southernhybrid
Contributor
Priests should be permitted to marry and have romantic relationships, but I don't see how that will keep the pedophiles from assaulting children. I guess that any large organization that permits adults to be in charge of children is going to attract a percentage of pedophiles. It's occurred in schools, the Boy Scouts, and other versions of religions. A year or two ago, it was discovered that both children and women had been sexually abused by quite a few leaders in evangelical churches. Some of these pastors were married, so marriage isn't going to solve this problem.
Culture matters. That's not going to fix it. A simpler and better solution is to have a rule against Catholic priests being in the same room alone with children. They can afford to hire secular staff for the religious education of kids. They don't need a priest to teach kids about Jonah and the Whale. Everybody wins.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
I'll have to ask my husband how often the kids were alone with the priests. He was raised as a Catholic and was an altar boy. He was never sexually assaulted, but I will ask him if anything suspicious ever happened when he was growing up Catholic.
I just asked him and he said that there was never a report or rumor of sexual abuse during his time as a Catholic youth. He told me that such rumors were more common regarding the Boy Scouts. As I said, it can happen wherever adults are in charge of children.