In Buddhism, there are five precepts that all Buddhist especially monks should perform strictly. One of them is a commitment to abstain from sexual misconduct. However, I always heard news that monks broke this rule. Therefore, the news “Pope to sign letter on Irish pedophile priests” in BBC News catch my interest because it shows that this problem happens in other religions as well.
According to the news, there are disgraceful events happening with Roman Catholic. Many countries including the Pope’s native Germany reported that Roman Catholic priests did the sexual harassment to children. Therefore, Pope Benedict has written a message to expresses his contribution for shameful behavior caused by priests not only in Ireland but also in America, his native Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and even Australia. Moreover, he has also written guidelines about preventing and punishing sexual abuse of children by priests which will be sent to publish at the Vatican on Saturday and to be read out in the Catholics of Ireland’s churches on Sunday.
In my opinion, our society has changed a lot in many ways including sex. In the past, I hardly ever heard the news about gays, lesbian, or sexual harassment to children, whereas in the present, we can hear this kind of news almost everyday. I don’t know what happen to our society despite the fact that our society should be better in every way. We have religions to be our guideline how we should perform in order that we will not cause any troubles to others. Therefore, persons who deeply study religious doctrine such as monks in Buddhism or priests in Christianity should be role model to others by performing well instead of doing something wrong like this news.
References
Willey, D. (2010, March 19). Pope to sign letter on Irish paedophile priests. BBC News. Retrieved March 19, 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8575734.stm
Kate's expectations of religion and religious people seem unreasonable to me, which I think is a large part of the problem. Men and women do not stop being human when they become a priest, a monk, a nun, or whatever. And many will see that career as a good choice for wholly non-spiritual reasons.
ReplyDeleteI also suspect that Thai Buddhism, being very similar in relevant ways, has a very similar paedophile abuse problem to the Catholic church. It just hasn't been exposed yet in the same way that Catholic abuses that have been going on for centuries are now being brought to light.