Sexual component
Submitted by Curtis on March 8 2002 22:37:50
In reply to Where's the beef? submitted by Forgiven on March 8 2002 17:28:04
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Hi, thanks for reading. I admit my grasp of early church history is not what it should be, but I was under the impression that there were five original organized churches (Alexandria was one of them, I remember that) and that the Roman church was slightly later, but I may be mistaken. The broader point I was trying to make (perhaps I should have stated it forthrightly) is that the early history of the RCC does not encompass the entire early history of Christianity; that the Roman church uniquely among the early Christian churches took its institutional structure from that of the Empire itself and perhaps embodied at least more of an institutional legacy from the Roman world than did any of the others (of course, only two others survive, the Coptic and Orthodox churches; the rest were swallowed by Islam). When you say your relationships with your YFs "developed without a sexual component" I'm sorry, I don't believe it. I believe that you never had sex with them, but that's different. Your feelings about those boys (and theirs for you) were rooted in your sexuality; their feelings about you were rooted in theirs. The only way it is possible to eliminate man/boy sex from happening is to keep men and boys away from each other. Yes, someone like you, taught that your sexual urges are "fallen" and that it is morally wrong to act on them, may have the strength of will never to act on them. But history (including Christian history) is full of tales of people who were NOT strong enough. I wrote the essay because I believe that the whole scandal is being misunderstood -- misunderstood inside the Church and misunderstood by outside commentators. "Pedophilia" as it is described, or boylove as we would say, is not a marginal, freakish form of deviance. It is wound up with the human condition and it is wound up in the institutional history of the RCC. Unless it is understood this way -- whatever one's moral beliefs about sexuality -- it will continue to be analyzed incorrectly. Curtis |
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