The “current” crisis in the Catholic Church, has reminded me of an acquaintance I met years ago who at one time wanted to be a priest, but never pursued it (or if he did, he failed and was not letting on). Anyway, as I got to know him, he began to betray signs of odd personality traits, that made me a little wary of him, the clincher being his boasting of close personal relationships with Catholic hierarchy (a couple of bishops). Although he didn’t directly suggest a sexual relationship, he alluded to it, or at least allowed everyone to infer it (I’m not suggesting a pedophilic relationship as he was referring to recent relationships).

But something else struck me at the time that recently, with the Church reeling from its cover-up of sexual abuse, I have been reminded of. He suggested that the clergy were sort of like members of a secret society. Not necessarily a secret sexually deviant society (though not necessarily excluding it either), but they knew things about each other that kept each of them ‘in check’, as it were. I can only imagine that, where it maybe did not involve child sexual abuse, it involved affairs with married women (or men both married and single), or non-sexual illegal/improper activity, perhaps (drug use, financial dealings etc…). The upshot of all this (as this person inferred) was that Church seniors were compromised enough to be incapable of disciplining seriously aberrant priests, even if they had a mind to.

And, if reports of Papal depravity over the centuries are anything to go by, it’s nothing new.

But will the Vatican deal with this crisis appropriately? Probably not, (again) if history is anything to go by. The institution seems incapable of healing itself from within (or realizing the magnitude of the problem) until it’s too late.

Take the Protestant Reformation, for example. What exactly was the protest about in the first place? Answer, rampant corruption within the Catholic Church that ran right to the top. No one in the Vatican saw it coming then, even if it was patently obvious (notably) to German Princes and German Catholic clergy and half of Europe quickly after that. After the Vatican woke up it took centuries of wars to keep what was left of it together.

No, if history truly is anything to go by, the Pope, so utterly insulated from the real world through an institution that was handed the reigns of power by the Caesars themselves, will try to tough it out until, just like with the Reformation, the opportunity for timely healing and rehabilitation will be lost.

for ever since i have head about the catholic church there has always been the jokes aout priests shagging alter boys.
every decade or so there are "new" revelations coming out and some shithead from the church gets up and says nothing and does nothing.

the church has hidden it all up for as long as I know.
they have done nothing to stop sexual abuse and everything to protect their own "church".

that's what i have seen from the catholic church for as long as i have known it.

I think a lot of the problems arise from the celibacy requirements for Catholic priests.

A lot of (particularly younger men) becoming priests would be under enormous strain as a result of this. Just because they are priests doesn't mean that they don't have raging hormones like most younger people.

Apart from that it must be a very lonely life for them. Many people just  need a warm intimate relationship where they have somebody to care for them, like a wife or girlfriend. If they don't have that, they crave for more and more sex, and never really get the fulfilment that they would from a normal relationship. The result is clandestine liaisons which leave them feeling guilty and unsatisfied. 

Of course I don't defend paedophiles who might become clergy in order to gain access to children.

The Catholic Church needs to adopt some modern psych testing to screen applicants for the priesthood.  The unnatural lifestyle  may suit some people, but not all.   

tallowood wrote on Apr 6^th, 2010 at 11:07am:

The spread of Christianity out of Europe had nothing to do with the Reformation but with Empire.

tallowood wrote on Apr 6^th, 2010 at 11:18am:

The audience in Europe were already Christian. The audience in the new world and Asia didn't know Christianity at all, so were not in a position to determine which 'flavour' they preferred. Besides the Christianity acceptable in any given new world geographic region depended on the respective empires' religious 'flavour'. Catholicism in South America due to the Spanish and Portuguese Empires and Protestantism in North America due to the English/British Empire.

Given the bloody wars fought between Protestants and Catholics, their peaceful co-existence side by side anywhere in the new world was impossible for hundreds of years.

It seems the Chinese were not impressed with a religious foreign import no matter what the 'flavour'.

tallowood wrote on Apr 6^th, 2010 at 11:48am:

Gee, largely forced trading by the likes of the British and the Portuguese wouldn't have accounted for that now would it? And what's the bet it was mostly confined to ports like Hong Kong and Macau.

But its true that Christianity is growing in China today.

So, what's up with the Catholic Church?

1/ The belief in Papal infalibility.

mozzaok wrote on Apr 6^th, 2010 at 12:36pm:

Papal Infallibility is exercised only on very rare occasions and only twice in the last 146 years.

What would be more useful would be abolition of Papal Primacy.