Not too long ago the largest Roman Catholic diocese in Illinois declared defensively that "only" two percent of its priests had engaged in sexual abuse of children. Only??? Let's put that in perspective: When I lived in Chicago, I estimated that there were about 600 adults living on my block, Ainslie Street from LeClaire to Laverne. If "only" 2% of those residents were pedophiles, that would mean that we had twelve adults predisposed to molest or rape a child, within a five-minute walk from my house. Knowing that, would you leave your child alone anywhere on that block?
The latests scandals about flagrant child abuse and coverups by priests in Ireland and Germany underscore the need for the Catholic church to rethink its priorities. The first focus should be on the preposterous requirement of celibacy for priests. If there was ever a justification for this denial of sexual normalcy for the clergy, which I doubt, there certainly is no justification now. It's not as simple as priests having no legitimate sexual outlet so that they satisfy themselves with children, whom they can bully into silence. It's rather because the celibacy rule makes the priesthood attractive to men who are psychosexually imature, who fear normal relationships, who fear and mistrust their own sexuality, who are unable to seek sexual satisfaction in socially acceptable ways.
I won't try to argue with the official Roman Catholic line that homosexuality is a deadly sin based on what many think is a misinterpretation of Jewish scripture, or that a fertilized egg has the same rights as a living human being, or that sex between unmarried consenting adults is the equivalent of adultery, as proclaimed by the gynophobic Paul of Tarsus. Matters like that shouldn't affect anyone who isn't Catholic, however much the Church uses its power to inject its agenda into public policy. It's useless to point out that for centuries supposedly celibate priests kept mistresses. Someone would simply answer that perhaps there's no reason to have a law against murder because some people have always killed each other. Hard to answer that kind of so-called logic.
I personally have known Catholic priests whom I admired and respected; I don't mean to condemn anyone who wears the collar. I feel sorry for those who sincerely seek to serve God and help humanity, over whom a shadow of doubt is cast by the crimes of a minority. In my opinion, however, the majority of Catholic clergy who are righteous are too disgracefully silent about the minority who are criminals!
Since I'm not a Catholic, some might say it's none of my concern. Wrong. Crime is everyone's concern. Every adult human being, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, non-believer, whatever, has a responsibility to do what he or she can to protect the young and helpless of our species.
The Church doesn't even pretend that priestly celibacy is a divine law. It was a rule made by humans, humans are fallible, and humans can change it. When will the Church decide to stop screening in deviates and screening out applicants with normal human sex drive? Maybe when law enforcement agencies around the world pursue pedophiles that lurk in seminaries and rectories as vigorously as they pursue the same kind of scumbags who lurk around playgrounds and parks, when those who shield them get to join them in prison.
Maybe when Catholic parents start to wonder why God would want them to put their children in harm's way. Like that hypothetical city block with twelve sex offenders ready to pounce, maybe the Church just isn't a place for children. Given the Church's proclivity for harranguing against abortion and same sex marriage and and anything else that runs against its rigid dogma, and its centuries old blindness to crime under its own roof, it seems preposterous to go on claiming that it alone holds God's seal of approval.
If today's church is speaking for anyone, it certainly isn't God.