FIRE THE POPE: Let the priests (and nuns) marry!

Read Time:43 Second

It is time. It is long past time. The evidence is mounting that Pope Ben covered up yet another series of molestations when he was a mere bishop. Enough is enough. The Catholic Church has been abusing children for centuries, and they have been covering it up for centuries! Fire those responsible, prosecute them, and allow priests to marry. This celibacy nonsense is arcane and barbaric and has nothing to do with God. It began as an attempt by the church to prevent priests from leaving their personal estates to their wives and children. If unmarried they would be forced to leave their “wealth” to the church.  So for those who think that priests aren’t allowed to marry because allegedly Jesus was not married is utter and absolute nonsense.  It is and was about money.  It is and was about enriching the Catholic Church! 

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

48 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Juju
13 years ago

I’d love to hear also of other Churches and organised religions! It seems the whole is just about the “Catholic Church”. Is it the most important Church or organised world religion?

Todd
13 years ago

As a Catholic who grew up with a very positive experience in the Catholic church, I left the church because I believe that Priests and Nuns need to be married!! As a father now, how can I relate to a priest or a nun who has no idea what it is like to be married or raise a child. Every one of my friends and family has also left the church because of this issue. The Catholic church will not survive unless it changes the 1,000 yr old Canon Laws dictating celibacy. Who is going to support the church financially moving forward? The church will be forced to change these ridiculously archaic canon laws, allowing priests and nuns to marry. That is the only way to eliminate the problems with the Catholic church. Perhaps if the church does this, I and millions of other will return.

14 years ago

People ashamed of their sexuality may decide to becomes priests so they can avoid it. But you can’t hide who you are. Perverted child molesters may become priests because they know a steady stream of helpless victims is available.

Bee
14 years ago

I didn’t grow up in a catholic school, but I did grow up in a southern baptist school, and that’s a whole other set of mental illnesses to talk about there.

I look at it as one of two scenarios. Priests enter the church and become sexually frustrated and take it out on children who are easy to shut up, or they enter the priesthood already predators and join because they have an easy target. Either way, not good.

I’m personally for the complete dissolution of the catholic church, but then I’m for the complete dissolution of all organized religion. I want to live in Star Trek world.

14 years ago

We gotta let the nuns marry, too, Mike. Mary Tyler Moore in a “Change of Habit” – I would have definitely done some nice communion with her. NO PROBLEM!!

14 years ago

The Catholic Church is shrinking every day. More and more Catholics are tired of the set ways of the clergy. At one time priest were allowed to marry. It was more of a property inheritence thing than fealty to God and Church that changed that to the celibacy requirement.

I find it difficult to accept marriage counseling or parental counseling from one who has never done either. I have two daughters and I want them to have the same opportunities as my son.

The Catholic Church is backward thinking and has done a despicable job handling the perverts who make it through the seminary to become priests.

Like Holte, I am also Roman Catholic. I’m still a practicing Catholic with no doubts about God. Just doubts about the people running the Church.

Reply to  Truth101
14 years ago

It is possible for Catholic Priests to be married, especially in the Eastern Rite, if a potential Priest was married before he was ordained, that’s OK. Stay married, no celibacy.

Chuck
14 years ago

It gives me great happiness to say….. You and I agree on some things old friend, this is DEFINATLEY one of them:-)

14 years ago

I’d say that there were several factors going on here. You have a lot of guilt being put on children as Mike pointed out. There’s the unquestioned power of the priests and having young boys who would say nothing about the abuse when it happened. My guess would be that many of these priests were abused themselves when they were younger.

14 years ago

Not all pedophiles are Priests, wonder who is to blame for them being what they are. I don’t want to appear to be defending the nasty behavior of some Priests, they do not need protecting and need to be dealt with in the court system. But all Priests are not pedophiles and all pedophiles are not Priests. It’s amazing you know some of the the Priests I have met were pretty decent human beings.

14 years ago

Holy schmoley, Mike. Hilarious graphic up top.

14 years ago

Humans are sexual creatures. To deny appropriate sexuality is an open invitation for inappropriate sexuality.

Reply to  TomCat
14 years ago

Perfectly said.

