Father Emile "Mike" Boutin: Priests should not be celibate and homosexuality is not behind the sexual abuse scandals in the Church

Father Emile "Mike" Boutin, the priest charged with indecent assault and battery on a 21 year- old adult male, has said that priests should not be celibate, writing, "Should priests be celibate today? No. Celibacy should be its own charism in the Church, for those who are called to it." (See here). In another Blog post, Fr. Boutin ridicules Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone while asserting that homosexuality is not behind the sexual abuse scandals in the Church. He writes, "...contrary to Cardinal Bertone's absolutely outlandish claims, there are no studies that suggest that homosexuality is the cause of this scandal, but there certainly are plenty of studies that loudly proclaim that the attitudes of bishops like Cardinal Bertone certainly contributed to the climate that encouraged it." (See here).

Actually, many studies [such as the John Jay Study] have shown that most of the abuse which has taken place within the Church has been homosexual in nature. Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons [and others] have said that Cardinal Bertone was correct. See here.

Father Boutin's rejection of clerical celibacy is troubling. Vatican II teaches us that: "Through virginity, then, or celibacy observed for the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 19:12), priests are consecrated to Christ by a new and exceptional reason. They adhere to him more easily with an undivided heart (cf. 1 Cor 7: 32-34), they dedicate themselves more freely in him and through him to the service of God and men, and they more expeditiously minister to his kingdom and the work of heavenly regeneration, and thus they are apt to accept, in a broad sense, paternity in Christ. In this way they profess themselves before men as willing to be dedicated to the office committed to them - namely, to commit the faithful to one man and to present them as a chaste virgin to Christ (cf. 2 Cor 11:2) and thus to evoke the mysterious marriage established by Christ and fully to be manifested in the future, in which the Church has Christ as her only spouse. They give, moreover, a living sign of the world to come, by a faith and charity already made present, in which the children of the resurrection neither marry nor take wives." (Presbyterorum Ordinis, No. 16).