Obviously, though, (heads up to Archbishop Viganó) these two groups must not be confused or conflated, since statistically, most pedophiles are heterosexual—and since what pedophiles do is dangerous, criminal, and harmful to society. On the other hand, what most homosexual priests do occurs between adults and is therefore, unless non-consensual and/or abusive in nature, perfectly legal.
Still, though, any kind of sexual activity—heterosexual or homosexual, legal or illegal, consensual or abusive—remains forbidden for Catholic priests, who, because they cannot be married, cannot “licitly” satisfy even perfectly benign sexual urges. WHY IS THIS SO? Is it cognitive dissonance? Unabashed hypocrisy? Why, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is Mother Church stuck in this medieval view that holiness can somehow be acquired by denying oneself healthy (i.e., legal, harmful-to-nobody) sexual relations? Regardless of St. Paul’s disdain for the baseness of marital coupling (after all, he thought the apocalypse was imminent and would render all sex irrelevant), I find such willful disregard for the real, non-apocalyptic world warped and, frankly, anti-human.
So I’m persuaded, alas, that the current “situation” will not (CAN not) be significantly ameliorated until the Church rejects it’s archaic notions and, at the very least, abandons its self-destructive requirement of priestly “celibacy/chastity.” This bearded Church desperately needs a shave—and freedom for priests to marry is just the razor to at least start the job.*Technically, most priests pledge to remain “celibate,” i.e., unmarried. But according to Church law, this pledge is also a moral commitment to have no sex at all, since the Church condemns as sinful any sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage. Thus, celibacy = no marriage = no sex at all =chastity
