Brown writes: "Of course, the real problem is that the Roman Catholic church expects an entirely unrealistic standard of continence from its priesthood. Some priests can manage celibacy. The evidence from all around the world is that most can't."

Senior Catholics said Cardinal Keith O'Brien's resignation was intended to stop the allegations from turning into a crisis. (photo: David Moir/Reuters)

Cardinal O'Brien and the Church's Sexual Confusion

By Andrew Brown, Guardian UK

26 February 13

As O'Brien is accused of misdemeanours the Catholic church must review its damaging strictures on celibacy

hey call it a resignation, but it looks to me as if Cardinal Keith O'Brien was pushed before he could even think of jumping. Only yesterday he was defending his position. Then we were told that the Pope was considering it. Now - miraculously - the cardinal has reconsidered.

In any case, this shows how very sensitive the Roman Catholic church has become towards sexual scandal. The long years of trying to tough out problems and of circling the wagons are over, at least in the developed world. Cardinals now get the same treatment as priests.

The other remarkable change shown by this is within the culture of the church. Priests now dare to complain about their superiors through the back channel to Rome provided by the Vatican's diplomatic service. That is how these allegations were made. There was a time when complaining about your bishop or cardinal to Rome was a one-way ticket to a posting on Craggy Island. There are probably still a great many crimes or misdemeanours that a priest with a sense of self-preservation would hesitate to denounce his superiors for - but it seems that sexual abuse is no longer one of them. This is progress, though slow and belated.

Otherwise, the story illustrates the grotesque and humiliating difficulties that the Roman Catholic church has knotted itself into where sex and gay people are concerned.

If the allegations are correct, you would need a heart of flint not to feel some sympathy for the cardinal as well as for his victims. Celibacy is difficult and sometimes lonely for anyone. The traditional remedy for loneliness, in Scots and Irish Catholicism, involved medication with whiskey and manly bonding. If your inclination is in any case towards men this is not going to be very helpful. Getting drunk in an atmosphere of sentimental affection with the object of desire is a tough test in self-control. We should not be surprised if some men sometimes fail it.

Journalists and Guardian readers who never get drunk and have regrettable sexual episodes are entitled to completely unalloyed joy at the spectacle of a moralist revealed as a hypocrite. The rest of us should temper our delight.

Of course, the real problem is that the Roman Catholic church expects an entirely unrealistic standard of continence from its priesthood. Some priests can manage celibacy. The evidence from all around the world is that most can't. They certainly can't always. In the developing world the problem is largely one of priests having unofficial heterosexual families, as Cardinal Tagle of the Philippines - an outside candidate for the papacy - pointed out last week. In countries where that isn't an available alternative, the priesthood becomes a refuge for gay men - especially in societies where homophobia is the public norm.

This fact adds irony to O'Brien's denunciations of gay marriage. You can't really expect better from a church that still hasn't come to terms properly with heterosexual marriage, as its position on artificial contraception shows. There are many great Catholic feminists, some of them nuns. But you would never guess this from the official doctrine, which still proceeds as if marriage were something in which a man took the initiative, rather than a partnership of equals. And a church that can't treat women as equals is certainly not going to be realistic about marriage between two men.

All Christians are called to be perfect, and in that sense all Christian moral doctrine is unrealistic. But there are some forms of perfection that are damaging to try for. The demand that all Catholic clergy should live as if sex were something that only ever happened to other people is one of those. It has outlived its usefulness and is now an engine of cruelty and hypocrisy. It's a very great shame that O'Brien's fall will be used by the Vatican's enemies of progress to discredit his brave and sensible suggestion last week that the celibacy of the priesthood be reconsidered.

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+63 # DerHermanator 2013-02-26 12:04

The urge to merge is encoded in our DNA - for reproduction's sake. There are indeed a very few who do lack it. This reality caused Dr Kinsey et al to revise their Scale of 0 to 6 by adding X for asexual. There are not enough of these to staff -- so to speak -- The Church. Past time to get real.

+22 # Michael Lee Bugg 2013-02-26 13:59

I wonder if the Pope who came up with the celebicy nonsense did so because no female would voluntarily have anything to do with him?! I suspect Jesus was not asexual either.

-4 # robcarter.vn 2013-02-26 20:15

Of Course Jesus was Gay. Just have a drinking Party with your mates and get down washing their feet to see where your eye and Lips point and at what? Then travel with 2 prostitutes and a Virgin among the team of 13-100 GUYS AND WHERE ARE YOU.

