Church child abuse

The Roman Catholic church has recently found itself embroiled in controversy involving child sexual abuse.

The Pope appears to see the scandal as a conspiracy stirred up by the secular media (e.g. aren’t there paedophiles among secular youth works too?) and said that the Roman Catholic church will ‘not be intimidated’ or bow to ‘petty gossip’. The crisis has arisen as accusations of paedophile abuse by some priests have emerged in many countries. The Pope apologised in a seven-page letter to Irish victims in March. He himself has been accused of covering up at least one such case in Germany while he was a cardinal.

An insistence upon Catholic priests being celibate came about as the culmination of papal edicts during the 11th and 12th centuries. Celibacy is now looked upon as morally superior by many Catholics. Some see this unscriptural (see 1 Corinthians 7.1-9; 9.5) insistence upon no marriage and therefore no sex for clergy as being at the root of the problem. They say that this must inevitably lead to trouble, including deviant behaviour.