Hans Kung Quotes
If priests were allowed to marry, if this would be an optional thing, and if he could have wife and children, he would certainly have less temptation to satisfy certain sexual impulses with minors.
Küng, Hans. Interview. Der Spiegel, 26 Mar. 2010.
His quotations are very important because he wrote many of the Islamic legal opinions that governed Muslim Spain and influenced the Arabs of North Africa. There are many in the modern world who tend to agree with this view of priestly celabicy especially in the light of the Roman Catholic Sex Scandals involving priests throughout the world of the beginning of the 21st century.
Initially Bishops were married with the desirability that they be monogamous and of generally decent character. Marriage prohibition for priests came later.
Many whites applauded his views when they corresponded to Christian mores of the time.
This was a fairly radical constraint on what had been a traditional priestly prerogative throughout the ages. However, the penalty for such a sin and infraction was rather modest—a warning for the first offence, followed by reducing the cleric’s income. There were more serious punishments proscribed for repeated offenses, but typical of most reform efforts a newly prohibited activity carries a very light penalty. For example $20 fines for providing alcohol to a minor was the initial penalty in some states. A then current comparison can be made since elsewhere in this council dueling between Christians was also prohibited. But the penalty for even the first offence was excommunication.
The problem priests who sexually prey on young boys is not a modern problem only. This quotation demonstrates that the problem has existed for over 1000 years and probably existed in the earliest days of Christianity. This has been a problem of many clergies of different religions. However, the Roman Catholic authorities of the day seemed to be more proactive in dealing with it than in the scandals of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
Hans Küng was a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and author. From 1995 he was president of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos).