As for which Pope so ruled against Homosexuality etc? I would think Pope Clement I, aka Saint Clement of Rome, he was listed 2nd or 4th Pope about 68AD as Bishop of Rome. Had JC doings to excuse. As 1st Apostolic Father of the Church, Clement his one genuine extant writing is his letter to the church at Corinth, in response to a dispute in which certain presbyters of the Corinthian church had been deposed. As many today probably same reasons.

He asserted the authority of presbyters as rulers of the church, on the grounds that the Apostles had appointed such. Read in church, & with other epistles, some of which later became Christian canon; is one of the oldest extant Christian documents outside the New Testament. This important work was the first to affirm the apostolic authority of the clergy. Muck like doctrine of infallibility means even if wrong stated for right reason by Preacher, it isn't wrong in God's eye & you follow it free of guilt. For a 3 year ministry Jesus + John Baptist is a lesson in such love & Humility. Inferiority of all Women from Eve other than Mummy Mary who was sex-free, & why should Joseph of JC doubt God knew what he did and why..

+26 # MainStreetMentor 2013-02-26 14:08

It’s been my understanding that celibacy of priests was loosely based on what was supposed to have been the celibacy of Christ. I’ve read in the past few years that Christ may NOT have been celibate. If that is the case, then haven’t all these centuries priests been required to be celibate based on a premise that may not have been true?

0 # Smokey 2013-03-02 04:17

[quote name="MainStree tMentor"]It’s been my understanding that celibacy of priests was loosely based on what was supposed to have been the celibacy of Christ...."

I've never understood the popularity of the Guy Fawkes mask. If Guy Fawkes had been successful, England would have been placed under Roman Catholic rule, yes?

+10 # ritaague 2013-02-27 03:13

Yes, DerHermanator, "Past time to get real." Particularly insofar as, in the early days of the RC Church, not only were clergy allowed to marry, but women were clery, including at least one woman bishop.

But, then came the greed and power over all addiction, with no male clergy being allowed to marry (cannot have their wife and/or children inheriting anything - and, God knows, any married man will have countless children, since no meaningful birth control is to be allowed, in order to keep those pews full and the money rolling in).

Yep, hierarchy, past time to get real, and RESPECT BRAS:
B: birth control
R: rights of priest to marry, be female
A: abortion allowed, when necessary
S: sexual persuasions outed/respected

+32 # MidwestTom 2013-02-26 12:31

Luther had it right, he married and had children.

+37 # MJnevetS 2013-02-26 13:03

I have no dog in this fight, so to speak, not being Catholic. Nonetheless, there were and still ARE married Catholic priests. In 2012, the Vatican announced the formation of a nationwide ordinariate for Episcopal priests who want to move together into Roman Catholicism. allowing more married priests in the US the church allows married priests in the non-Latin rites, like Ukrainian Catholicism or Maronite Catholicism. These churches are fully Catholic, obedient to the pope, but they ordain married men, although they do not allow unmarried priests to get married. This is in addition to the fact that until The First Lateran Council (1123) marriage was regularly engaged in by priests. It was in 1123 that the counsel forbade priests, deacons, and subdeacons to associate with concubines and women, or to contract for marriage. The Second Lateran Council (1139) held that no one attend the masses of those who are known to have wives or concubines. Nonetheless, even after the 12th Century, Pope Julius II (1503–1513) had three illegitimate daughters, Pope Paul III (1534–1549) fathered four illegitimate children by his mistress. As to gay sex, Pope Paul II (1464–1471) allegedly had male consorts, Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) as well. Pope Leo X (1513–1521) was allegedly a practicing homosexual and Pope Julius III (1550–1555) was alleged to have had a long affair and shared the papal bed. So, everything old is new again.

+13 # Regina 2013-02-26 15:44

In Salzburg, Austria, there was an archbishop (erzebet) some centuries ago who had a mistress, and he built a mansion (now open to visitors) for her. She bore him 15 or 16 children.

0 # Pickwicky 2013-02-27 17:40

Ah---what good Catholics!

