ST. AUGUSTINE (FL)
St. Augustine Record
March 10, 2019
By Diana Milesko
Carl Hiassen’s March 2 column was right; the pope must confront the pain of Catholic congregants. The survival of the human race depends on morality and religion must be its guardian.
That’s why it’s unacceptable for the Catholic Church’s Meeting on Sexual Abuse (Feb. 24, 2019) to end without a plan. Five strategies have been proposed for years to address these problems. It’s time they were enacted.
1. Abolish celibacy: In 1139, the Church proclaimed clergy must be celibate because clergy were giving their inheritances to their children. With celibacy, and no legitimate heirs, inheritances went to the Church, which became fabulously wealthy. Celibacy is not normal. Pretending to enforce it created massive problems of sexual child abuse and badly damaged the Church.
2. Abolish absolute power: A Pope is infallible in matters of doctrine, (Infallibility Doctrine, 1869). But if a Pope is never wrong on doctrine, when he changes one, he was not infallible when he made it. Yet dogma changes often. It no longer says slavery is moral, coeducation is against natural law, the sun revolves around the earth, anyone not Catholic goes to hell or religious freedom is wrong.
Furthermore, infallibility contradicts St. Paul, who says not only is it wrong, but the Church should not have a Pope at all, who “sits in the Temple of God and gives himself out as if he were God.” (Thess. 2:3-4)
3. Establish sex education for seminarians: Clergy have positions of staggering trust and must be held to the highest ethical standards. Yet, in Catholic seminaries, the rational is that sex education courses create occasions of sin. Yet forbidding them permits clergy to commit atrocious evils then hide behind a plea of ignorance. Clergy must be taught about sexuality; about what is, and what is not, moral.
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