The recent revelations of the Catholic priest’s abuse of children in Pennsylvania make me question the principles of the Catholic church. I don’t know the abuses in other churches, but the sexual abuse of children has been reported to be prevalent by Catholic priests.

Discussing this with Gloria brought up an issue that we have questioned for many years. In the early Catholic religion, marriage of the priests was allowed. Peter and other apostles were married. In fact, the Church was a thousand years old before it definitively took a stand in favor of celibacy in the twelfth century at the Second Lateran Council held in 1139, when a rule was approved forbidding priests to marry. In 1563, the Council of Trent reaffirmed the tradition of celibacy.

In that child sexual abuse likely occurs less with married ordained clergy and that celibacy is an unnatural state for both men and women, it would seem apparent that a possible solution to the Catholic child abuse would be to allow/expect the priests to marry and have children. That seems to work with other religions with no harm done regarding the preaching of religion.