+30 # moonrigger 2013-02-26 13:08

The Church so wants everyone to believe that it is their organization that originated and preserved the Church as Christ envisioned it. But a funny thing happened on the way to Rome--it became, as most large organizations do--a political force masquerading as a spiritual one. It didn't help that it opted to relegate women to lowly status, beginning with the absurd notion that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were all virgins. Oddly, we never stopped to question this and other misogynist doctrine that enabled them to justify celibacy (or should I say, not allowing priests to marry). It all played out too well for the new merchant class, but for centuries since, it's been a no-win for women and priests alike. If the Pope can resign, then it seems the time is ripe for even bigger changes than Vatican II. Time will tell.

+33 # kalpal 2013-02-26 13:18

Celibacy was a fiscal move and had little or nothing to do with emulating a jewish man who most likely was married when in his teens.

+22 # billeeboy 2013-02-26 13:44

Sympathy for Cardinal O'Brien, Mr. Brown? Not on your life. There are many reasons why gay men choose to stay in the closet. I have always been strongly opposed to those who would out such individuals - with one exception. Closeted men who, while engaging in homosexual acts, preach homophobia, deserve to be outed. Indeed if there is a Hell, surely there is a special place there for hypocrites who while "sinning" cast stones at others engaging in that same "sin"! Despicable. Cardinal O'Brien is an evil man, not because he is gay but because he is a hypocrite and because of the terrible distress he caused his victims. No Mr. Brown, the Cardinal does not deserve sympathy but rather excommunication !

+19 # LizR 2013-02-26 13:50

Jeez........... .so to speak. Is this the 21st century, or the 15th? Have they got around to accepting that Earth going round the Sun thing yet?

"When the Church was in charge, they burned anyone who disagreed with them. Now the scientists are in charge, they just ask them hard questions..."

+2 # Smokey 2013-02-26 14:39

Quoting LizR:

"When the Church was in charge, they burned anyone who disagreed with them. Now the scientists are in charge, they just ask them hard questions..."

Now the scientists are in charge, so it's possible to build weapons of mass destruction that can destroy the whole planet. It's possible to proceed with genetic enginnering. All of this work will be done in the name of "reason" and "progress."

Some scientists will help to build nuclear wepons for Iran. Others will build the systems that will destroy Iran.

-4 # Walter J Smith 2013-02-27 07:11

Yes, the scientists are in charge now, and their puppets in government will burn anyone at the stake for questioning them and their infinite droning of the whole globe into a pile of rubble.

+2 # bmiluski 2013-02-27 09:26

Smokey my dear, that is how men play with toys. They did it in their childhood and since women keep on enabling them ("My boy is a good boy.")they keep on playing when they're "all grown up".

+7 # roger paul 2013-02-26 13:51

If their god wanted them to be asexual they would have been born without the prescribed sexual organs...come to think of it even their god need to have sex with a virgin.

+34 # ganymede 2013-02-26 13:53

The Vatican Catholic hierarchy has a lot in common with the people who lead the Republican Party. They are at odds with human nature and evolution, which is why they're having so much trouble in dealing with reality. We're living at a time when there's never been so much information, a lot of it very sound about human psychology and spirituality. The Republican Party is collapsing and is going to have to make dramatic changes if it is to survive. The Catholic Church has a very long history of hypocrisy, misogyny and corruption and, yet, it's survived. Most Catholics I know while respectful towards their religion have had to discard much of it in order to remain faithful to the precepts of Jesus. Either the Church hss to adapt to today's reality or it will go the way of the Republican Party.

+15 # fredboy 2013-02-26 14:43

Sorry, but the church has got to get around the corner and let priests marry, have families, and celebrate sexual freedom. The current system has created monstrous mass perversion, disgracing the faith.

+15 # madams12 2013-02-26 14:44

Ganymede did well to broaden the scope from the HRC to the GOP...however, before one more damning article against the Catholic church and its failings I must disagree with the precept that this is about "celibacy" vs the DNA urge to merge as another poster commented. There are many glaring and obvious issues that many, especially males. tend toward blindness about....the misogyny implicit in religious hierarchy is indisputable... resistance to women as priests, control over women's bodies, health and most important, POWER over women which often translates into violence whether domestic or street violence. But before this rap against the Catholics goes thru another round of finger wagging...pleas e do not romanticize that merely allowing marriage will change the power dynamic of male priests or rabbis over their respective communities. It is well known, at least in orthodox Jewish communities that sexual abuse of children (boys and girls) is not exceptional. It is not only Catholic hierarchy which has power, authority, respect, and unquestioning supplicants in their circles who have never prosecuted nor pursued criminal charges against the hundreds of rabbis and talmudic scholars among another faith community which has successfully protected such men from criminal charges by sending them off to distant communities including Israel. They are not exceptional nor 'chosen' but just as likely to use POWER of their position as any priest or psychiatrist.

