The way the church treats sexuality influences how it is perceived in our culture, which is based on Christian values. Restraining the subject and allowing those without experience (at least theoretically) to speak out is unhelpful and leads to numerous inconsistencies.
In the church itself, imposing celibacy causes problems for priests. Not everyone can cope with the tension it creates. It could even be argued that the church itself offers no support, offering no guidance on how to cope with such tension or how to resolve it in a positive and positive way. There are no guidelines; there’s a dry mandate of celibacy, and that’s it. It’s worth noting that the topic of celibacy is much more complex and profound—it requires a separate discussion.
As a result, abuses and violations of the celibacy mandate occur within the church structure itself. Priests have relationships with women and have children with them. Of course, not all do. Statistically, in Poland, approximately 60% of priests violate their celibacy, and 15% of priests have children (data based on research by Professor Baniak). This leads to a divided life, with children growing up in single-parent families (on a daily basis), as they see their fathers only occasionally (not living with them) or not at all. Women must endure the stigma of not having a normal family. Often, women in these relationships are stigmatized, even though the decision to enter into such a relationship may be mutual or even initiated by the priest. Moreover, this can lead to other abuses, such as: homosexual relationships in the church (statistically, about 30% of priests are among the clergy, with the caveat that in some places this percentage is lower or significantly higher, such as in Brazil, where it is estimated that 90% of the clergy are homosexual), among priests—sometimes even forced, exploiting the hierarchy; molestation of women; molestation of children; abuse of women and children; masturbation; and all other devotional practices, including orgies (parties with women or men as companions, where everyone does whatever they want with each other). I personally know of a case of a monk molesting an adult woman (of course, without consequences, transferred to another diocese). I know of a case of such „orgies” that took place in a parish near my place of residence (not my parish) and scandalized people who became aware of it due to the location of the parish house.
Priests who have such problems themselves often want to lecture the faithful on how to behave in these matters. This is unacceptable and breeds further perversion among faithful, ordinary families. It leads to the humiliation of women, treating them as objects, as always guilty and provocative. It’s like men are powerless puppets, dependent on their own devices, which they can’t control, or perhaps don’t want to. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to send one or another of them to a sexologist for treatment first, or to let them face the real consequences of their actions. How can they convince others of biblical values in this regard if the subject is either unfamiliar to them or has been overlooked due to the imposition of celibacy? Learning is best done by example, and this has been a well-known truth for a long time. How can they effectively teach about marriage, family, having children, and the hardships of everyday life (including supporting a family) if they haven’t experienced it firsthand? Instead, they love to say what’s allowed and what isn’t—not necessarily correctly, sometimes drawing their knowledge from the proverbial Middle Ages (proverbial, because those weren’t necessarily the Dark Ages they are commonly believed to be). Of course, there are also normal, healthy priests who live according to the current church mandate. There are those who are in relationships, and I have no intention of condemning that—they can, after all, be better fathers than those living together and creating a supposedly good, normal family. It all depends on the individual cases and what both parties want and agree to. I will address the issue of celibacy later in other posts; it’s too broad a topic to address at this time.
So it’s worth asking now about the validity of celibacy itself? About the right of priests to lecture on family, sexuality, children… About what kind of example they set. About how well they understand it without experiencing it. After all, they are normal, flesh-and-blood people. They may also have a need to be a father, a sexual drive; after all, that’s how God created them. I know they say they learn about this topic from confession or conversations with the faithful, but it’s not the same. During such confessions or conversations, they often don’t hear everything, don’t grasp where something is coming from, where it’s coming from, or how the other party perceives it (during confession). It’s one thing to have knowledge from confession, and quite another from personal experience.