Malilong: Sexually Active Priests, by Frank Malilong, Sun.Star, December 12, 2011

Malilong: Sexually Active Priests

By Frank Malilong
Sun.Star
December 12, 2011

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2011/12/12/malilong-sexually-active-priests-195506

Frank Malilong

THERE must be thousands of Roman Catholic priests all over the world. Most of them remain faithful to their vow of fidelity to the Church to whom they are “married.” A few others succumb to the temptations of the flesh.

Some of them are not just priests but bishops. In 2003, Bishop Teodoro Bacani resigned as archbishop of Novaliches after he was accused by his 34-year-old secretary of twice making sexual advances towards her. Bacani did not categorically admit the molestation charges but he apologized for what he called was his “inappropriate expression of affection to my secretary.”

Earlier that same year, Bishop Crisostomo Yalung of Antipolo also resigned amid allegations that he had fathered a child. I leave it to God “to be my best judge for my weaknesses and imperfections,” he said at that time.

Men think of sex 19 times a day, women 10 times, according to a study, soon to be published in the Journal of Sex Research, according to a report in the New York Times yesterday. The study’s participants were college students, “repositories of raging hormones and unfettered urges,” as the Times described them.

It is normal, may be even healthy, to think about sex even if, as when you’re pushing 60, only every now and then. It is when you translate your thoughts into action that complications can arise because of certain special circumstances.

Such as when, for example, you are a man of the cloth. Or when your testosterone level is so elevated, you can’t wait to do it in a private and more secure place.

Both circumstances are said to be present in the latest sex scandal to hit Cebu. The man is a priest and he allegedly did it with his girlfriend on top of a table in a darkened area at the back of the church. If he had to do it, groused another priest in a text message to a friend, why couldn’t he wait to bring his girl to a motel?

The priest has so far remained unidentified in the media. This is unfair to his colleagues, especially those who are assigned in southern parishes because all of them are under a cloud of suspicion. I have his name but I will go along with the rest of the pack in keeping his anonymity.

But unless the Church hierarchy succeeds in sweeping the incident under the rug, it will not be long before his identity is unmasked along with other details such as that he is a real father.

Yes, he has a child, a fact that is known to the archdiocese. That is why he was yanked out of his previous assignment in a parish in Cebu City and made to join other priests with similar troubled pasts (?) in the not-so-far southern Cebu town parish.

Unless the girls involved were minors, His Reverend did not commit a crime in having consensual carnal relations with them. It is a Church, not a State, law that was violated and we should leave it to the Church to deal with the matter.

I have a tolerant view of consenting and unimpeded adults having sex but I can understand those who are scandalized by the mere idea of cavorting community spiritual leaders. It is for their sake that the Church should credibly address the problem of the few sexually active priests.

Since it will obviously take a huge doctrinal overhaul to do away with the priestly vow of celibacy, the Church should perhaps consider granting some form of hormonal leave during which the few sexually-inclined priests may indulge in otherwise forbidden pleasures.

After all, underneath their cassocks, they are still men and while they may not do it as many as 19 times a day, they must also be thinking about sex like the rest of humanity.

Contact: frank.otherside@yahoo.com