Editorial Note
The Catholic Church: Crime and Sin

As it is normal in cases that alert public opinion, the scandal that shakes the foundations of the Catholic Church, caused by priests who have perpetrated sexual abuse on children during the last thirty years, has captured universal attention. Some in favor, some against, but we all know it and have talk about it.

Surely, there are priests able to honor their chastity vows and many who die chaste, though we ignore to what extent they’ve mortified their bodies to achieve it. We’ll never know how many are like that or how many have gone astray— which by the way is not God’s fault.

It’s not enough for the cardinals who covered up for pedophile priests to ask for forgiveness; they should also be subject to the law of the land. The church can ask for God’s and its parishioner’s forgiveness, but those responsible for sexual crimes and those who covered them up must be brought to justice because the clergy is not above the law. The position assumed by the cardinals and the Vatican during their recent meeting with the Pope was not an agreement on “zero tolerance” but rather on “removal policy” regarding priests found guilty of “continuous and noticeable abuse of minors.”

Does a rape have to be committed continuously before it’s considered a crime? With this interpretation of brotherly love the Catholic Church is in very bad shape.

Under these moral standards many victims would prefer to endure the abuse than to feel guilty for speaking up. Maybe it has to do with the aura of sainthood disseminated in relation to priests.

It is said that “there is everything in the Vintage of the Lord” but the truth in this case is a lot more complex and must move to profound scrutiny about the poorly founded meaning of celibacy expected from Catholic priests.

Human sexuality is not something strange or imposed; it’s God design on whom He believes to be the best of his creatures. There is a natural-instinctive tendency, that rebels itself against that same nature when a human being is asked to give up one of the intrinsic, physical functions of his body.

It has been a very old debate that, however, has remained enclosed and was deaf and mute during many years because no one, under any circumstances, ever dealt openly about sexual topics. But now that attitudes have changed noticeably, and above all, when questions like pedophilia emerge within the Catholic Church it is necessary for the topic to be debated seriously and without passion.

The future of the church is not at stake because, through divine intervention, it has always been able to overcome any obstacles. But now, facing a worldwide decrease in the number of aspiring priests, the topic must become an open forum to prompt the Catholic Church to deal with the most controversial topic; celibacy, which will have repercussions in the future of the church.

In any human endeavor it is possible for a family man or woman to develop commitment and absolute dedication to his/her work. To have a family doesn’t mean that an individual is going to perform his work with less devotion.

Quite the contrary, priesthood is a hard way of life, no doubt about it. The harder it is, the greater the need of the companionship and the support of a family to provide strength.

Obviously, the abolition of celibacy doesn’t guarantee the end of the scandals of priests abusing children or sexually involved with woman. But the incidence would be less that it is now because we’d be returning to the natural order of life, which the church preaches so often when it comes to topics like homosexuality and sins against nature.

As a church, we can never again function in the middle of the hypocrisy of an ecclesiastic hierarchy that covers up and hides the sins of its priests or even worse, that transfers pedophiles from parish to parish knowing well that “you can’t have the fox guarding the chicken coop.” Such priests will go on causing damage to people wherever they go.