Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
Most of the cases were resolved out of court, with huge compensations running into millions of dollars paid to the victims by the Catholic dioceses where the indicted priests worked at the time of the abuse.
In Pennsylvania for instance, a man who was sexually abused as a child by a Catholic priest, Rev. Father David L. Poulson, was paid $2 million in a settlement with the Erie diocese that the priest was a member of.
Fr. David L. Poulson, who pleaded guilty in October 2018 to two felony charges for sexually assaulting the boy (now a man) and trying to assault another, was finally sentenced to 14 years in prison in January this year, 2019.
Also recently in New Delhi, India, Bishop Franco Mulakkal sexually abused a nun or Rev. Sister for about two years in the southern state of Kerala. He was arrested by the Indian police.
Already, Pope Francis has acknowledged an increasing rate of sexual abuse of nuns in the Catholic Church.
While this issue of sexual abuse continues to ravage the Catholic Church all over the world, including Nigeria, it is clear that it will not stop unless the Catholic authorities look for a permanent solution to it.
This immorality has so dented the Catholic Church that their immediate past pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, recently releaseda 6,000-word letter that puts the blame for the clerical sexual abuse crisis on what he described as the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the disappearance of God from public discourse in the West and what he considers dangerously liberal theological ideas that eroded morality after the church reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
In the letter, published in the German Catholic Church magazine, Klerusblatt, Benedict wrote that the sexual revolution deemed pedophilia as “allowed and appropriate,” and the landmark social protests of 1968 for “all-out sexual freedom” as well as sex education for young children and nudity in advertising prompted a “mental collapse” that he linked to “a propensity for violence.”
But while Pope Benedict XVI’s fatherly concern about the immorality among the Catholic clergy is commendable, it is sad that he still overlooked or rather feigned ignorance of the real cause of the sexual derailment of the Catholic clergy, which is the doctrine of celibacy that forbids them from marrying.
May I humbly make it clear to the Roman Catholic authorities that until this doctrine is abolished by the Holy See, the immoral sexual escapades of the Catholic clergy cannot stop. As a matter of fact, the sexual abuse onslaught by the Catholic priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes has been ongoing for years. In fact, it as old as the doctrine of celibacy itself but had enjoyed tight cover-up, as victims were either too afraid or naïve to open up. It is only in the last two decades –as the world entered the 21stcentury (the age of information technology) – that this age-long secret began to be exposed with more and more victims summoning the courage to open up.
It is important to point out here, at least for record purposes and for the interest of die-hard pro-celibacy Catholic fanatics, that for the first one thousand years of the Catholic Church, its priests, bishops and popes married. It was in the twelfth century, precisely at the Second Lateran Council held in 1139, that for some curious reasons, the Catholic Church approved the doctrine of celibacy, forbidding its priests from marriage.
But it is important to note that any law that forbids any human being, irrespective of the person’s spiritual state, from marrying and fulfilling God Almighty’s procreation command, is not godly. On the contrary, such a law is anti God. Celibacy is one of such laws. No wonder the Apostle Paul described it as one of the end-time evils revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. This is how Paul described the revelation:
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their consciences seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4: 1-3).
From this passage, it can be seen that celibacy is one of the latter day doctrines of devils that Paul was referring to. It is important to recall that Paul was in prison in Rome when he received this revelation from the Holy Spirit and wrote about it. It is also important to note that at the time Paul got this revelation, the early church fathers used to marry.
In that same letter, just before he wrote about the revelation, Paul instructed bishops to marry. Precisely in 1 Timothy 3:2, he wrote: “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach.” The word bishop here refers to all truly ordained and consecrated ministers of God.
The first commandment that God gave to mankind after their creation was that they should marry and reproduce their kind and replenish the earth.
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them: “Be fruitful and multiply…” Gen 1:28
In Genesis 38: 1- 10, God killed a man for refusing to procreate.The man’s name was Onan, the second son of Judah. Still a bachelor then, he preferred to waste his semen (sperm) to raising children for his late brother. Unable to take it, God killed him. Who knows whether it was his bloodline that would have produced Jesus Christ who had been destined to come from the tribe of Judah?
Celibacy is modern day Onanism. It can neither please God nor convey holiness to the Roman Catholic clergy. Being celibate is not a guarantee for heaven. It could be the contrary –an easy ticket to hell – if care is not taken. The high rate of sexual immorality among the Catholic clergy is an eye-opener to what is awaiting captives of celibacy on judgment day. The Catholic hierarchy should help and liberate its clergy by abolishing the doctrine of celibacy so they could begin to marry. That is the only way the sexual abuse can stop. And that is the only way the hardworking, Argentine-born Pope Francis, who is working round the clock to save the battered image of the Catholic Church and restore the confidence of their faithful, can rest. If it will entail convening a third Vatican Council soonest, so be it.
