abe smith

Mishmoshing pedophilia w/ celibacy and also w/ homosexuality just isn't either well-informed nor just not -make-sense. Heterosexual marriage is almost-certainly NOT going to "cure" a male whose orientation is to having sex w/ other males, or with children. Apparently in earlier times, seminary confessors advised crypto-gay seminarians to leave & marry females. This might have worked for some guys; seems like damn lousy advice for "ordinary" gay males tho. As for its CURING , or ANYTHING's curing, true pedophiles, that seems totally-unlikely. TIS true, I certainly am NOT qualified to pontificate on this, nor on any of the similar subjects. Possibly some functional-ephebophiles or {less-likely} pedophiles might be able to adapt to doing-sex as adult "ordinary" gay males w/ other adult gay males. Gide was married, to an adult female; & that didn't alter his orientation; this is probably the case for large numbers of other closeted gays et al. I talk beyond my competence, fer sher. Abe Yeh; that manmade fiction/platonist Idea, "the Church" seems to have realized that clerics's having wives & progeny was a BAD practise; hence celibacy. Note that Middle Eastern rulers deliberately employed eunuchs in governing/political positions for this same reason; reduced nepotism & allied hazards. Some rulers killed their own sons ==rivals. And the sons killed oneanother, to get the goodies for themselves. cf. old saw, about "driving out Nature w/ a pitchfork" = *that* doesn't work!

ManM

Has anyone considered the burden a priest must face? He is the one placed in charged of the eternal salvation of a bunch of people. Being married is a huge time drain, and may interfere with this mission. The ideal priest is supposed to be there for everyone, not just a wife and kids. Now I don't think it is right to require a priest to be celibate, but I do think the celibate priest has the opportunity to do better at his job.

Amos

To clarify the above we were asked to pay 25 cents per seat and children were 10 cents. Standing room was free. This was collected by the "koster" and later the "free will" collection people came around.

Note the the free mass was in the Capucin church and not the Fransicans as I had stated earlier.

Boro Nut

I'm more concerned where come from celibate Catholic priests goes to.

Eric the Altar Boy

BigJim

Skeptictank, you new around here? That's pretty straightforward coming from Amos.

phlebas

Just to be clear, I didn't mean to imply that it did However, the discussions do tend to run that way these days in common social settings.

I do think it's hilarious that people take marital advice from celibate men. But then I think it's hilarious that people eat those Jees-Its every Sunday, too. In fact, the whole Catholic scene is a big thigh-slapper to me