Celibacy seems odd to me.
I've never understood it, but I confess (no pun intended) that I am not Catholic.
I would wonder if it is viewed as a mere inconvenience or formality by today's priest, by those who have violated it.
Obviously, it was ignored.
Is there a possibility, with human urges, in modern times with sex everywhere, that it was just too difficult a standard to abide by?
It may play a role, but I am not sure of this being the totality of the problem.
If it were only that, why the pedophilia?
Why not just sex between adults?
Something is still amiss here.
Celibacy is not a requirement of the Ten Commandments nor did Jesus adocate it. Iit's a man-made church law that supposedly resuled from the writings of St. Paul. Paul never married and he had opined that it was better to stay single so one could dedicate oneself more to God, whereas a married person would be distracted by the cares of spouse and family. He did not say a person had to be celibate and in fact, said if one could not be celibate, then it was "better to marry than to burn" in hell.
But even when celibacy was required of Catholic clergy, many did not follow it. And for the few priests the church has today, it is indeed a difficult vow to maintain. I know of a couple of priests who left the priesthood because they could not remain celibate
Why pedophilia? Just my dumb opinion, but I'd say it's more convenient. Priests come into contact with children all the time. For many in the parishes, ministering to children is one of the priests' duties. So there is far more contact with young children and teens than with older adults like parents.
And the children are much easier to seduce. As kids, we were taught to place our entire trust in our priest and we were required to obey him, no matter what. If Father told us to do something, even things that made us uncomfortable, we would do it because Father said so. Father was God's representative on earth and if we disobeyed or told anyone, we were defying and disobeying God. If we objected, Father could try to inflict guilt on us. He could even threaten us with God's punishment if we didn't follow orders. As kids, guilt and the threat of God's punishment was a great way to get us kids to do what adults wanted -- good or bad.
I don't know that lifting the ban against marriage for clergy would make the pedophilia problem go away. Pedophilia is a sickness. Like rape, it's not really about sex or the attractiveness of one's partner. It's about power and dominance. I think pedophiles have very deep problems with personal relationships with adults -- and it doesn't have to be romantic relationships. These people need to dominate someone and for many, that someone is a young, weak, helpless child.