+26 # Urbancurmudgeon 2013-02-26 15:00

Let's face it. The reason that celibacy came into effect was because the church didn't want the priests to have families who would inherit any wealth the clergy had accumulated. It was strictly a fiscal policy. It had nothing to do with morals or scripture or anything except money. The church is first and foremost a power driven organization and the pope is the CEO. No one needs a church, any church, to worship God and all churches prove that every day.

+17 # K.D. 2013-02-26 15:07

If you know anything about the Catholic Church, at all, you know that it is an institution built on lies, hypocrisy, and reconstituted mythologies created by ambitious men intent on power and all that goes with it. For this we can thank a gullible Constantine who made Christianity the Church of His State. Before that it was one of thousands of cults living side by side, mostly in peace, and nothing more.

It remains a cult despite its corrupt worldly dominance thanks to the oppressors it has served over centuries, feeding as it always has on ignorance and fear, while it glorifies and lines the pockets of its most powerful adherents.

For more than two thousand years, without exception, the Church's infantilizing doctrines have carved a pathological foothold in the vulnerable, childlike human imagination--al ways aiming its deceitful, manipulative, opportunistic, sado-masochisti c, anti-humanist, and misogynist agenda at children, well before they can think for themselves--thi s last piece serving as an essential strategy for all cults bent on indoctrination. If you know history, you know these are solid facts.

Is it any wonder that its priests are suffering, too? How can it be any other way? These liars, including Popes, who have fucked each other for centuries, who have buggered and abused children, even as they've denied the Eucharist to those who are homosexuals like themselves, have earned their punishment. Sooner or later, living a lie exacts its price.

+1 # Walter J Smith 2013-02-27 07:21

[quote name="K.D."]"If you know anything about the Catholic Church, at all, you know that it is an institution built on lies, hypocrisy, and reconstituted mythologies created by ambitious men intent on power and all that goes with it."

The lies, hyprocrisy, and incoherence began with St. Paul. He equated sexuality with immorality, and in his mighty incoherence deemed that marriage between a man and a woman transformed that immorality into God's blessing of an innocent child. Since then, almost all the Christian churches have added to that confusion, and the Roman church perhaps more so than any others, thought the protestants have sure given the Roman church a run for their robes over the last four centuries.

If the priests and other clerics are so stupid as to place St. Paul's doctrines above Jesus's teachings, as they most certainly have done from the beginning of the organized 'catholic' churches, they deserve all the damnation they get.

Consider it God's response to their infidelity to the word.

-2 # K.D. 2013-02-27 19:00

As if "the word" means anything. Whose "word"? The word of the Bible, a male brain creation? A not very good book written by men who have invented their gods, who pretend their imaginary friends are real, who pretend that some exalted version of themselves actually exists and dominates all that is? Pathetic, ignorant, arrogant, and completely predictable when you think about what homo sapiens are and where they've come from.

St. Paul was a twisted little monkey with sexual identity problems, but the "teachings" attributed to Jesus hundreds of years after his so-called death and resurrection, are equally troubled. Christianity worships suffering; hence the focus on redemption. The idea of sin, and the post-existence Hell that it leads to are also fine concepts that the early Christian "fathers" deemed essential for mind control. Ditto for the notion of "perfection." Who needs perfection, and why?

This poison is delivered drop by drop into the brain cells of children in countless cunning and seductive ways. It uses the beauty of ritual, the desire to belong, and the wish for a comfort that nature can never provide to lay down synaptic pathways that define the limits of "acceptable" inquiry into what it means to be human.

Woe to the mind that trespasses upon belief, that does not collude with what's required to remain a docile and compliant servant of religion and the State. Manufacture enough guilt and fear and the human brain is yours for over two thousand years.

0 # Midwestgeezer 2013-02-28 06:13

Bravo from a recovered Catholic!

+2 # Pickwicky 2013-02-27 17:43

Well, K.D., that's mighty tough talk, and I'm sorry to say I think you may be right. But to me, an escaped Catholic of many years, they just look like solemn old men in goofy hats.

