NOT TO BEAT THE SUBJECT TO DEATH....

Yesterday, I resolved not to write more about celibacy and the Roman Catholic Church, but I received more than one email message with links to articles in various media outlets on the statement by Archbishop Schonborn, of Vienna, on celibacy and child abuse in the the RC church, and I decided to post on the subject one more time.

From the Guardian:

The Archbishop of Vienna today said priestly celibacy could be one of the causes of the sex abuse scandals to hit the Catholic church.

In an article for Thema Kirche, his diocesan magazine, Christoph Schonborn became the most senior figure in the Catholic hierarchy to make the connection between the two and called for an "unflinching examination" of the possible reasons for paedophilia.

He wrote: "These include the issue of priest training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution.

"It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the church and of society as a whole."

Schonborn is not the first person to suggest a link between celibacy and paedophilia – the theologian Hans Kung has made the same assertion.

A spokesman clarified the archbishop's words, insisting he was "in no way" seeking to question the celibacy rule or call for its abolition.

Archbishop Schonborn is, indeed, not the first person to suggest a link, nor is Fr Hans Kung, because I, and a good many others, suggested a link when the revelations of abuse first became public a good many years ago. Of course, our questions did not make the leap to the media.

What I don't understand is the statement by a spokesman that "in no way" was the archbishop questioning the celibacy rule. If you believe there may be a link between celibacy and child abuse, why would you rule out questioning the wisdom of the celibacy rule? If the intention is to conduct an "unflinching investigation" of the reasons for child abuse by RC clergy, why cut off what seems a logical component of an open and honest way forward in the investigation?

Who is the spokesman who clarified the archbishop's statement? Was the spokesman from the Vatican?

The Guardian continues:

Writing in L'Osservatore Romano (the Vatican newspaper), Lucetta Scaraffia said women might have helped remove the "veil of secrecy" surrounding the abuse.

She used the word "omerta" – the Mafia code of silence – to describe the conspiracy involved in hiding the offences.

"We can hypothesise that a greater female presence, not at a subordinate level, would have been able to rip the veil of masculine secrecy that in the past often covered the denunciation of these misdeeds with silence," she said. (My emphasis)

Brava, Lucetta Scaraffia! The all-male, patriarchal culture of the of the clergy in the RCC could, indeed, have contributed to the conspiracy to cover-up the misdeeds, rather than deal with the abuse openly and honestly, which would have meant that many cases of abuse could have been prevented, rather than allowed to continue for decades.

Note that Scaraffia says "a female presence, not at a subordinate level". My question then is, what would the female presence "not at a subordinate level" look like? For instance, what would be the equivalent non-subordinate, female presence to a cardinal?

In the comments, Paul (A.) suggests the picture below in answer to my question just above.