Strange marriage by Atila S. Guimaraes

Pedophilia Crisis

A Strange Marriage

Atila Sinke Guimarães
Bird's Eye View of the News, April 15, 2002

In face of the general furor against child abuse by Catholic priests and even by Bishops, some of the principle American Catholic leaders are trying to deviate public indignation to an issue useful for the progressivist cause. Applying this strategy, the Jesuit magazine America blamed priesthood celibacy for the scandals. It reported: “A nun said she feels great shame, pain and powerlessness and called for a new model of Church. ‘The male celibate hierarchical structure is falling apart,’ she said” (April 1, 2002, p. 5). Commenting on the March 15 editorial of The Pilot, the Boston Archdiocesan newspaper, America went on: “The editorial said the scandals have raised serious questions in the mind of laity. Among the questions are these: Should celibacy continue to be a normative condition for the diocesan priesthood in the Latin Church? If celibacy were optional, would there be fewer scandals of this nature in the priesthood?” Therefore, the progressivist America endorsed the more “conservative” Boston Pilot and reached the same conclusion: to question priestly celibacy.

Mahony also opened the door to change priestly celibacy
The LA Times, March 3, 3003

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, head of the most numerous American Archdiocese, also issued an invitation to debate celibacy: “I have never said that we can’t discuss these things,” Mahony said, adding that Eastern rite Catholic priests can marry. “It works out fine” (Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2002).

Addressing the same topic, Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee wrote in a March 19 letter, “Perhaps this will be the moment when the larger issue of priestly ministry in the Church will be faced” (ibid.).

Finally, a Chicago representative of the radical progressivist movement Call to Action, Linda Piecczynski, had this to say about the discussion of marriage among priests: “One bright spot in this whole horrible business of the sex abuse scandals is that it does seem to be creating an atmosphere for transformation” (ibid.).

Enough information. Let me analyze for a moment.

The whole question of celibacy is not being presented correctly at its base. The persons I quoted above are trying to present the priests who abuse children as men with a normal attraction for women. Thus all their problems would be resolved if they could just marry. But these men are not attracted to the opposite sex, not at all. They are homosexuals and pedophiles. When they follow their lower instincts, they seek out men, and worse, boys. If marriage would resolve the problems of these priests, according to this absurd logic, it would have to be a homosexual marriage, or a monstrous pedophile marriage. Is this the kind of marriage that the opponents of celibacy are calling for?

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