Reply to  TomCat
14 years ago

I would question the thought process of anyone who voluneers to give up that most basic of human needs. Prisoners have no choice, but those who enter the Catholic clergy certainly do have a choice. It’s irrational at the least and insane at the worst.

14 years ago

I too grew up in the Catholic church, 12 years of school, all the regular rituals, we were mocked and taunted by the rest of population, which hardened me against all other cults and sects, England was a very Protestant country then. The priests I was around in those days were great guys, but the less said about the nuns the better. But once out of school it became very easy to shake off, and traveling in southern Europe I got to see the Catholic church in all its pomp and to me religion became a parody of itself. Infidel is right, once baptized a Catholic they claim you forever, but I got news for them.

14 years ago

I think that those priests who are guilty of pedophilia actually enter the priesthood in an attempt to “cleanse” themselves of those “unnatural” thoughts. They try to deny that they have those feelings and by declaring themselves celibate, they won’t have to face them. There are priests who engage in “normal” sexual relationships. They either end up leaving the priesthood or their affairs are kept quiet. Pedophilia is a psychological illness that I don’t believe is brought about by celibacy. You aren’t taught to be a heterosexual or a homosexual, you just act on your natural feelings. I also don’t believe that those who engage in the sexual abuse of children in the church are doing so because of forced celibacy. If they felt they had to act on a sexual feeling, they would do so with an adult. I know it’s a chicken or the egg argument, but that’s just my thought.

Reply to  Professor Mike
14 years ago

I too am a product of a Catholic school education. There was certainly lots of guilt to go around, but I never really bought into it. I think that the Catholic church ought to look into some serious psychological testing before allowing people to become priests. Of course given the lack of men willing to join the priesthood, I don’t think they ask too many questions.

Reply to  Professor Mike
14 years ago

One needs to differentiate between homosexuality and pedophilia. Pedophilia is the problem. If priests were acting like normal homosexuals and having clandestine affairs with (male) consenting adults, it wouldn’t be a problem (even if it violated the Church’s internal rules).

It may be that a few pedophiles join the Catholic clergy for whatever reason, but the patterns we’re seeing suggest that what’s happening much more is that protracted existence in the celibate clergy turns what used to be sexually-normal men (whether homosexual or heterosexual) into pedophiles.

Reply to  Professor Mike
14 years ago

Mike,
I just don’t believe that you can teach an adult to be a pedophile when there are clear options available to them. In prison, there is no option. Do you think that inmates given the option of sex with a woman and sex with a man would chose the latter? I don’t think so. As I said, there are many instances of normal sexual relationships taking place between priests and women as I am sure there are examples of normal homosexual relationships. Priests do not live in a bubble that includes only priests and young boys. Those who molest children are chosing to do so. The reasons may be many, but I don’t believe it’s because of “learned” behavior.

14 years ago

Throw Pope Palpatine in the Slammer! How about using the RICO act because of conspiracy?

14 years ago

I think that it is long past due that the Catholic church allow its priests to marry. I also think that it’s long past due that the Catholic church allow women a more prominent role, inlcuding allowing them to become priests. I don’t think, however, that allowing priests to marry has much to do with the cases of child molestation. Celibacy does not lead to pedophilia any more than homosexuality or heterosexuality does. The impulse to have sex with children is clearly deviant sexual behavior. A married person is capable of harboring such thoughts, just as a celibate person would be.

It is time for the Catholic church to move forward in their thinking, but let’s not link celibacy to child molestation. The problem is that the church has provided a safe haven for these sick and twisted individuals and allowed them to prey on the innocent young children for far too long. The church needs to bring those people to justice. They need to bring those responsible for allowing it to go on to justice. They need to empty the catholic church of those individuals who would pervert their positions of authority in order to fullfil their sick sexual desires.

I think that if the Catholic church did allow its clergy to marry, a lot more people would probably chose to become priests. Perhaps then they would not feel the need to hold on to the ones they have, regardless of their sexual proclivities.

Reply to  MyCue
14 years ago

But pedophilia in the Catholic clergy is such a pervasive problem, it’s clear that there must be some basis for the correlation.

It seems plausible to me that years of celibacy could distort a person’s sexuality. Dam up a river and allow it no exit, and it will burst forth in some other direction, perhaps disastrously.

