A leading Roman Catholic theologian has linked clerical sex abuse with priestly celibacy, blaming the Church’s “uptight” views on sex for child abuse scandals in Germany, Ireland and the US.
Father Hans Kung, President of the Global Ethic Foundation and professor emeritus at the University of Tübingen in Germany, said that the Church’s attitude was also revealed in its opposition to birth control.
The German church rejected any suggestion that abuse was linked to celibacy, homosexuality or church teaching.
....
Robert Zollitsch, Archbishop of Freiburg and head of the German bishops’ conference, branded clerical abuse “outrageous” and begged forgiveness from the victims but denied any link between abuse and celibacy.
Writing in The Tablet, Father Kung, who in 1979 was stripped of his licence to teach Catholic theology after he rejected the doctrine of Papal infallibility, welcomed the apology but described the denials of any link between abuse, celibacy and other teaching as “erroneous”.
He said that it was the case that abuse was found also in families, schools and other churches. But he asked: “Why is it so prevalent in the Catholic Church under celibate leadership?” He said that celibacy was not the only cause of the misconduct but described it as “the most important and structurally the most decisive” expression of the Church’s uptight attitude to sex. (My emphasis)
Fr Kung's article in The Tablet appears to be available by subscription only, but the article on the German church's resistance to the state's intervention on the abuse is free.
In the comments to my recent post titled Gay Roman Catholic Bishops, I caught flack for saying that mandatory celibacy, in my opinion, contributes to the abusive behavior by priests in the Roman Catholic Church. I don't know what priestly formation is like now in RC seminaries, but for many years, young boys began seminary training at age 13. In some cases, abuse occurred in seminaries. My contemporaries, and those several years younger, were taught in RC seminaries that women were occasions of sin. Imagine! Half the human race was an occasion of sin! Well, perhaps not old ladies.
Rather than having one determining cause, I suspect that, in most cases, more than one cause led priests into abusive behavior. Men who had been abused as children and men predisposed to child abuse very likely made their way into seminaries and through the ordination process, but I believe that mandatory celibacy and the warped attitudes toward sexuality and toward women within the culture of Roman Catholic clergy, especially the hierarchy, had an effect.
Whether celibacy is imposed as a condition of service upon a Roman Catholic man who believes he is called to serve God as a priest, or whether celibacy is imposed upon an LGTB person in another denomination who feels a call to serve God as clergy as a condition for being permitted to serve, mandatory celibacy is just plain wrong.
Understand that I do not in mean to suggest that genuine calls to live celibate lives do not exist. From the early church on, we see examples of saints who lived holy, celibate lives. But the call to celibacy is between God and an individual and is not to be ordered from outside.
I did not come to my opinion lightly. I come with 60 years experience of life in the Roman Catholic Church. I'm not saying that I am right and that those who disagree with me are wrong, however, that the distinguished theologian, Fr Hans Kung, is of a similar opinion, heartens me and makes me think that my reasoning is not entirely off the wall.
H/T to MadPriest at OCICBW for the link to Ruth's article.
