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	Unique Ukrainian Priests Escape Scandal By Norman Hermant ABC - Lateline May 27, 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2911577.htm Ukrainian Catholic priests have so far escaped the sexual scandals rocking the Church worldwide - a feat they attribute to their rare marital permissions. TICKY FULLERTON, PRESENTER: It seems not a week goes by without some devastating revelation of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church being reported in the international media. But there's one nation where the Catholic Church has so far avoided scandal. It's in Ukraine, where millions follow the Greek Catholic Church, a unique branch of Catholicism, which is loyal to Rome and the Pope but with one major difference. Its priests are allowed to marry and have families and its followers say that makes all the difference. The ABC'S Moscow correspondent Norman Hermant reports. NORMAN HERMANT, REPORTER: It's a scene that plays out all over Ukraine every afternoon. The kids are rounded up for tea and the family gathers around the kitchen table. All part of everyday life here. It's also not unusual that the father is a priest, a Catholic priest. Oleg Panchinyak is ordained in the Greek Catholic Church. It has never mandated celibacy for its clergy and, says Father Oleg, that makes him a better priest. FATHER OLEG PANCHINYAK, GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH PRIEST (TRANSLATION): Certainly it's easier for our congregation to deal with me. I can give replies to their questions. I understand what it means to serve in the family and what it means to serve in the Church. NORMAN HERMANT: Father Oleg's tiny church has been built amidst the sprawling apartment blocks outside Kiev. He leads traditional Greek Catholic services in a church loyal to the Pope in Rome but with many similarities to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Priests have the choice to marry and the congregation thinks that's the way it should be. FEMALE CONGREGATION MEMBER (TRANSLATION): A family is a continuation of human procreation if one follows the dogma of the Roman Catholic religion there is, in general, no continuation of humanity, the key of everything alive on the earth. NORMAN HERMANT: Despite the apparent conflict over celibacy, the Vatican has allowed this church to follow its own practices. Father Oleg's congregation may be small but as this Cathedral, under construction, shows this is not a small church. Greek Catholicism is the dominant religion in the far west of Ukraine and its followers can be found all over the world. In this country alone it's believed about six million people are Greek Catholics. And, as a church spokesman explains, the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked Catholic churches elsewhere have been absent here. FATHER VASILY CHUDIYOVICH, KIEV ARCHDIOCESE (TRANSLATION): I do not remember such scandals have ever been registered in the Ukranian Greek Catholic Church. NORMAN HERMANT: Church leaders here tread carefully on the question of celibacy. No one wants to cast Rome, or the Pope, in a bad light. But they also say there is a link between giving priests the choice to marry and the absence of abuse scandals in their church. FATHER VASILY CHUDIYOVICH (TRANSLATION): Maybe the possibility to choose, I won't say 'no' to that, that's one of the reasons that the Greek Catholic Church has no such problems in comparison with the church in The Netherlands or in Germany or, in the USA. NORMAN HERMANT: For the Greek Catholic congregation, acutely aware of the abuse scandals routinely in the headlines, the connection is obvious between the choice to marry and the lack of sexual abuse scandals. FEMALE CONGREGATION MEMBER 2 (TRANSLATION): I think I'd say yes. I think I'd say yes, the priest is focused on the family, on the normal way of living, that is, a human enjoys all natural things. He does not need anything. That's my opinion. NORMAN HERMANT: As for Father Oleg, he says he knows no other way. FATHER OLEG PANCHINYAK (TRANSLATION): I fully understand married priesthood. Why? I understand it more because there is a choice there while the Roman Catholic priests are somehow more restricted. NORMAN HERMANT: For the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine those restrictions have never been present and neither have scandals involving sexual abuse. Norman Hermant, Lateline.
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