Of course, the Catholic church has been plagued with sexual issues. The church, has paid over a billion dollars in settlements of sexual abuse of minors cases in 2007. What's more, there have been notable cases of priests in academia abusing seminarians and priests within the pastorate maintaining secret families for decades.
Matthew 19:10-12, certainly are controlling scriptures in this case. The passage says: "The disciples said to him, 'If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.'
Jesus replied, 'Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.'
Christ says in the passage that there are people who are born to not have sexual relations, people called by the Creator to not have sexual relations, and people who have not been so called. Both those who have been separated to not have sexual relations and those who have no such calling, are equal in the the eyes of the Creator.
Now, I'm not trying to renew the centuries-old debate of whether clergy within and outside of the Catholic communion should be able to marry, but Christ makes it clear in the passage above, that it doesn't matter to Him whether a member of the cloth has sex or not.
What is gets me about Zavala's resignation is that it was quick and efficient and quiet. While the Catholic church can handle its clergy any way it wishes, it sends a message that Zavala's sin is more egregious than other sins of clergy. You see, for decades, some clergy within the Catholic communion were caught molesting children, and those clergy were quietly moved to other churches or assignments.
There was no moving Zavala. No rehabilitation. No reassignment.
It's ironic almost. What message does this send to the pew?
No comments:
Post a Comment