Word: priesthoods
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...Spagnolia told me. He was speaking of Bernard Cardinal Law and the Boston prelate's crackdown on priests who stand accused of child abuse. Cardinal Law had turned over 90 names of area clerics to the district attorney's office; 10 of the clerics were still active in the priesthood but were quickly put on administrative leave. Father Spagnolia, the 10th to be suspended, had become the first to proclaim his innocence, loudly, insisting that he would fight the charges "all the way to Rome...
...with the allegation that 31 years ago he had twice sexually molested a 14-year-old boy, "I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. My reaction was, I think, 'You're s____ing me.'" When we discussed his 19-year hiatus from the active priesthood, a time when he lived in Boston and in Cape Cod's Yarmouthport, where he ran a bed-and-breakfast inn, he volunteered answers to questions I had not asked. "I maintained my celibacy because I believe in that, for me," he told me. "I remained loyal to the Lord...
...liberal or conservative issue. Sure, liberal Catholics see the scandal as another indicator of the sexual dysfunction at the heart of the church. And they have a point. Celibacy is an onerous burden that can easily distort a person's psyche. Moreover, many sexually conflicted men gravitate to the priesthood precisely because it promises to put a straitjacket on their compulsions and confusions. Alas, that straitjacket can often come undone. The absence of women in the higher reaches of the church further distorts the atmosphere; and the presence of large numbers of gay priests--forced to preach against their very...
...priesthood. It’s sort of like consulting for God. Becoming a priest has several obvious benefits including spiritual fulfillment, eternal bliss and invaluable community service. Plus, it’s a great way to meet women and not have sex with them. Most importantly, the priesthood is a pretty stable industry. Recessions, corporations and governments come and go, but religion is here to stay. As the wise poet Horatius Lucretius Quintus wrote, “Amice, semper populi sacerdotum egent,” which translates, “Dude, people always need priests...
...literary arts have always cherished non-commercial pretensions, as if they were a refuge of purity and a counterweight to Mammon. Writers were supposed to belong to a guardian priesthood, whose duty enjoined, at bottom, a strict truth-telling. They were not necessarily required to engage in muckraking or anti-Babbitt, anti-commercial screeds equating business and money-making with Philistinism. But at a deeper level, the writer's vocation, he and she have assumed, had to do with getting to the truth of things, even when making up stories. The goal of product-placement advertising, on the other hand...