Diocese questions celibacy for priests

By Justin Pope

Associated Press

BOSTON — In an extraordinary editorial on the city’s child-molestation scandal, the official newspaper of the Boston Archdiocese says the Roman Catholic Church must face the question of whether to drop its requirement that priests be celibate.

The editorial, published Thursday in a special issue of The Pilot, asks whether there would be fewer scandals if celibacy were optional for priests and whether the priesthood attracts an unusually high number of homosexual men.

It offers no answers, but says, "These scandals have raised serious questions in the minds of the laity that simply will not disappear."

The editorial was written by Monsignor Peter Conley, the paper’s executive editor, who is said to be a close confidant of Cardinal Bernard Law, Boston’s archbishop. Law is listed as the paper’s publisher.

The Rev. Christopher Coyne, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said Friday that Law was unaware the editorial would be published. He said he did not know if Law had agreed with its content but that the cardinal had not expressed any dissatisfaction.

The archdiocese is the nation’s fourth-largest, with more than 2 million Catholics, and is the center of the biggest child-molestation scandal to rock the U.S. church.

It has been under fire recently after it was disclosed that officials knew about child sex-abuse allegations against the Rev. John Geoghan and did little more than move him from parish to parish. The now-defrocked priest has been accused of molesting more than 130 children over 30 years. He is serving a nine- to 10-year prison sentence for groping a boy, and the archdiocese has agreed to pay up to $45 million to scores of alleged victims.

As part of a new zero tolerance policy of sex abuse, the archdiocese has turned over to prosecutors the names of more than 80 current and former priests suspected of child molestation over the past 50 years.

The archdiocese said it printed the special issue of The Pilot to try to improve communication with parishioners about the latest developments. More than 100,000 copies of the 28-page supplement to the weekly paper were printed and will be distributed after Mass in parishes on Sunday.

"Would abandoning celibacy be the proper answer to new data from the contemporary sciences or would it be surrendering to popular American culture?" it says.

The editorial says the New Testament "clearly prizes" priestly celibacy, but that most Americans don’t understand it. It also says that letting priests marry would not be a "panacea," noting the divorce rate.

The editorial poses such questions as: "Should celibacy continue to be a normative condition for the diocesan priesthood in the Western (Latin) Church? If celibacy were optional, would there be fewer scandals of this nature in the priesthood? Does priesthood, in fact, attract a disproportionate number of men with a homosexual orientation?"

It also encourages greater attention to homosexual orientation and the priesthood, and asks if there are valid ways to screen priests for sexual orientation. The editorial also says that "evidence now seems to indicate that (homosexuality) is a genetically inherited condition."

Some theologians said the editorial could signal a new openness.

"I think it’s extraordinary that this call for a conversation among the laity is being promoted by the hierarchy," said Stephen Pope, chairman of the theology department at Boston College.

But Pope and others said the editorial may anger authorities in Rome, where Law has enjoyed strong support.