It's striking to see Catholic religious leaders continue to defiantly back and rationalize mandatory clerical celibacy. Bishop Barron is a case in point. One thing I've noticed, although it's just a cursory impression, is that the folks defending clerical celibacy seem to be, for the most part, clerics rather than layman. There's not the same grassroots enthusiasm for the policy. Unless I missed it, most Catholic apologists don't seem to be going to bat on the issue. And it wouldn't be surprising of Catholic fathers and mothers are wary of the policy. They've seen the damage at ground level.
The paradox of the policy is that the more it fails, the more Catholic leaders defend it. As a rule, policymakers don't feel the need to defend a successful policy. Its success is the selling point.
The more that Catholic leaders double down and circle the wagons to defend the policy, they more they draw attention to its abject failure. When you pigheadedly hang on to a counterproductive policy, that constantly puts you on the defensive.
So it seems like when the old players exist under a regulation, like taxi medallions, where they paid a high price, and then new people will come in without the regulation. It doesn't seem fair.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it is a sticking point for clerics because to scrap clerical celibacy is an admission:
ReplyDeleteA) there abstinence has been for nought;
B) the reformers were right on this issue
500 years ago.