Illicit Celibacy and the Deposit of Faith

Catholic author Edgar Davie urges Catholic theologians to reexamine four
Papal doctrines, alleging they brought about today's world wide scandal.

1. Ex cathedra Papal Infallibility upon which papal doctrines are based has altered infallible teaching of Christ, as taught in the immutable Deposit of Faith.

2. Papal doctrine denying ordination of married clerics has altered Christ's Sacramental Doctrine recorded in the immutable Deposit of Faith.

3. Papal doctrine condemning contraception as mortal sin violates Christian practice permitted by Christ and the apostles in the immutable Deposit of Faith.

4. Papal denial of ordination for women clerics voids Holy Tradition taught by the apostles in the immutable Deposit of Faith.

This article outlines the foundation of the above challenges and provides a link to articles supporting this indictment.

THE POPE, THE PRIESTHOOD, AND SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN
The Untold Story

On September 13, 2011, ten years after first reports of priestly sex abuse in Boston, human rights lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests filed an 84 page complaint and over 20,000 pages of supporting documents with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, urging it to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and three top Vatican officials for crimes against humanity, all accused of knowingly abetting and covering up rape and sexual assault of women and children by celibate priests. [1] Dubious Vatican Statistics as of 2009 reveal at least 20,529 priests have abused children. Considering that many offenders abused multiple victims, the number of children at risk is likely in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands. The Penn State child abuse scandal pales in comparison to centuries of such abuse committed by celibate Catholic clerics, first described by St. Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah in 1050.

Modern Catholics are unaware that excessive sex abuse committed by celibate priests and bishops has plagued the Church since 1139 when priestly marriage was finally banned; only with the advent of modern media and its revelations of sex abuse by celibate priests (and nuns) in 2002 has the magnitude of this problem become generally known by Catholic laity for the first time in Church history. World wide, Catholic faithful are aflame as the result of governmental investigations revealing systematic clerical sex abuse in Catholic institutions and cover-up for much of the 20th century. [2] Today illicit sexual activity by celibate priests and bishops are reliably adjudged as follows: fully one half are sexually active at all times, forty percent are active occasionally. Merely ten percent successfully live out their vow of celibacy. [3]

Across the Catholic world independent Catholic associations have formed in an effort to achieve two goals; first, expose the international enormity of clerical abuse and papal acts to protect the offenders [4]; second, work with the hierarchy in an attempt to protect our children, revive the obstructed Vatican II reforms, and reinstate clerical marriage as it was permitted by Christ and His apostles. These efforts have been subverted at every turn by our popes, and more importantly, history reveals the source of today’s scandal are traceable directly to the papacy – not to bishops, who are merely serfs bonded to serve a Papal Lord, but who are prosecuted for criminal complicity for complying with Papal demands, while the Pope enjoys political immunity.

Only since the Middle Ages and the schism with Eastern Orthodox Catholicism in 1054 has the Papacy become the sole power and authority ruling over Roman Catholicism. With the Vatican Council I declaration of Papal infallibility in 1870 a Monarchial system of Papal infallibility was created; unchallengeable by bishops or councils the pope is today believed by Roman Catholics to be the only human divinely appointed by God to speak infallibly for Him on all matters of faith and morals. In essence our Pope now “acts in the place of Jesus” via. apostolic succession from St. Peter, upon whom Christ bestowed His authority to “bind and loose”. But a problem with this belief is now known to exist.

Within the formal declaration of ex cathedra infallibility the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church inserted a poison pill, declaring the Pope may not create “Some new doctrine” not preached by Christ. Fatally, the Papal Doctrine of mandatory celibacy contradicts and changes the Sacramental Doctrine of Christ that permitted all Christians to marry and propagate. Therefore, in that the Doctrines of Christ are infallible, and, in that infallibility is immutable truth that does not later change nor contradict itself, the pseudo-infallible Papal doctrine of mandatory celibacy disproves the concept of Papal infallibility – and consequently disproves his monarchial authority over other bishops, an authority St. Peter did not possess.

Mandatory celibacy is traceable as the primary cause of sex abuse by clerics since the practice was first mandated. The celibacy law of today was initially instituted as a means of controlling the priesthood and their private ownership of Church properties which could be willed to family heirs, thus depriving the Vatican of vast wealth. In 1074 Pope Gregory VII stated “The church cannot escape the laity unless priests first escape the clutches of their wives.” [5] Pope Siricius’ first failed attempt to deny priestly marriage occurred in 385 and was based on the then popular practice of ascetic pagan priests who dominated the Roman world; it was this illicit law that Pope Innocent II successfully re-instituted in 1139.
 
With this Papal Doctrine total control and authority over both clerics and lay Catholics was fulfilled, and this absolute authority will not be voluntarily relinquished. Only late in their careers do some few reform minded bishops and theologians ultimately come to understand the illicit nature of Papal infallibility and forced celibacy, but by then, to speak out at that late date in their career would result in punitive defrocking and loss of retirement benefits.

For this reason the well intentioned efforts of Catholic activists groups seeking change will not succeed by simply revealing criminal sex abuse acts committed by individual priests and bishops. But today the truth of this 900 year old coupe de grace is slowly coming to light. In the beginning Christianity was an Orthodox Jewish sect and the apostles were married when personally called by Christ. Today St. Peter could not become a priest. In the beginning the laity democratically elected their bishops, priests and deacons. In the beginning all bishops were equal in authority and no Christian monarch existed. In the beginning married men and women spread Christianity in house churches where both served at the Eucharistic table.

Only when activist Catholic groups supported by courageous and internationally respected historians and Catholic theologians who will speak out publicly seeking change and band together in a universal effort to inform the uninformed laity of this Papal canard – even those who do not wish to be informed – will the Church return to its pristine origin, or implode.

1. http://patrickjwall.wordpress.com/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases_by_country
3. http://www.richardsipe.com
4. http://www.snapnetwork.org
  http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker
  http://nationalsurvivoradvocatescoalition.wordpress.com
5. http://ca.renewedpriesthood.org/hpage.cfm?Web_ID=750.