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	Did Celibacy, Lack of Women in Authority Lead to Catholic Church Sex Scandal? By Matthew Schofield Kansas City March 11, 2010 http://voices.kansascity.com/node/8095 Did the Roman Catholic priestly celibacy rule fuel the child sexual abuse cases now haunting the church? Would more women in higher authority have mitigated such abuse, or at least have broken the silence that seemed to protect the abusers? These are the thoughts making the church rounds, at least in Europe, this week. The first notion was raised, again, by the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schonborn, in his diocese magazine. While others have raised the question, he became the highest ranking member of the church to do so. He noted that the scandal raised many issues: "These include the issue of priest training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution. "It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the church and of society as a whole." He raised the question not only after the much publicized sex abuse issues in the United States, but the more recent allegations to surface in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, back in Rome, and writing in the official church newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Lucetta Scaraffia wondered if the fact that the church is a man's club intensified the problem. "We can hypothesise that a greater female presence, not at a subordinate level, would have been able to rip the veil of masculine secrecy that in the past often covered the denunciation of these misdeeds with silence... Women, in fact, both religious and lay, by nature would have been more likely to defend young people in cases of sexual abuse, allowing the church to avoid the grave damage brought by these sinful acts." It's good that the church is airing such opinions. Of course, for the victims, it is also a tragedy that it has taken this long for the debate to begin in earnest.
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