3 Responses to “women priests equated with child abusers…”
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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When I worshipped in the RC Church, I went to a child and vulnerable adult protection course, as I took Holy Communion to some folk in a nursing home. On the course, the facilitators admitted that the Church didn’t have a definition of a vulnerable adult – so it’s good to see that starting to get resolved.
But equating women priests with child abusers? This could be as much of a PR disaster as when the RC Church tried to say that paedophile priests were all homosexuals – and it’s a grim day when I agree with a Guardian writer!
I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is just a bad PR move, as Andrew Brown writes. I think that in a visceral way, some in the RC hierarchy do indeed equate child abuse with what they consider the abuse of their sacred priesthood by “contaminating” it with women. The idea that women are not as “pure” as men – because they menstruate, because they bear children, is ancient, and it dies hard.