Quote:
Quote by: Rooster  Now they are thinking, if priests marry then the abuse will stop.
Marriage will not stop a pedophile from abusing children. The loving act between a husband and wife cannot be compared to the act these priests forced upon their victims.  |
It could be argued that the oppressive environment is creating inappropriate outlets in the same manner that heterosexual inmates may exhibit homosexual tendencies in lieu of other options.
I don't know the stats but if the percentage of pedophiles in the clergy is notably higher than the percentage of pedophiles in the general population then one could surmise that the position in clergy either attracts pre-existing pedophiles or, per the example above, converts some non-pedophiles into pedophiles. Either of those cases could be adequately argued I think.
Allowing priests to marry would, at the absolute worst, keep the pedophelia instances roughly the same if every single pedophile was, in fact, pre-existing and drawn to the clergy for whatever reason. If, however, some of the clergy were not pre-existing pedophiles and explored the tendency due to the environment then allowing priests to marry should, theoretically, decrease the chance that they would focus on inappropriate outlets since they would suddenly have appropriate outlets.