Word: clergymen
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...Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, felt an unalloyed loathing for the abusers, his view on how they should be treated was more complicated. Some years before, as head of the Vatican body investigating abuse by priests, he argued that accused clergymen should not be handed over to secular authorities. Rather, he wrote confidentially to bishops around the world in 2001, they should first be investigated under utmost secrecy within the church - thereby avoiding public hysteria and second-guessing by the media. (See pictures of President Obama meeting Pope Benedict...
Gehrke said many local clergymen felt Harvard had become a place for “unruly, lazy, immoral young men,” a description which elicited cheers and whistles from the crowd...
...women a human face, and acquainted the public with the prejudice gays encounter. Activists visited high schools to create gay role models and counter stereotypes. By 1996 the country had legalized gay civil unions, and Sigurdardottir had served as a Cabinet minister. Today, only 6% of Icelandic clergymen say they would refuse to perform a gay marriage. "We're a small country of 300,000 people, so news spreads quickly," Thorhallsson says. "If you get on the main news program, your message will reach everybody...
...this vein, many of Harvard’s early graduates went on to become clergymen in Puritan churches...
...wasn't until the 12th century that formal rules were established forbidding clergymen to have sex. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Peter himself had a mother-in-law (which would usually imply a wife as well). The ban had theological roots--abstaining from pleasures of the flesh to demonstrate one's commitment to the church--but there was a practical reason too: celibacy meant no offspring vying to inherit church property. That's not to say the rules were always followed, however. Many priests' spirits proved weak and their flesh willing--notably the sybaritic Pope Alexander VI, who installed...