the church is trying to minimize future financial damage by identifying the hornball godmen who will be raping little boys and impregnating nuns.
gee, what will this do to our old friend and neighbor of ratzy, the cardinal tommaso, the one with the 'wide stance'? i wonder if this would have caught our other good friend, the vampire of cochin, the 'adopter' of a bleeding 26-year-old woman, and believer in a 2-year old with an iron rod.
i guess this will severely deplete the ranks of godmen, considering how many of them have actually been caught buggering little boys. what, 80% of them do it? there was also the news some time ago that christist godmen in the US were 4 times more likely to have AIDS than the general population. yup, they were all celibate, too. not!
actually, i have a better suggestion for ratzy, which i offer free of charge. just castrate all your godmen, that will cause you less financial trauma down the road. there will be high-pitched castrati voices giving sermons, but that's a small price to pay to avoid the billions of dollars you are coughing up in sexual-predator lawsuit settlements. better safe than sorry, ratzy!
From: C
The Roman Catholic Church has issued guidance for future priests to have psychological tests to weed out those unable to control their sexual urges.
A senior churchman said a series of sex scandals had contributed to the rewriting of the guidelines.
The authors said screening would help avoid "tragic situations" caused by what they termed psychological defects.
The guidance says the voluntary tests should also aim to vet for those with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies".
Among other traits that might make a candidate unsuitable for the priesthood, the advice lists "uncertain sexual identity," "excessive rigidity of character" and "strong affective dependencies".
The document also makes reference to heterosexual urges.
Seminarians should be barred if testing makes it "evident the candidate has difficulty living in celibacy: That is, if celibacy for him is lived as a burden so heavy that it compromises his affective and relational equilibrium", it says.
| Catholic officials continue to fixate on the offenders and ignore the larger problem US-based victims group SNAP |
The advice stipulates priests must have a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity".
The document, approved by Pope Benedict XVI and made public on Thursday, stresses that the screening must always have the candidate's consent.
The Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of sex scandals in recent years involving paedophile priests, notably in the US, Latin America and Europe, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
And a seminary in Austria was shut down in August 2004 after revelations that students openly indulged in homosexual conduct.
Gay rights groups have accused the Church of using homosexuals as scapegoats for abuse scandals.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a US-based group of victims of sexual abuse, said the revised guidelines did not go far enough.
"Catholic officials continue to fixate on the offenders and ignore the larger problem: The Church's virtually unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy," it said in a statement.
"These broader factors are deeply rooted in the Church and contribute heavily to extensive and ongoing clergy sex abuse and cover up."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7700710.stm
Published: 2008/10/30 21:11:22 GMT
5 comments:
As far as I know, the "celibacy" demanded of catholic priests merely means they should not marry. A young amreekan cat_alco_holic who wanted to take the "cloth" and ultimately did so quite some years ago, told me that a "healthy" sexual relationship was essential for helping them to maintain their celibacy. The BBC reaport you have cited also seems to emphasize the "healthy" part: “Among other traits that might make a candidate unsuitable for the priesthood, the advice lists "uncertain sexual identity," "excessive rigidity of character" and "strong affective dependencies"....etc.”, and the "heterosexual urges" are not that important.
IMO,mental celibacy is impossible to achieve though physical celibacy may be practised.
witan is quite correct. The celibacy requirement is to prevent legitimate heirs for the priest.
Sexual continence is assumed only because extra-marital sex is sinful, but easily absolved.
A Catholic priest who listens to the confessions of his flock is in the ideal position to identify the women/men who would not reject his advances!
actually the Christian church has a proud tradition of self-castration - starting with His 'Holiness' Origen
So it is not like this is something new - it has only been done before. perhaps this is something that thattunkal ought to consider - no more spiritual 'nourishment' needed after this eh!
i believe ye olde thattunkal has now disappeared! yup, gone into some sleeper cell somewhere! boy, what a character. he deserves to be pope, and maybe he will become the first non-white pope, after all. he is showing all the right tendencies that would make him a pillar (or is it iron rod?) of the church.
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