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When a Muslim kills in the name of Islam, only the most bigoted among us would condemn all Muslims. When a mother kills her child, only the most misogynist among us would condemn all women.
When a black man rapes a white woman, only the most racist among us would blame all black men. When a homosexual has sex with a minor, only the most homophobic among us would blame the LGBTQIA community.
But when a Catholic priest is accused of sex with a minor (whether or not it is actually proven), all Catholic priests, and the church as a whole, are condemned, and not just by the most bigoted right-wing bogans among us, but by the tax-funded national broadcaster no less, the ABC.
And the reason given is … celibacy. Why?
When Catholic priests sexually abuse anyone – child, adolescent or adult – they do so not because they are celibate, but precisely because they are not: because they act out sexually and so betray their celibate commitment.
When any man abuses adolescent boys, it is because he is a certain kind of homosexual (an ephebophile), not because he is a priest, a journalist, a policeman, a bricklayer, a judge, a doctor, a builder, a teacher, an actor, a banker, a soldier, or a politician.
If anyone sexually abuses pre-pubescent children, it is because he or she is a paedophile, not because he or she is the child’s parent, uncle, aunt, sister, brother, or legal guardian. No one in their right mind would suggest that because most paedophiles are family members of the victim, that families should be abolished.
The man whom James Miller alleges abused him did so not because he was a priest, but because he was that type of homosexual who is attracted to adolescent boys; and he did not (allegedly) do it in his role as a priest, but as a teacher.
Miller quite rightly does not blame either teachers, schools or the LGBTQIA community for what (he says) one ephebophile did to him. So why does he blame the church, the priesthood and celibacy? And more to the point: why does the ABC promote his accusation? Continue reading
- Drasko Dizdar is a Camaldolese Benedictine Oblate and theologian. He is the author of Sheer Grace: Living the Mystery of God.
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