop one day. Maybe that changes if his wife dies; I don't know. I once knew a Russian Orthodox priest who was married and had kids.

I don't know what the numbers are, but I don't think most priests ever become bishops anyway. Plenty of priests are happy being parish priests, and there are other roles priests can play in the RCC. Bishops have always been chosen for political as well as spiritual reasons, and a lot of people don't like playing politics, either. I know I don't.

[rickford66]

10. none of my business

My father who almost became an RC priest always said, "If you don't like the rules, don't join the club". So I left the RC club many years ago. He didn't have a problem with it since he always pointed out the hypocrisy in religion, politics, unions and business.

[LuvNewcastle]

11. I'm not Catholic either, but I've always been kind of

interested in the church for some weird reason. I was raised Baptist, and as a kid I thought the RCC was so mysterious with all their rituals and traditions and the special clothes the priesthood wore and the elaborate churches. It was such a contrast to my upbringing that I was sort of drawn to it in a weird way. I still find a lot of it interesting, even though I could never be part of the RCC.

[rickford66]

13. There is no mystery

The Church runs on power and ignorance, a lot of smoke and mirrors. I have personal knowledge about priestly shenanigans (not pedophilia). They are human and have all the drives non-priests have but want to pretend they don't.

[gopiscrap]

5. I tend to agree that that is a big part of it!

[Goblinmonger]

6. I guess I have a hard time with that.

Certainly this guy knows a bit more having been there. But I do have more than a couple handful of friends I went to seminary with that are currently priests.

I just think this feeds the "men can't control themselves" and that if they can't have sex, the resulting blue balls are going to make us want to fuck kids.

These priests are screwed up. I think we know enough about the psychology of child sexual abuse that someone otherwise "wired right" is not going to all of a sudden rape kids.

To me (and again, I realize this is just individual qualitative "research&quot I think the particular job lends itself to those that are predators. Lots of soccer coaches are child molesters. Are we going to say that there is something about soccer that makes you want to diddle little kids?

Or I'm completely off base.

[trotsky]

9. You aren't off base.

I was just trying to formulate my own response right along the same lines as yours.

As RCC apologists like to point out in their shell game (and which isn't disputed in the first place), priests molest children at about the same rate as the general population. That itself would seem to indicate celibacy is not a significant factor.

The real crime, as many of us have consistently pointed out, has been the RCC's documented history of covering up the crimes and protecting the criminals (as well has giving them a clean slate and access to fresh victims!).

Celibacy has nothing to do with that. That's all about the environment the RCC has created which enables pedophiles to commit their crimes.

[skepticscott]

18. Exactly...

And that's what the "everyone else is doing it too" apologetics never get around to addressing. The even more despicable criminals are the ones who know how deeply wrong this is, but put the money, power and reputation of the Catholic Church ahead of the safety and welfare of children.

[cbayer]

8. This is horse shit and he has absolutely no basis for saying this.

Pedophilia is an illness, a perversion. It is not caused by celibacy.

While I think the rules about celibacy may lead to some sexual acting out, I don't think it leads to pedophilia and I don't think he could provide any data at all to support that.

[Starboard Tack]

12. What nonsense!

I agree wholeheartedly with my good friends Goblinmonger, Trotsky and Cbayer. Such an event is cause for celebration

[Goblinmonger]

14. No kidding

Stars must be aligned in a once a millennium kind of deal.

[dimbear]

15. Christian doctrine makes it clear in no uncertain terms what will be the fate of those who abuse

children.

It decrees a nasty end.

Clearly the offending priests do not believe the doctrines they preach.

That's the problem.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Seriously, the passage starts out with 'you might as well just kill yourself now'

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Do priests abuse children at rates higher than non-celibate adults in a position of authority over

children, like teachers, caretakers, or the like? My impression is that they are not. My problem with the Catholic Church is institutional; their cover-ups, reshuffling of priests that were known to offend into new parishes, sheltering priests from law enforcement, etc.