+6 # ricardo 2013-02-26 15:27

There is whole lot more to this story that has been deliberately ignored by the press that is most certainly fuelling the sudden departure of Pope Benedict. The first common law case ever filed against the Pope, Queen Elizabeth and Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper has just rendered a guilty verdict of genocide against these three with a sentence of 25 years. They are given a March 4th deadline to turn themselves in. Go to www.itccs.org for the details.

0 # Luis Emilio 2013-02-27 08:32

Quoting ricardo:

There is whole lot more to this story that has been deliberately ignored by the press that is most certainly fuelling the sudden departure of Pope Benedict. The first common law case ever filed against the Pope, Queen Elizabeth and Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper has just rendered a guilty verdict of genocide against these three with a sentence of 25 years. They are given a March 4th deadline to turn themselves in. Go to www.itccs.org for the details.

Can this be enforced? I wish it could!

+16 # phrixus 2013-02-26 16:19

"If the allegations are correct, you would need a heart of flint not to feel some sympathy for the cardinal as well as for his victims."

Bullshit. If you can't handle the requirements of the profession then FIND ANOTHER JOB. This knucklehead is just another predator - one of many in the perverse, twisted Catholic Church chain of command. How can you possibly suggest sympathy for a member of an organized club of child rapists and slimebags such as the Catholic Church? Get real.

+5 # reiverpacific 2013-02-26 17:50

Does celibacy include wanking (sorry, masturbation)?
I'm a recovering Catholic and never though about this -but then I had a pretty open minded family and a Lesbian aunt who did much to help me acknowledge a feminine side which most guys don't get to deal with -and didn't heap infamy on a natural youthful instinct between experimental sexual "try-outs', many of them just lies of want.
At least ol' Henry X111 didn't impose celibacy on the priests of the new "Protestant "English" church when he split from Rome, whatever his basic reasons.
And I didn't take any vows that told me I was married to God and the church.
I mean, isn't this like joining the military and taking a vow not to kill anybody -except the opposite?
O' shit, I'd better belt up or I'll disappear up me own kilt!

+1 # Walter J Smith 2013-02-27 07:24

Hmmmm. Let's see here. Henry XIII, now, tell us again, who was this fellow?

Might he have been related to Henry VIII and the five Wanks?

+5 # Kootenay Coyote 2013-02-26 19:01

“All Christians are called to be perfect, and in that sense all Christian moral doctrine is unrealistic.” But that is not unrealistic to attempt: one need to succeed in order to answer the challenge. But in what way is compulsory celibacy perfection? Personal reasons for celibacy as a choice are diverse & legitimate; but there is no historical or theological precedent for the Mediaeval church’s demand that it be compulsory, & it is thus open to most serious questioning. But there is overwhelming evidence that compulsory celibacy is destructive, dangerous & profoundly inhuman.

+7 # wrknight 2013-02-26 19:04

"Celibacy is difficult and sometimes lonely for anyone." My God! What an understatement.

+6 # Ellisdtripp 2013-02-26 21:18

Around 1960 when I was 13 I was an attar boy. I went to the church one Saturday afternoon to get my cassock ans surplice so my grandmother could launder them. The quickest way to accomplish this was to enter the priest's sacristy from the outside entrance, cross the sacristy (genuflecting before the tabernacle, of course) and enter the altar boys sacristy. Upon entry I found our parish priest, who was about 60, on his knees with his head in another priest's crotch. He stopped what he was doing and shouted "GET OUT!!" which I did. He never mentioned the incident to me, he may not have known who I was. Now, kids in those days were not as worldly as kids are now. "C*cksucker" was a dirty name you might call some one, we didn't think anyone actually DID stuff like that Reality has a way of intruding on life. Oh well. Shit happens, I guess. But knowing our parish priest, and he was rather severe, I do not judge him. AFAIK - and I have asked others who were altar boys at the time - he never touched any of us. I am certain that poor man was tortured by his desires. What a terrible way to live a life.

