Abolishing the priesthood will not save the Catholic Church

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

May 23, 2019

By Thomas Reese

In an article in The Atlantic’s June issue titled “Abolish the Priesthood,” James Carroll provides thought-provoking analysis of the state of the Catholic Church, recounting the history of the sex abuse crisis in the church with special focus on Boston, Ireland, the Pennsylvania grand jury report and Theodore McCarrick.

None of this is new, of course, but seeing it all together depresses and angers the reader that such things were possible in the church.

Also not new is the culprit, in Carroll’s eyes. He points to clericalism as “both the underlying cause and the ongoing enabler of the present Catholic catastrophe.”

“Clericalism, with its cult of secrecy, its theological misogyny, its sexual repressiveness, and its hierarchical power based on threats of a doom-laden afterlife, is at the root of Roman Catholic dysfunction,” according to Carroll. “The clerical system’s obsession with status thwarts even the merits of otherwise good priests and distorts the Gospels’ message of selfless love, which the Church was established to proclaim.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.