08-16-2024, 09:28 AM
There's evidence that the situation in the Catholic Church is vastly different. Comparing married Latin-rite clerics (deacons) to celibate Latin-rite clerics (priests), the rate of abuse perpetrated by the latter compared to the married Catholic clergy shows that the catholic situation is entirely different to the Anglican one (and I'm not claiming for one minute that the majority of Anglican ministers are abusers): https://x.com/DavidAJMHoward/status/1316994003267588098
This is also verified by a friend of mine, an Eastern-rite catholic who, amazingly enough, was also an employee of the SSPX for a while. He told me that the seminary of the rite to which he belonged, while celibacy was enforced on their clergy, was a notorious hotbed for homosexuality and abuse. Guess what? It stopped when the Vatican stopped insisting on celibacy and started accepting seminarians who either were already married, or intended to marry. He described the celibacy situation as "gay party-time behind closed doors". Funnily enough, the only problem with this sort of thing in the Australian Ukrainian Catholic Church was, you guessed it, one of the few celibate priests. One day, I was discussing the situation wrt the SSPX and clerical marriage, and how Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre went so far as to claim that Eastern-rite catholics regard their priests' wives as mistresses (a polite way of calling them *****s). This is outrageous, and shows that even holy persons can fall into gross error. Of course, my friend could verify from first hand experience that this was not the case (same with the Orthodox). As if to signify heaven's blessing upon my position, just after that conversation, I crossed paths with a married Eastern-rite priest and his wife.
On a lighter note Sheena, have you had that pint at Tolkien's and Lewis' pub?
This is also verified by a friend of mine, an Eastern-rite catholic who, amazingly enough, was also an employee of the SSPX for a while. He told me that the seminary of the rite to which he belonged, while celibacy was enforced on their clergy, was a notorious hotbed for homosexuality and abuse. Guess what? It stopped when the Vatican stopped insisting on celibacy and started accepting seminarians who either were already married, or intended to marry. He described the celibacy situation as "gay party-time behind closed doors". Funnily enough, the only problem with this sort of thing in the Australian Ukrainian Catholic Church was, you guessed it, one of the few celibate priests. One day, I was discussing the situation wrt the SSPX and clerical marriage, and how Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre went so far as to claim that Eastern-rite catholics regard their priests' wives as mistresses (a polite way of calling them *****s). This is outrageous, and shows that even holy persons can fall into gross error. Of course, my friend could verify from first hand experience that this was not the case (same with the Orthodox). As if to signify heaven's blessing upon my position, just after that conversation, I crossed paths with a married Eastern-rite priest and his wife.
On a lighter note Sheena, have you had that pint at Tolkien's and Lewis' pub?