Throw Down Thursday: The Church

National Post article on modern Catholics

Not big on arguing religion, but...

I'm Catholic, and I'm straight. Sounds like a twelve step intro.

My family didn't get one of the questionnaires mentioned, but if we had what would we put down? No telling. We are an anomaly. We only have one child. Birth control? Take a guess, because when you get down to it who makes the decisions here in this house? The Pope?

I've got a beef with my Church. I love it. I love the liturgy and the tradition. It's solid. However I think some of its policies have left the door open to problems. The biggest one being the sex abuse scandal. To be honest it is not a scandal, it is a crime. It might be the Vatican engaged in some sort of shuffling and cover up, but the crime occurred in the local setting. Let's examine the perpetrators. Unmarried men, working under the guise of clergy.

I'm not going to say only Catholic priests molest children, because I am not that stupid. I never worked a molestation case where a priest was a suspect. Most of my suspects were of two categories:
A. Professional college educated assholes

B. Nominal education levels, but still assholes

Some were married, and molested their own kids. Most molested relative's kids or neighborhood children. The fact is pedophiles come in all forms. Not just Catholic priests. Nobody ever talked about the Baptist Youth Minister pedophile scandal. Why? I've seen that plenty of times, during the course of my work and on the news. What about the Middle School Teacher pedophile scandals of late? And the women too.

It's not something that can be prevented. Crime happens. That type of crime, while heinous to a level I don't even want to go into, happens. We can lessen the instances and opportunities. Just like installing an alarm system to prevent burglary. It might not stop a thief, but it will make them work harder or just avoid it.

So what should the Catholic Church do?

I've been doing some limited research, and you know what I found? Peter, the first Pope, was married. Now I'm not claiming this would stop the crime, but it would probably lessen the instances of it occurring. The Orthodox Church has married priests. Just about all religions allow for married clergy. It's not like I'm advocating ordination of women (that's later, baby steps). I can find nothing, yet, that would prohibit a married clergy. We have priests who were ordained clergy in other denominations convert, and they are still clergy and still married. Why can't Father O'Brannon hook up with a nice Catholic girl like the rest of us did, and maybe start a family?

The only claim I can make regarding this as a step in the right direction is psychology. Married clergy would not only be focused on the parish, or clerical assignment, but also their family. This sort of thinking carries over to other areas of life. People with the inclination towards pedophilia would probably not want to expose themselves to the daily stresses of clergy and family. At least not in the concentrations I am led to believe.