VATICAN CITY, Oct 31 — The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians yesterday — the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates following a series of sex abuse scandals.Salute to the Pope! Though it might have taken them nearly 50 years to actually tackle this matter in a more practical way, late is better than never. How effective will this screening be, nobody knows yet. It's just so hard to read what's inside the heart of the people as most of them would cover it up really well.
The church said it issued the new guidelines to help church leaders weed out candidates with "psychopathic disturbances." The scandals have rocked the church in recent years, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
"(The guidelines) became ever more urgent because of the sexual scandals," Monsignor Jean-Louis Brugues told reporters. He stressed, however, that psychological testing was used in some seminaries as far back as the 1960s — or at least a decade before the sexual abuse scandals exploded in public.
"In all too many cases, psychological defects, sometimes of a pathological kind, reveal themselves only after ordination to the priesthood," the guidelines said. "Detecting defects earlier would help avoid many tragic experiences."
The guidelines said problems like "confused or not yet well-defined" sexual identities need to be addressed. The church is struggling to provide enough priests for parishes in many parts of the West because of waning vocations. But Pope Benedict XVI has said it is more important to have good priests than a greater number of priests. More
This problem is really a serious "disease" that has affect the Roman Catholics. A lot of questions have pop out like "If they claimed to be the only true church, how could their priest be indulging in such acts?" What about other denominations like Baptist, Methodists, etc. Why aren't they facing the same problem like the RC do? Well, they do, just not as publicized! Maybe because RC is the biggest denomination in Christianity, hence the big publicity.
The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church[note 1] is the world's largest Christian Church representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world's population.[5][6] It comprises 2,782 dioceses grouped into 23 particular rites - the Latin Rite and 22 smaller Eastern rites. The pope, currently Benedict XVI, is the Church's highest earthly authority in matters of faith, morality and Church governance.[7] The community is made up of an ordained ministry and the laity; members of either group may belong to organized religious communities.[8]Big doesn't mean they are immune to attacks from exterior, in fact, they are going to get more attacks from exterior & interior. So, those who didn't get attacks, don't be too happy yet! Either you are not there yet or you are not worth the trouble of getting attacked.
We need to plan for the rainy days but sometimes the rain is more than what we can take. The dam might break! About 5 years ago, I've told one of the "elders" that we are going to face a really bad time where the church will "fall" because of the way things are run in the church: Lack of training for new leaders, weak bible teaching, dull sermons, members only know how to enjoy themselves, etc. Sadly, this is happening now. Some might asked, "Why you are doing nothing about it?". I can only say, I've done my part but the whole thing is beyond me. It's like the world economy these days, it's very very hard to stop the recession. Everything just headed South. The Feds tried, the EU tried but all in vain.
The question is, when will we see reversal? The world economy is predicting 2 years to recover, what about us?
I'm not pushing away my responsibilities as a member of the church but I'm not going to dwell in the mess either. I'm already on plan B, what about you?p/s: We should really listen to what Pope has mentioned above (bold & italic)
2 comments:
a recent commentator mentioned that if modern psychological assessments being enforced today, were present a few hundred years back, people like luther and mother theresa could never have entered their religious orders. Something to think about :| A good step to be more organised, or just trying to take the short cut, and not having to put in effort to get to know our leaders, care and mentor them, and supervise them closely.
THE Catholic priest who conducted the funeral of the three Farquharson boys, who died when their father drove them into a dam on Father's Day 2005, has been jailed for four years on child-sex and child-porn charges.
Edmund John Haines, 62, was sentenced yesterday in the Geelong County Court on six counts of indecent acts with a child under 16; one count of an indecent act with a child aged 16 or 17; one of procurement of a minor for child pornography; and with producing and possessing child pornography. More
Post a Comment