Originally Posted by KuteNurse

You brought up some interesting points. Catholicism is one of the oldest practices of christianity as we know. Priests have been practicing abstinence for as long as Catholicism existed. Hundreds of years.

A'isha writes- Hundreds of years perhaps, but not for as long as Catholicism has existed. Priests, bishops and even some popes had wives and children. then the Catholic Church made a rule about it later.

They take a vow of celebacy for as long as they want to be priests. They literally put their lives in God's hands including their sexuality. We are talking about priests molesting children and that is not normal sexual behavior.

A'isha writes- I agree and it has nothing to do with their sexual preference,
either, but more to do with who might be attracted to the priesthood. there are also priests who fall in love with adullt males and females as well.

I do not believe it has anything to do with a priest's sexual drive being pent up, but the repeated behaviors of sexual molestation that perhaps the priest learned as a child himself. Another point of interest is most victims are boys.

A'isha writes- My opinion on this is that, just as females until recently very rarely made the news when they were molested, they are not making the news now. somehow in our society, it seems more okay to molest and rape females.

Most sex offenders have been sexually abused themselves and this is what led them to the problems they have suffered. I am not saying that ALL sexually molested victims are molesters themselves, because many get help and do not repeat these actions, but some are not able to get the proper therapy to heal. We also know that once someone molests children, they will do it over and over.

A'isha writes- It is still something that does not have to be repeated. Most women that I know were at least marginally molested before they reached adulthood, and many were molested as young girls. They did not pass the behavior on or repeat it.

A few other points of interest I might like to add: If you looked at the ratio of priests who have molested and who hasn't, you will see that the majority do not have these behaviors. It is a small few who ruin it for everyone else. I feel badly for priests, because now sexual molestation is almost a stereotype for them, even though most do not display these behaviors.

A'isha writes- That is true, and also we see the same behaviors everywhere in all religions and cultures. In some cultures it has even been okay to have sex with children. I do not know enough about it to say if it is good or bad for them as far as psychologically if it is an accepted social behavior.

Also, if you look at society as a whole, perhaps some men do decide to become priests because of they are gay and society did not look kindly upon them and society still has pushed them into a closet where family and members of society are unaccepting of their sexual preferences. I personally believe that God creates a person who they are, straight or gay, it is when a person acts of those sexual drives that makes it a sin.

A'isha writes- Please do not tell me you buy into that whole "homosexuality is a sin" thing. The same people who invented that used to think that people came out of the semenal stream as complete, tiny, tiny little people,and that masturbating for men was sinful because it wasted those people.

I also know from reading that your sexual preferences are in your DNA. I grew up next to a boy who I played Barbies with, dolls etc. He liked to dress as a girl and play all the things that young girls like to play. To this day, he has gotten a sex change operation and he is now a female.

Another issue I would like to add is: Sexual molestion does not only occur in priests, but in all other forms. Other ministers and religions have reported molestations going on. Some teacher's molest, doctor's have been let go because of molestation. It is not only in priests, but all area's of life. It does not discriminate social status or gender. For instance, look at DateLines to Catch a Predator. It is unbelieveable to think of the number of men who have been caught and prosecuted. To me what is more unbelieveable is that men continue doing it despite that they know DateLine is still out there catching these criminals. I personally knew someone who was caught on DateLine. I had absolutely NO idea he could be capable of doing something like that. He was the nicest person who seemed to have good values. (Obviously now I think differently.) The bottom line is, you never know a person 100% of what they are capable of doing. Sexual molestation is a problem in our world that is running rampant.