O RLY?

[lederhosen]

Pope Benedict said he was "deeply ashamed" over the sexual abuse of children by priests and vowed to do everything possible to stop pedophiles entering the priesthood in future.

I am guessing 'everything possible' does not, in fact, include opening the priesthood to the ninetywhatever percent of potential priests who would like to be a priest but also don't feel they could give up the option of having a loving relationship with a consenting adult.

In unrelated news, this reminds me of a certain scene out of 'Life of Brian':

An audacious comment on big brother society, depicting a small boy painting the words: "One nation under CCTV" while being watched by a security guard, appeared on a building overlooking a post office yard near Oxford Circus. The artist put up three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence, despite being watched by a CCTV (closed circuit television) camera, London's Evening Standard newspaper reported. He then created the work under cover of darkness and hidden behind a plastic sheet before the scaffolding was removed.

Comments

[mothwentbad.livejournal.com]

Isn't there some loophole where if you're already married you can become a priest, but not vice versa? It's stupid either way.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of loopholes, yes. Eastern Rite Catholicism has different rules, and I understand they've been allowing married men to become priests for nearly a thousand years now, but they can't remarry or become bishops.

Under the Western Rite, the only loophole I know of is that married Anglican priests who convert to Catholicism can be reordained while remaining married.

IIRC, during the Communist regime in Poland, quite a few underground Catholic priests married because celibacy would have given them away, and there was some controversy about how to handle this when communism collapsed. I think they were eventually required to stay married but keep separate from their wives, or something equally painful.

[mothwentbad.livejournal.com]

This whole post is full of headdesk.

[panacea1.livejournal.com]

I'd have to ask moxie_man, 'cause he's the Catholic in the house, but I believe one of the priests serving the local combined parish (I think it's three priests over five churches) is a widower.