Hans Kung on the Pope's Responsibility Over Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church

Good to read a loyal Catholic (no I'm not one), and one of its leading theologians, calling for the abolition of the rule that requires RC priests to be unmarried and naming it as one of the key factors implicated in the prevelence of sexual abuse within Catholicsm.

"The American psychotherapist Richard Sipe has clearly demonstrated, on the basis of a 25 year study published in 2004 under the title Knowledge of sexual activity and abuse within the clerical system of the Roman Catholic church, that the celibate way of life can indeed reinforce pedophile tendencies, especially when the socialization leading to it, i.e. adolescence and young adulthood spent in minor and major seminary cut off from the normal experiences of their peer groups, is taken into account. In his study, Sipe found retarded psycho-sexual development occurring more frequently in celibate clerics than in the average population. And often, such deficits in psychological development and sexual tendencies only become evident after ordination."

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