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Church accusers made up of clowns and other assorted exploiters
By Michael Coren
April 8, 2010
Michael Coren
A woman called Andrea — I won’t give her full name — sent me a message on my Facebook site recently. “Hello, my husband and I last met you at a Michael W. Smith concert in Hamilton. He is a messianic clown and we are both Jewish believers in Jesus. Have the recently publicized sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, added to the long history of the same, changed your attitude towards the RC Church?” No, I answered, but it has rather shaken my faith in messianic clowns.
You couldn’t, as they say, make that up. Not even with clown make-up.
You couldn’t, as they say, make that up. Not even with clown make-up.
Some things need to be made abundantly clear from the beginning. Many of those currently criticizing the Church are exploiting the abuse scandal for political purposes. They are more concerned with Church-bashing than with the fate of young people whose childhood was ripped from them by cruel men who refused to obey their vows and Church teaching. If abuse didn’t exist they’d simply find something else to use. Or to put it another way, if there were no abuse they would not suddenly become friends of Catholicism.
Then there are those within the Church who see the scandal as an excuse to push for female ordination and an end to celibate clergy. The abuse, however, has nothing to do with either. Normal men are tempted by adult women, not by 12-year-old boys. The priests who committed these crimes were never aroused by mature women but always attracted to young males. They did not suddenly become perverts because they were not allowed to marry and the suggestion is, frankly, insultingly stupid. Rates of abuse within the Church are precisely and horribly the same as, for example, the Anglican Church or the teaching profession, neither of which demand celibacy.
As for why the teaching exists, it is because of Christ’s example and because we know from the earliest records that while in the early Church married men were made priests, they were required to be celibate once ordained. The notion that it’s all a medieval invention concerning property, control and sexism comes from the same mind-set that tells us the Eucharist is also from the Middle Ages and that Jesus had siblings.
As for female ordination, we’re simply not that arrogant. The Church does not have the authority to contradict the teaching of the Bible and the deposit of faith established over 2,000 years. Let’s also remember that many of the calls for female priests come not from people who want to please God but from activists who want to please themselves. “I want, I need, give it to me.” They epitomize the errors of the self-based culture they claim to oppose.
Women cannot be priests just as a married man cannot be a priest or, for that matter, give birth to a child. Equality does not mean that we are all the same. We’re here to follow and not edit Christ and that demands sacrifice in all sorts of areas.
The most devout, intelligent, committed and successful Catholic women I know devote themselves to being good Catholic career women, mothers, wives, authors, police officers and so on and so on. They don’t obsess about female ordination because they are too busy being Catholic and too Catholic to be busy digressing from the real issues.
The argument that women are deprived because of all-male clergy is oddly paradoxical in that it assumes that being a priest makes someone more important or a better Catholic — precisely what the advocates of female ordination have always insisted was not the case. Churches already exist where women are ordained. They are called Protestant churches because they are not Catholic and those who reject fundamental Catholic teaching on vital, essential issues are already a Protestant and ought to consider one of these fine alternatives.
As for the latest nonsense that the Pope knew personally of a grotesque abuse of deaf little boys, reality cries out to be heard. This is guilt by association and would be laughed out of court or the public square if thrown at another public figure. His and the Church’s accusers are often clowns, but probably not of the messianic variety.
Then there are those within the Church who see the scandal as an excuse to push for female ordination and an end to celibate clergy. The abuse, however, has nothing to do with either. Normal men are tempted by adult women, not by 12-year-old boys. The priests who committed these crimes were never aroused by mature women but always attracted to young males. They did not suddenly become perverts because they were not allowed to marry and the suggestion is, frankly, insultingly stupid. Rates of abuse within the Church are precisely and horribly the same as, for example, the Anglican Church or the teaching profession, neither of which demand celibacy.
As for why the teaching exists, it is because of Christ’s example and because we know from the earliest records that while in the early Church married men were made priests, they were required to be celibate once ordained. The notion that it’s all a medieval invention concerning property, control and sexism comes from the same mind-set that tells us the Eucharist is also from the Middle Ages and that Jesus had siblings.
As for female ordination, we’re simply not that arrogant. The Church does not have the authority to contradict the teaching of the Bible and the deposit of faith established over 2,000 years. Let’s also remember that many of the calls for female priests come not from people who want to please God but from activists who want to please themselves. “I want, I need, give it to me.” They epitomize the errors of the self-based culture they claim to oppose.
Women cannot be priests just as a married man cannot be a priest or, for that matter, give birth to a child. Equality does not mean that we are all the same. We’re here to follow and not edit Christ and that demands sacrifice in all sorts of areas.
The most devout, intelligent, committed and successful Catholic women I know devote themselves to being good Catholic career women, mothers, wives, authors, police officers and so on and so on. They don’t obsess about female ordination because they are too busy being Catholic and too Catholic to be busy digressing from the real issues.
The argument that women are deprived because of all-male clergy is oddly paradoxical in that it assumes that being a priest makes someone more important or a better Catholic — precisely what the advocates of female ordination have always insisted was not the case. Churches already exist where women are ordained. They are called Protestant churches because they are not Catholic and those who reject fundamental Catholic teaching on vital, essential issues are already a Protestant and ought to consider one of these fine alternatives.
As for the latest nonsense that the Pope knew personally of a grotesque abuse of deaf little boys, reality cries out to be heard. This is guilt by association and would be laughed out of court or the public square if thrown at another public figure. His and the Church’s accusers are often clowns, but probably not of the messianic variety.
Michael Coren