Clergy celibacy was imposed by the Catholic Church in the 11th century, very likely in order that priests would leave their property to the Church rather than to offspring, as Mad Mike says.

In a just world, the future policy of the Catholic Church would not even be an issue. Its uniform and documented policy of hiding and helping pedophiles for decades, all over the world, shows that the Catholic Church is nothing but a huge organized-crime ring. Its operations should be shut down, its leaders arrested where personal involvement in the cover-ups can be shown, its assets — up to the very Vatican itself — should be seized and liquidated to pay compensation to the victims. In a world, the Catholic Church as an institution should be put out of business and cease to exist. Anything less is not justice.

Reply to  Professor Mike
14 years ago

1.1 billion? Really? I know they claim that, but they count everyone who has ever been a member except for the few who formally resign. And even among those who remain nominally Catholic, I suspect in many cases it’s in name only. The Church used to be supreme in Ireland, for example, but its authority is imploding in the wake of the scandals.

I agree that it won’t be done in the foreseeable future, but I think that the Catholic Church’s supposed power is largely a paper tiger, and that they do not in fact have so many real adherents as the generally-cited statistics claim.

Reply to  MyCue
14 years ago

Michael H., I agree with you that celibacy does not indicate pedophilia. Infidel, I disagree with you… the correlation is more on the barrier between priests and others… that barrier is one based in fear and loathing. Catholicism has remained lucrative throughout the last 2 thousand years because of it’s duality: with one hand it gives and with the other it condemns (and follows through violently on that condemnation). “The Church” has demonstrated a power of life and death from the theological to the practical and infused the human psyche with a instinctive fear damnation, hell, retribution and sickness more than any other ‘biblically based theology’. And one speculates as to why pedophiles would seek harbor within it’s metaphorical walls? Wake up PEOPLE! I have discovered true healers and kindness wrapped in habit’s and cassocks … but more over I’ve experienced cruelty and punishment for free thought within it. I’ve witnessed physical abuse and deeper psychological terrorism from the ‘church’. Karma has found the front door of St. Peter’s. May it pound heavily and bring the whole thing down…

Is anyone actually thinking about the issue here? Hundreds of years of terror and physical abuse by the minions of ‘the church’ systemically all across the globe! It’s an ATROCITY! AGAINST CHILDREN~!
Gods,
people still pass it over. Don’t see the horror of it. Dismiss it to protect themselves.
The resignation of thousands of Catholics per month for the last few years is leaving St. Peter’s flock in fiscal panic… hell, they even tried to invite Henry’s Angelicans into the fold… for their part, the English have distanced themselves from Catholicism as far as they can. In America, the Bishops’ conclaves have convinced the Vatican (as of the beginning of 2009) to invest an official Inquisition into the broader personal freedoms among the ‘women of the church’ or the orders of nuns, primarily academics whom have made larger contributions to the upward mobility and personal responsibility of nuns… these women are openly appealing this process and condemning it… at the cost of their ‘discommunication etc.’ The Catholic Church is on it’s way to dissolution…
with any cosmic justice.
I do feel strongly in the matter.
The psychological implications of celibacy within the Catholic Church has been studied and documented for the last three hundred years, repetitively. Overwhelming conclusion is that pedophilia does not stem from celibacy. Cassocks provide wonderful disguises and dismissal for crime. It always has. That’s the friggin issue right now.

Reply to  Professor Mike
14 years ago

Ta MM… I hate to admit this, but what exactly does FUBAR mean?
I really don’t know. Gee.

14 years ago

FIRE THE POPE

Screw that. The scumbag needs to be arrested and stand trial as an accomplice to multiple felonies. These people need to learn that they are just as accountable to the civil law as anybody else who does the same things. We didn’t let Warren Jeff’s FLDS cult deal with him by internal mumbo-jumbo, we locked him up. Same thing.

Juju
Reply to  Professor Mike
13 years ago

Brilliant ideas and reporting! Bravissimo. Do the same for those wolf-parents who feast on their DAUGHTERS, SONS, NIECES AND NEPHEWS, then you’ll have accomplished a better rendication of our society’s evolution!
God bless U!

Previous post THE MMA TEAM WELCOMES MyCUE!!
Next post Second of Three shoes about to drop. You may like the first two. You’re gonna hate the Third one.
48
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x