Why do people think removing clerical celibacy will stop pedophile priests from molesting children?

A pedophile is a pedophile - the excuses they use for their crimes are just an attempt to cover up the fact the sick f*ckers like to hurt kids. I'm pretty firm in the idea that even if you did mandatory orgy parties for priests the ones who have molested children would continue to molest them.

Well, it's not going to change the issue. Most pedophiles are straight men, many of them married. It does tend to be a family member more often than not.

but I find enforce celibacy purely a control mechanism, especially in the past (though that certainly didn't stop any priests or popes from sleeping around). There's really no reason for it.

What I find heartbreaking is when the Vatican is approached about it. Recently they said "those priests aren't employees of the Vatican" (there went Catholic unity, right out the window). But I find this hard to believe when the Vatican can defrock any priest under it's rule. So here, they pretty much just detached themselves from the criminals, as if they have no responsibility in it at all. Yet, you start up a church and claim it's Catholic and watch the Vatican come out and say "you're not one of us because you didn't go thru the Vatican to form this church".

As I said, they just threw their unity out the window.

I'm sure certain people have made that argument.. and you are right, it is a poor argument. However, I think those I have read don't make that argument. Instead, they focus on two points that are completely unrelated to this faulty one.

#1) The scriptures do not set forth any divine rule on the matter.

#2) In restricting the 'priesthood' to only celibate males, the possible population of supposedly qualified applicants is whittled down to just a few. And of those few, there is a higher likelihood of men slipping through (due to the churches need for more priest) who hide their twisted sexuality due to its social stigmas, and who like the idea of being priest due to the authority it affords while allowing proximity and access to children. So their argument is that in opening the priesthood to married men, the church could be far more careful, selective and not so desperate for bodies to fill the ranks.

Note: I'm not Catholic, but I am attempting to be fair minded in this answer.

Since the Catholic priesthood has always had the lowest incidence of pedophilia of any clergy the statistics should indicate that celibacy is a deterrent and not a cause. Less than 1/2 of 1% of priests have been accused of pedophilia and only 10% of such accusations have proven to have any merit. Besides pedophilia is most common among married people. One does not stop pedophiles from molesting. You can only remove them from the opportunity to molest. The fact is that the scandals in the Catholic Church happened way in the past. Most of the perpetrators are dead and the alleged victims are quite elderly themselves. Almost all of the accusations are not of pedophilia but of corporeal punishment in reform schools run by the various bishoprics as those in Ireland. Corporeal punishment was common 40 to 60 years ago in schools. Today spanking a child is thought to be barbaric. The huge majority of the accusations against clergy comes from the scandals created when a homosexual priest has sex with young homosexual men and prostitutes. 40 to 60 years ago some homosexual men came into the priesthood under the vow of celibacy and did not live up to their vows. It is questionable as to whether they intended to be celibate. The Church now has a zero tolerance for people with same sex attraction in the Catholic Church and such people cannot be ordained. The priesthood has been and is being purged of these homosexual priests thanks to Pope Benedict the XVI. God bless! In Christ Fr. Joseph

I think you are 100% correct! I think they become priests hoping that they will be cured, only to find out their is more temptation that ever, many priests in the past had had relations with women and even families, if your a pedophiles that is it their is no cure, religion and prayer can not help, they need to be analyzed before the enter the priest hood, if a shrink can`t find them out the first incident and they are defrocked, no if ands or buts, cast them out of the church and it should be mandatory that this is reported to police

It is bound to be 'part' of the problem. Many men in the Roman Catholic priesthood are not there from choice but from the tradition of their families who wish at least one of their sons to be a priest. They are virtually earmarked for that 'calling' from birth. It is not a natural existence for someone who has not chosen it.

Some men would have become paedophiles anyway and have possibly entered the priesthood deliberately because of the 'availability' of victims.

Allowing priests to marry will not solve the problem overnight but it will make a huge dent in the numbers of offenses I am certain.

I think you're absolutely correct! The idea of giving them a woman to 'release their sexual urges upon' so they don't have to do it to children is preposterous, and quite frankly, sexist. It's like saying men can't control themselves so let them get married instead of raping kids! You're right, it's unrelated and doesn't actually solve anything. Pedophiles are pedophiles, throw them in jail, where they belong, and stop making excuses for them.

Giving them a normal outlet for the sex drive (the second-strongest drive in human nature) would at least lessen the problem. Suppressing the sex drive only leads to obsession, which leads to aberrant behaviors, like pedophilia. It's time to give up on a 16th-Century idea. It obviously doesn't work.

.....Why do people think removing clerical celibacy will stop paedophile priests from molesting children?

I doubt that it will make any difference.

Because they fail to see the whole picture.