Sex scandals involving Catholic priests are making news with regularity. USA, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Germany, Austria and some other countries have reported sex scandals. Some scandals are cases of paedophilia. One case refers to a priest who was in Munich when the present pope Benedict XVI was then Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich.
Though the number of priests involved in scandals is around 5% it tarnishes the image of the whole church and causes crisis of faith. The question of continuing clerical celibacy comes up.
While there is no proposal of changing the rule of celibacy to Latin rite regional rites without clerical celibacy may be allowed. Dutch, English, Irish, German and such rites for Holland, England, Ireland, Germany and other countries may free the church from paedophilia and other scandals. These rites need to be restricted to their regions otherwise there will be problems with multiple jurisdictions.
Many cases of scandals are said to be of long time back. Some of them are more than 30 years old. It is not clear why the victims kept quiet for so long and all of a sudden they have come out in the open. It is not known how many priests will face prosecution. Some are too old. In some cases the statute of limitations has expired. In USA the church paid huge sums to victims.
There may be more scandals to be revealed. Lessons are to be learnt from these scandals and steps should be taken to prevent them in future.
