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神圣虐待

Mar 31, 2010 Ian Buruma

纽约——

教皇本笃十六世在其对爱尔兰天主教徒发出的卓越致歉信中，解释了在他看来为何有罪的牧师会受到诱惑、与儿童发生性行为。这是由于“信仰正面对着源自爱尔兰社会快速转型和世俗化的重大新挑战。快速的社会变革已经发生，这些变革常常有损于人们对于天主教教义和价值的传统忠诚。”

正如我们所知，天主教牧师虐待儿童的事件并不仅现于爱尔兰一国，它也发生在其他许多国家中，不过对此，教皇却不愿意详加讨论。同时，爱尔兰也并非唯一一个社会转型与世俗化对宗教价值构成挑战的地区。当教皇将此种性犯罪归咎于上述挑战时，或许他至少说对了一部分，不过其原因却不是他所相信的那些理由。

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Michael Parsons Jul 4, 2017

But the Church traditionally holds to its exemption from the law of the State, and priests were exempt from secular judgements; for example in England because of the need to encourage and protect learning. So we had the 'hanging text' which, if a man could read it in Latin, exempted him (assumed a priest) from hanging: hence the odd 'do you have anything to say before sentence is passed upon you' at the end of a case, normally followed by an uneasy silence, there being no 'hanging text' to read any more. The Church could hand priests over to the secular power after judgement, but claims to judge its own first.viz. St T More etc. and Oxford Coleges' proctorial authority.
In judgement the Church is also bound by the law of charity and the need for space for redemption, and by the injunction against purging itself ( the prohibition found in the 'wheat and tares parable' against accidentally ripping up the good seed).
This ideal of a community of love and order under God's guidance can be widely subject to abuse under any form of Christianity - for example child abuse by protestant pastors in N. Wales.
None of this does more than go some way to explaning the Pope's apparent indifference, and his real predicament. It is not just celibacy-rules that result in abuse.
One answer might be the Orthodox Church one, where priests can marry but thereafter cannot rise above a certain rank. Are there any surveys to suggest this reduces abuse? Married priests also commit abuses, after all.
We cannot force people to be good (see our MP's for a start) so it might be wiser to approach this as a very real problem with which all men and women inside and outside the Church have to wrestle,(for example in the Churh by the now often unfashionable Rite of Confession) and be a little less cruel and self-opininated?
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manuel werner Jul 3, 2017

Excellent advice, regarding a second look at celibacy and I'm absolutely certain that the church will take it, in about 1000 years, as this institution is unusually deliberative and must, of course, wait for divine guidance which, as we can all appreciate, is inscrutable, in a casuistic sense, of course.
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