A JUDGE has implored the Catholic church to end the "cruel" practice of celibacy for priests, implying it may encourage some priests to commit lewd acts against children.The suggestion received a sharp rebuke from Catholics, including those breakaway groups that oppose celibacy for Catholic priests, who said there was no evidence that celibacy encouraged criminal behaviour.
Sydney District Court judge Allan Hughes was speaking at the sentencing hearing of Robert MacGregor Fuller, 54, formerly of the All Saints Church in Liverpool, who had pleaded guilty to masturbating in front of a webcam to a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.
It was, in fact, a police officer.
Fuller was arrested in a car park, when he went to meet the girl for sex.
He yesterday received a maximum of 18 months in jail for grooming and procuring a child under the age of 16, but was given a six-month parole period and six months off his sentence for an early guilty plea. Fuller had told the court he masturbated "for my own personal sexual needs". In response, the judge said it must be agonising to be a Catholic priest.
"I'm not a Catholic," Judge Fuller said. "I do not regard (that) celibacy (should be) imposed on people. That is because it is a suppression of human instinct. It must be agonising. I don't know why they (the church) don't change their rules. It is archaic. It's cruel, cruel."
Sydney's Cardinal George Pell said of the sentence: "Justice has run its course."
Of the judge's view on celibacy, Cardinal Pell's spokeswoman, Katrina Lee, said: "The archbishop was surprised by the judge's voiced opinions on psychology and theology."
Father Martin Dixon of the Catholic National Council of Priests, which opposes celibacy for priests, said there had been "so many studies that show it's not the vow of celibacy that prompts a man to abuse a child".
"Most abusers are neither priest nor celibate, but rather known, or related to the child victim," he said.
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