-1 # hd70642 2013-02-27 04:34

While Sandusky was slow to be brought to justice which what not was greatly aided by then attorney general Tom Corbett he still was eventually imprisoned !!
Certainly the Catholics do not have a monopoly on molestation but all religions are pretty adept at evading responsibility as they are to reality when it suits them . Celibacy was initialized because unlike the current society the church was against inherited wealth . Hell the conservative folks maligned the meager tax on inheritance as the death tax which never hurt anyone but is in favor of the death penalty which has unjustly executed numerous folks especially the poor !!!
investigation of Tom Corbett's handling Sandusky tragedy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/us/investigation-to-focus-on-governors-handling-of-penn-state-abuse-case.html?_r=1&
Other cases of clergy molestation:
http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=28684&Disp=4#C4
current religious kooks:
http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=32493
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Harold_Camping
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church#Westboro_Baptist_Church
religious atrocities through the ages :
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=90_41&products_id=930
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=35_6&products_id=1958

+3 # Smokey 2013-02-27 08:42

[quote name="hd70642"] "all religions are pretty adept at evading responsibility as they are to reality when it suits them ."

A human tendency. Same problem in lots of human-created institutions. The political parties, both left and right, have been known to evade responsibility and to try to ignore reality.

There may even be some sexual harassment and exploitation in the political parties and in other big institutions. Maybe we can ask.

Celibacy? I've known a few management people - male and female - who were "married to their work." Trying to maintain a romantic or a family life while working 24/7 for a corporation can be a challenge. (Any corporation. It doesn't matter if they make widgets, launder money, or if they manage community clinics for the needy.
In fact, some of the non-profits, many churches included, are the worst of the corporations for employees.)

0 # Smokey 2013-02-27 08:27

Don't underestimate the power of the Roman Catholic church. The Vatican survived the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, despite prophets who insisted that Christianity was about the fail. And, then, the Vatican increased its political influence during the Industrial Revolution and despite the democratic revolutions in Europe.

The Founding Fathers screamed against "papists." Today, the Roman Catholic church is a major player in American politics.

The story is much the same in Russia. The Bolsheviks tried to destroy the Orthodox church. (In the name of "freedom" and "reason," of course. The usual slogans raised by militant atheists.) Now, the Orthodox church is back in positions of influence and former Communists kneel on holy days.

China? Organized religion is coming back. Look at Tibet. The story of Falun Gong is worth noting.

Ayn Rand's disciples rage against religion. Rand was probably the most popular atheist in American history

Yet, "liberal" journals seldom comment on any of the above. Very strange.

So the ranting and raving against religion continues. Same old nonsense that was heard during the French Revolution, the Mexican Revolution of the early 1900s, the Chinese Revolution, etc.

Don't underestimate organized religion.
No need to reference the Middle Ages. Come into the 21st century and do some serious thinking about the here and now.

+1 # bmiluski 2013-02-27 09:28

SPIRITUALITY = The search for enlightenment/knowledge.

RELIGION = The search for reward.

0 # Pickwicky 2013-02-28 10:55

bmiluski--Scien ce = "The search for enlightenment/k nowledge."

-1 # Smokey 2013-03-01 05:10

Quoting Pickwicky:

bmiluski--Science = "The search for enlightenment/knowledge."

Dr. Faust and Dr. Frankenstein would agree. The scientists who work for Monsanto and the military-indust rial complex agree.... What's missing, of course, is concern for ethical behavior.
Most scientists are "hired guns" who work for the highest bidder.

0 # Smokey 2013-03-01 05:07

Quoting bmiluski:

SPIRITUALITY = The search for enlightenment/knowledge.

RELIGION = The search for reward.

SPIRITUALITY = "Feel good experience."

RELIGION = Social system. Many possibilities.

+1 # hd70642 2013-02-27 09:49

Don't underestimate organized religion.
As I habit I try not to underestimate anything that is dangerous !!Any theocracy is as distasteful as it dangerous whether Christian Muslim or Buddhist or communist . The problem with Ayn Rand was she extolled egoism as well idealism and any one who is egocentric has never been too centered on reality . Any tenet that is held as unquestionable usually has no value as well !!!

-2 # corals33 2013-02-27 09:50

The Roman religion...rush ing hands and roaming fingers

-1 # corals33 2013-02-27 09:52

Organized religion?? more like organized crime...God appointed them!! tell me another people.

0 # Smokey 2013-03-01 05:12

Quoting corals33:

Organized religion?? more like organized crime...God appointed them!! tell me another people.

Buddhism? There are all sorts of religions. I don't know any Buddhists who say that they're "God appointed."

