Intimate Priests

“The priest, like every human being, needs to love and be loved,” say twelve Italian women who have written the Pope urging that priests be allowed to have intimate relationships. At a time when few practical solutions have been proposed to remedy the Catholic Church’s sex scandals, a dozen Italian women have voiced a common sense explanation that if priests were allowed intimate relationships with other adults, there would be fewer motives for sexual advances toward children. “We wonder if, like all man-made laws, at a certain time, in a certain historic time, it is not the case to discuss it again and change it or even, as we hope, completely abolish it,” says the women’s letter.