In a new narrative, according to the New York Times, the Catholic church has been protecting priests who have broken their vow of celibacy, the priests in this regard are ones who have children.
It’s apparently been such a problem the Catholic church has had to generate a general set of rules specifically for them. These situations usually arise when priests have sex through rape, abuse, affairs with nuns or non ordained women of the church.
The priests first took an oath to celibacy a thousand years after its existence in the 12th-century. The pope has the power to change the rule since is not Catholic dogma but simply a tradition. Pope Francis has been open about allowing married men to become priests in the future. People forget St. Peter was married and the first Pope of the Catholic Church.
According to the church’s Code of Canon Law, they deem celibacy a “special gift from God” that in turn, allows them to have more dedication to the church and would be less distracted in order to fulfill their duties to Christ. However, nowhere in The New Testament does it specifically say that the priests have to take an oath of celibacy.
The man who the New York Times wrote about is a psychotherapist and his name is Vincent Doyle, a native of Ireland. For years, he had always believed a Catholic priest named John J. Doyle to be his godfather. Doyle says he was going through some old poems and noticed the handwriting was that of John Doyle’s. After analyzing the context of the poems Vincent asked his mother if that was his father and she confirmed it was.
http://gty.im/1238017337Since he was informed of the truth Doyle had taken shame because he became a child of scandal. At one point prior to his mother’s truth, he was attempting to become a priest in Ireland. After a period, Doyle believed he was alone in this situation until an archbishop showed him otherwise. Apparently, the archbishop told him there are a set of rules they created for a priest who commits such acts, this information left Doyle aware that there were likely others like him. Another archbishop even had a name for it, “children of the ordained.” One of the archbishops even helped fund his website.
Doyle has done something positive that’s been able to manage his shame by creating a support group for children of priests. According to what Doyle told the New York Times, Doyle said his website support group, CopingInternational.com, “has 50,000 users in 175 countries.”
I have to ask is the Catholic church confirming these types of situations happen because it’s not talking about the evil acts of pedophilia?
I’m Catholic, and for years I’ve heard people say the pope should allow priests to get married, all the other Christian churches allow it. It’s obviously backfired on what they were supposedly attempting to accomplish through the oath of celibacy. It’s backfired on a human decency level and peoples faith in Christ has dwindled along with peoples alliance to the church. It’s not surprising we see horrible acts of pedophilia and rape by priests because the celibacy oath indeed seems like it protects them. Asking a man to keep celibate for his life is similar to asking the media to be impartial. If anything, some may accomplish the goal, most will likely fail.
There are about 200 Catholic priests who are married and some of them have “legitimate” kids & grandkids. Those priests have mostly converted from Anglicanism. The church has said that they try to keep the children of priests a secret to protect the children themselves.
This will be the year The Catholic Church Falls. Do you believe priests should be allowed to get married? What do you think should happen to these priests?