Much has been written of late about the priest sex scandal in the Catholic Church. There is no need for me to try to explain why this happened. Anyone who is interested can access the many videos on YouTube. I would recommend beginning with Bishop Robert Barron. I would just like to make a few brief comments about what I have learned.
The first is that it has been determined that this was not due to the vow of celibacy taken by priests when they are ordained. It also was not mainly a problem of pedophilia, although there were cases of sexual abuse of minors. The majority of the cases were due to homosexuality and older men preying on younger men.
One fact that is proving that it was not a problem of celibacy is the large numbers of sexual abuse cases that are being reported in other denominations as well as in many secular organizations. In most of these cases the predator was married.
Another contributing factor is our highly sexualized culture - the exploding pornography industry; the easy access for anyone to online pornography; graphic sexual material, both hetero and homosexual; the exposure to sexual information of children at very young ages before they are mature enough to process the information, or even determine whether it's true or not. All these things give people a distorted image of sexuality which results in distorted practices.
One last thing I would like to mention is the absence of fathers in the lives of many children either through divorce, single motherhood or neglect. This affects the sexual development of both males and females. God knew what He was doing when He fashioned procreation to include both a male and a female. In order to grow and develop into healthy, well-adjusted adults a child needs both a mother and a father.
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