Church Turns To Facebook To Find Priests

crimeandpunishment writes "The Catholic church of France isn't looking for friends on Facebook, it's looking for priests. The church has turned to Facebook as part of a campaign to attract young people to the priesthood, in an effort to combat its drastically dwindling number of priests. It may be working. The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week."

Comments

Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes...

[jimbolauski]

Priests and/or pastors are not even the biggest threat to children it's teachers, at least once a week another teacher is in the news for molesting one of their students.

Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes...

[Idiomatick]

I'm an atheist. We have lower levels of sexual abuse because our morals are reinforced by logic and a sense of regret rather than forgiven and cleansed by God making everything ok.

Re:Goodluckwiththat

[sznupi]

It's not a doctrine, it's an ecclesial law. Can be changed at a whim by one signature; wasn't even nearly a universal custom in the past (heck, around XIII century AFAI remember, when the Vatican envoy arrived in my area with the mission of sorting out actual introduction of celibacy...well, he did reasonably well in Czech; but in Poland he barely escaped with his life)

Re:Their own bible condems them

[bflong]

I couldn't find a Jerusalem Bible online fast enough.

Here it is:
1 The Spirit has explicitly said that during the last times some will desert the faith and pay attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines that come from devils,
2 seduced by the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are branded as though with a red-hot iron:
3 they forbid marriage and prohibit foods which God created to be accepted with thanksgiving by all who believe and who know the truth.
4 Everything God has created is good, and no food is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving:
5 the word of God and prayer make it holy.

Here is the New American:
1 Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic instructions
2 through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences.
3 They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving,
5 for it is made holy by the invocation of God in prayer.

Here is the Douay:
1 Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils,
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared,
3 Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth.
4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving:
5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Anything else you care to complain about?

Re:A better, more old fashioned solution

[Corporate Drone]

The Catholic Church allows African priests to marry, did you know that?

It does not! If you think you have a reasonable argument, please provide a reference -- from a Church document -- showing that this is the case. Celibacy is the norm for all Catholic priests of the Latin rite. (Is it possible that you're asserting that one of the Eastern rites allows married priests?)

There is a logical connection between forced celibacy and abuse, but I am not aware of any statistical analysis having been done, nor of any correlation found between them.

Then there's no logical connection, just a conjecture in your mind, isn't there? Now, the place that there's a "logical connection", and lots of research, is sexual abuse of children within families. And you want priests to marry? Yeah, that'll help the problem all right -- replace one statistical group that's within the societal norm for sexual abuse and place it in the group at the statistically highest risk for sexual abuse of children...!