They Have No Shame

For many years The Boston Daily Worker (whose publishers refer to it as "The Boston Globe") has seen fit to employ a bitter ex-priest and writer of fiction named James Carroll.  Mr. Carroll, whose politics are hard-left and whose Catholicism (such as it is) is of the arch-dissident flavor, nowadays writes opinion columns which appear regularly in the pages of that benighted broadsheet.  Mr. Carroll is their kind of Catholic, a man whose chief problem with the Church is that it dares to try to remain true to itself rather than changing its teachings to suit contemporary mores.

Just as some men and women retain a particularly intense animus toward their ex-spouse after a failed marriage, Mr. Carroll reserves and nurtures a particularly virulent hatred for the Catholic Church.  This week he has trotted-out one of his longtime hobbyhorses, priestly celibacy.  His main contentions are:

1. "Celibacy cuts to the heart of what is wrong in the Catholic Church today",
2. Celibacy might be OK for monks but the only way for a parish priest to live a celibate life is through "repression",
3. "Celibacy does not 'cause' the sex abuse of minors" you see, it just creates a "homophilic world", an "inbred culture" of a "repressively psychotic" nature which caused "stresses" and "irrepressible urges", leading to... you know,
4. The Church is obsessed with sex as a means of control - hence the birth control ban for the laity and the celibacy rule for priests and religious,
5. The Council would have revisited both and probably changed "the rules" but "conservative" and "insecure" Pope Paul VI unilaterally reserved the decisions to himself (how dare he?),
6. "Immaturity, narcissism, misogyny, incapacity for intimacy, illusions about sexual morality" plue "Lies, denial, arrogance, selfishness, and cowardice" are the fruits of a celibate priesthood,
7. "The people" understand all of this and agree with... Jim Carroll on all of it!

Unfortunately most of us don't have the opportunity to ask Mr. Carroll any questions, but perhaps the following inquiries might elicit some interesting responses:

1. Was Jesus Christ sexually "repressed"?  "immature"?  "Narcissistic"?  "Misogynistic"?  "Incapable of intimacy"?  Full of "illusions about sexual morality?
2. Which priest-saints showed signs of "Immaturity, narcissism, misogyny, incapacity for intimacy, illusions about sexual morality"?  Which ones exhibited "Lies, denial, arrogance, selfishness, and cowardice" as a result of their celibate lives?
3. What else did that arch-conservative Pope , Paul VI, stop the Council from doing to fix the Church?  Which of those negative personality traits did he suffer from?
4. Why wasn't this a significant problem in the Church until the latter half of the twentieth century?
5. Why is the percentage of men who sexually abuse minors much higher amongst the ministry of the (non-celibate) protestant sects?
6. Is the fact that all of this has coincided with the period in the Church which brought us the Second Vatican Council just a coincidence, or would it have been much worse without the Council?

Mr. Carroll dares not consider these questions sincerely, let alone answer them honestly. 

If you are of a nervous or choleric temperament, I suggest you refrain from reading the original article.  If, however, you want to see what the principal newspaper in Boston feels is appropriate in an opinion piece about the Catholic Church, read it and gnash your teeth.  But don't say I didn't warn you...