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| Catholic Priest Charter |
| 2003年09月04日14:03:24 网易教育 by Disqualification Controversy |
Russ Woodgates
20 Jun 2002, 13:20 UTC
HOST: Hello, I'm Russell Woodgates with the VOA News Now Opinion Roundup!
MD OPINION ROUNDUP THEME -- I&U
The United States' Roman Catholic priests have taken steps toward solving the pedophile priest scandal -- they hope -- with a new get-tough charter designed to get rid of child molesters and other sex offenders without delay. An editorial in Thursday's Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper endorses the charter's controversial provision to not defrock but merely deprive pedophile priests of their ministerial duties if they don't offend more than once...but wonders whether over time that might become undermined by the church's continuing need for local parish leaders.
VOICE Older and infirm priests are obvious candidates for the monasteries, but what about younger sexual offenders who are banned from work in parishes? ... If they stay out of trouble, will they eventually be absorbed into parishes desperate for priests, and led back to temptation? That cannot be allowed to happen.
The Boston Globe newspaper, which brought the scandal of pedophile priests back into the national headlines earlier this year, notes that a local Roman Catholic school, Boston College, is about to start an independent inquiry into all the major issues facing the church...including the forbidden topics of celibacy and women's ordination to the priesthood. Globe columnist Scot Lehigh suggests that its the academics rather than the clergy themselves, who might have the most clear-eyed view of what to do next:
VOICE With the Vatican viewed as unresponsive to one of the biggest crises the church has faced since the Reformation and with the laity upset and actively organizing around the country, it becomes increasingly easy to imagine an alliance of scholars and laity rallying American Catholics around an American program of reform.
The Globe columnist cites a precedent from way back at the end of the 14th Century when the University of Paris succeeded in galvanizing Catholics who'd divided among three rival popes. But syndicated columnist Robert Scheer, writing in the Los Angeles Times, perhaps reflects the thoughts of millions of Protestants and non-Christians who've been both fascinated and dismayed by recent events:
VOICE If there is a God of the type worshiped by the faithful, this will all be sorted out in some final accounting of sins and sinners, and I leave it to those who claim divine inspiration to flick the fallen angels off the head of the pin. But as a non-Catholic, I do hope this ancient institution can regenerate itself while sloughing off the paralyzing accretion of centuries of pompous judgment, arcane intellectualism and medieval secrecy.
MD OPINION ROUNDUP THEM --- SNEAK UNDER LAST SENTENCE & HOLD UNDER:
HOST: Send us your opinion at opinion@voanews.com. Please tell us where you're emailing from and how to pronounce your name. If you've got Internet access, why not try listening to us online? Just log on anytime at voanews.com/newsnow to hear the latest world news, music show or an Opinion Roundup over again, read a complete transcript or follow hotlinks to other sources? That's voanews.com/newsnow. You can also write me at VOA News Now Opinion, Washington, DC, 20237, USA. With Opinion Roundup, I'm Russell Woodgates...
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