Ah, Crowhill, your need to try a mirror. That last is almost pure prejudice. Such a sweeping statement about over a billion people could only be such.

“Outing” bishops? Do you think a great many bishops are secretly gay? Or are you suggesting that some other kind of corruption affects a large number of bishops? “We protect our own”? Do you think being a priest or a bishop should make them saints? Or do you see the corruption as only affecting bishops? I’m afraid I have trouble trying to untangle your mind. I can’t read it and all I read here are sweeping accusations requiring extraordinary support. Yet, you offer none, just your opinion.

You are, of course, welcome to your opinion. But as presented it carries no weight.

It’s impossible for me to believe that number is accurate today. Maybe 10-15%? today, which is about what we’d expect with the world, flesh and the devil – who particularly hates priests and religious.

jason taylor,

See Richard Sipe:

In 1993, Cardinal Jose Sanchez, Secretary of the Dicastery for the Clergy faced an interviewer from BBC television who asked his opinion on studies, recent at that time, that claimed that, at any one time, 45 to 50 percent of Catholic clergy were not practicing celibacy. The cardinal’s response was, “I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those figures.” Even earlier—in the 1970 synod of Rome—the question about the requirement for celibacy came up for discussion and a vote of the bishops. Pope Paul VI announced that the assembly had voted 55 to 45 percent to preserve the requirement. When the subject of mandatory celibacy came up for discussion again on a Vatican level in 1971, Cardinal Franjo Seper, Archbishop of Zagreb said, “I am not at all optimistic that celibacy is in fact being observed.”

The fact that 50% of a given group at any one time may not be abiding by the rules is certainly, it seems to me, sufficient cause to question the rules. Different rules require different standards. If the rule is that employees should be punctual, and 50% of employees arrive late two or three times a year, you may not want to abandon the rule. If the rule is priests should be celibate, and 50% are not practicing celibacy at any given time, perhaps the rule needs to be reexamined.

The estimate is by whom? And how obtained? Does the estimater perhaps bug the bedrooms of a statistically large enough sample to make a meaningful estimate.

And were it true would it be relevant? Any more then it is relevant that there are many “estimates” that the majority of public officials in the world do in fact engage in graft.

In fact let us follow that reasoning and point out that what is fitting for those not holding an office is not fitting for those who do. It is fitting for a citizen to receive gifts. It is not fitting for a policeman to do so. But policemen do in fact receive gifts. In fact it is widely believed that most police do. Likewise it is fitting for a layman to be uncelibate under certain terms. It is not fitting for a priest. Even if in fact most do.

About “docility” — a big part of the problem with the priesthood today (as seen in the abuse crisis) is an attitude of clericalism. A “we protect our own” attitude. This idea that the church has a right to keep secrets, and the laity has no right to know what really goes on in the seminaries, or in the rectories.

Priests ought to be outing bishops. They’re not.

A successful business man will have a different relationship to the bishops than a man who went to seminary out of college and was conditioned into the church’s way of doing things from a relatively early age. I would expect that the successful business man — on his second career as a priest — will not be as likely to put up with crap from the bishops or to cover-up whatever messes he finds.

But as a former Protestant the thing that amuses me the most about the way Catholics talk about this issue (and many others) is how completely irrelevant Scripture is. Catholics can say what they want about the authority and infallibility of Scripture, but practically speaking it is a dead letter.

Exactly.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-27/catholic-sexual-abuse-study-greeted-with-incurious/2734354

“That being said, only someone who is wilfully naive or intractably bigoted would refuse to acknowledge that the social antinomianism and fetishisation of sexual liberation in the 1960s and 70s, along with the valorisation of the pursuit of individual pleasure and free experimentation with transgressive sexual practices, created the conditions for a dramatic escalation in deviant behaviour – including paedophilia – both within and without the Church.”

Rieff has shown me how nihilistic therapeutic anti-culture is such a shockingly unprecedented thing. http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1098&loc=r “Far from consideration of married priests being “over-due,” we have yet even to return to a state stable enough that such a possibility can be helpfully aired.” seems spot on.

In Australia the well resourced Jesuit publications like Eureka Street, and Bishop’s Conference supported CathNews still give platforms for Catholic politicians who support abortion and to the promotion of same-sex ‘marriage’. Priests writing for these places in Australia argue ‘there is nothing to see here’ re: threats to religious liberty.

It’s sad for me to hear Prof. Haldane mention discipline but bring up celibacy when Catholic nuns invite crazy new agers like Barbara Marx-Hubbard to be keynote speakers at their national conference, Austrian priests have gone off the deep end and Australian bishops can’t even enforce a Catholic line in its news outlet nor even employ a Catholic as its editor!

As to “docility” towards the bishops, I have no idea why you think that exists nor why you think it would be good for priests not to be “docile”. Perhaps you could explain?

“Presbyter,” which is allegedly where “priest” comes from, means “elder.” The original qualifications in Titus 1 and 1 Tim. 3 refer to men who have already raised families.

The married clergy could be reserved for men who are older and on a second career.

It seems to me that the danger is not so much that priests and their families would be poor, but that only relatively wealthy, successful men would pursue that option. That would be a problem (to some people, most definitely not to me) because they wouldn’t be as docile towards the bishops.