0 # jwb110 2013-02-27 11:46

I think we would do well to remember that the biggest problem in the Catholic Church is not either marriage for the clergy or a specific recognition of the presence of "Gays" within the clergy. The paramount problem is child abuse and should not be confused with the other two issues. Sure, marriage should be an option for the clergy. And "Gays" should be considered not as the problem, Child abuse is not a gay issue and the last Pope blamed gays as the source. Most of the Catholic Clergy who abused those children were heterosexual even in instances where boys were molested. The Church will be looking for a "fall guy" in all of this but I think they may have run out of other people to blame.

0 # corals33 2013-02-27 12:19

The abusers are usually the abused, so says the psychologist, then one must ask if the abusers were victims before or after they joined the church. If before, they would be guilty of a dishonesty before God.If after, then we must assume this is part and parcel of a church process.Its prevalence suggests we look more at the matter of facts than faith.

+1 # Pickwicky 2013-02-27 17:49

Met a lot of psychologists-- they're legion in the halls of Academe. Never met one that had the slightest idea of what he/she was talking about.

0 # Smokey 2013-03-01 05:17

Quoting Pickwicky:

Met a lot of psychologists--they're legion in the halls of Academe. Never met one that had the slightest idea of what he/she was talking about.

Psycology looks like "the new religion" for lots of folks. Freud, Jung, Adler, etc., are hailed as the great prophets. Government agencies pay for psycholists who, in some situations, are given major influence. (Think about family law, the prison population, etc.)

0 # L H 2013-02-27 17:38

The Catholic Church has done an injustice to humanity with contrived doctrine. Constantine wasn't even a "believer" when he insisted on gathering all the preacher-folks and consolidate writings into a "Canon". This was political from the beginning.

Then With so many children of
priests running around, inheritance became a huge problem. - See more at: http://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/why-did-celibacy-become-mandatory-for-priestsr/#sthash.Ysb2dTqr.dpuf

Jesus was never celibate. Jesus was called "Rabbi" which required being a married man. He was married to Mary Magdalene and had two children. Sarah was the first-born and is celebrated to this day in Saintes-Maries- de-la-Mer, France.

I look forward to lots more truth coming out to the public! The real story is much more interesting than the fake, made-up pretense of what was the life of Jesus, or Yeshua ben Joseph. He was a great man who became a Christ, and was crucified for his teachings that God lived in everyone! "Know ye not that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you?"

0 # hd70642 2013-03-05 12:41

This link about Mother Tersa might be of interest
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/mother-teresa-myth_n_2805697.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D278647

+1 # Corvette-Bob 2013-02-28 07:06

I was raised a Catholic and went to a Catholic grade school, high school and college, but no longer accept their ideolgy. You cannot have an institution that goes against the very nature of mankind. The problem with Christianity is that it has never been tried by very few people. I would suggest that the Church let priest be married and let woman be priest since what they are doing is not working. Sex is a powerful force that cannot be denied and as long as sex is denied they will have sex scandals and they will have to hid and conceal what really goes on with the Priest. They need to wake up and accept human nature as it exist in the real world.

-1 # MylesJ 2013-02-28 10:15

Corvette-Bob,
I went to that same movie. One priest that I liked personally had a lot of stuff (HAM station, airplane, fast car, etc.) I asked him how this squared with parishioners needed help or attention that never got any from the parish. He said it is the way he maintained his celibacy saying that it takes a lot of stuff to compensate for that. The pastor would be in an angry funk if there wasn't enough money in the accounts to buy his new Buick the first of every year. Then there was the priest that kept walking in on the altar boys changing to make sure everything was "ok". Those plus others got me off the idea that these people have a "calling" and represent anything good.

+3 # Pickwicky 2013-02-28 11:07

Corvette--It might help the C. Church to let women be priests and allow priests to marry, but what would bring many back to the Church is lifting prohibitions on contraceptives and divorce. These two issues concern the majority of people. Yes, we all want the sex scandals to end and priest marriages might prevent much of that, but for every day--it's the Church's refusal to let families live normal sexual lives and at the same time decide how many children they can support that drives people from the Catholic Church, or makes them practice 'conscious objection'--whi ch means they're not Catholics at all.

+1 # Smokey 2013-03-01 05:20

Quoting Corvette-Bob:

They need to wake up and accept human nature as it exist in the real world.

Human nature in the real world is destroying the real world. Climate change and war provide some examples.

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