The modern obsession with sexuality would have struck a contemporary of Jesus as odd, perhaps startling. He had some things to say about adultery, but never once mentioned homosexuality, for example, and good luck finding any clear and convincing reference to masturbation as a mortal sin, which the Catholic church still teaches. It might be surprising to some that Catholicism had no fixed teaching on contraception until recently and until the 13th century it was possible for priests to marry. In 1968, the commission appointed by Pope Paul VI initially found no reason a Catholic in good standing could not take the pill or use other forms of contraception, but that was not the answer Paul wanted to hear, so he fired those who favored the pill and voilá, Humanae Vitae was issued which split the church, with the hierarchy upholding the ban and the laity virtually ignoring it. (Karen Armstrong gives an excellent history of this period.)
But I think regardless of the facts of the specific issues at hand, the method by which religions in general, especially those who are more concerned about orthodoxy (right thinking) not just orthopraxy (correct behavior), seek truth is deeply problematic. Galileo exemplifies this: a few passages of the Bible seemed to imply that we live in a geocentric universe. Until the discovery of the telescope, what the Greeks had actually known (and the Roman church forgot) could not be proven - that our system is actually heliocentric. So if you have a sacred text that stakes its claim on something that its authors could never imagine to be able to be proven or disproven, then what do you do when technology allows you to discover things with your own eyes that clearly are not accurately portrayed in that text, or collection of texts? The modern solution has been generally to shrug and say of course those texts were a product of their time and contain great wisdom in general even if some of the particulars are glaringly inaccurate (as Galileo asked, why would anyone turn to a text as an authority on a topic on which it is generally silent - why indeed?). But that approach is of course not good enough for fundamentalists of all stripes, and also for traditionalists, such as the Pope, who are confronted with overwhelming evidence that the way they have conceptualized the world is deeply flawed. The idea of renouncing your sexuality in some spiritual union with God does not seem a particularly reliable construct, and those who are compelled to take vows of celibacy seem empirically to include some who are deeply troubled, perhaps looking for refuge from forbidden impulses that torment them. Put those men together with a vulnerable population and disaster results.
This is not to say that all who pursue celibacy or other forms of self-denial are all pedophiles or predators, only that one can't help wondering if allowing priests to marry and have a healthy, pro-life outlet for their natural, God-given sexuality might decrease or even eliminate the types of horrors that have occurred with numbing frequency in so many settings that have the same elements: demands for celibacy, exclusion of women, and an unyielding centralized chain of command where loyalty to superiors trumps loyalty to scientific or forensic reality.
So I doubt cosmetic changes or another commission or tearful apology will do the trick. What is needed is a fundamental overhaul of how authority flows, which in a sense was what the Reformation was about, although Martin Luther and King Henry VIII had their own demons also, and Protestants showed our our side of the Atlantic that they could be as good at imagining witches and killing innocents as any Inquisitor.
We know the earth is much older than Usher's 1650 estimate (he dated genesis to Oct 23, 4004 BC), in fact so much older that all of the history of our species would represent less than a fraction of a second of the earth's hour of time. We know leprosy is not particularly infectious and we believe that slavery is wrong and that adultery or cursing your parents should not be capital offenses. So the logical and moral gymnastics required for belief, certainly the type of authoritative belief and obedience demanded by Rome, are much greater today than ever which is why all churches, despite the recent evangelical flourish in the United States, are facing a very deep credibility crisis. How they negotiate that crisis will determine how and in what form they survive, but if educated people of good will are ever to take the pronouncements of an unelected group of celibate males seriously, they must first renounce the idea of infallibility (itself a modern doctrine promulgated by Pius IX in 1870) and admit they put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. Maybe even more so.
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