A Catholic priest in Ohio was sentenced to life in prison for grooming and sex trafficking children and adults.

TOLEDO, Ohio (WKRC) - A Catholic priest in Ohio was sentenced to life in prison for grooming and sex trafficking children and adults.

56-year-old Rev. Michael Jude Zacharias was convicted on one count of sex trafficking of a minor, two counts of sex trafficking of a minor by force, fraud, or coercion, and two counts of sex trafficking an adult by force, fraud, or coercion.

      • itsnicodegallo@lemm.ee
        331·
        1 year ago

        If Republicans didn’t constantly try to make being queer synonymous with pedophilia, this kind of statement wouldn’t be ironic and funny. Unfortunately, there’s an entire political party trying to make being queer synonymous with pedophilia, so this joke hits.

          • killeronthecorner@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            1 year ago

            What are you even saying. Government is the function of organized communities that will most dictate the quality of your life within one.

            It’s not tribalistic to take a political stance, it’s common sense.

          • itsnicodegallo@lemm.ee
            4·
            1 year ago

            I hate sports, but go off. Must be nice having no opinions except that others are silly for having them.

  • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
    152·
    1 year ago

    Seriously, can someone make it so priests can get married at this point? Maybe then Catholicism can return to be a religion instead of what seems like a business front-end for a shady “hobby.” It wouldn’t cure these men of their “issues” but at least adults who like other adults would be pushed towards the front more.

    Also, people need to stop going to Toledo. It’s literally one of the worst places in the US for sex trafficking.

    • crackajack@reddthat.com
      61·
      1 year ago

      It’s all about accumulation of power and wealth. Catholic priests used to be allowed to be married but the Vatican wants the property to be kept to themselves, rather than passed on to the offsprings of priests. Since then, it has become source of controversies and psychological problems for Catholics for millenia.

      Having been raised Catholic (now I’m agnostic), I remember growing up when people make a big deal of priests falling in love and getting married (nevermind their sexual proclivities due to sexual repression). It is a huge source of gossips and a taboo. It is unthinkable. It is though as if they committed a sin to god. And then you have other Christian denominations whose priests allow to be married and it is non-issue. The Orthodox Christian is as old as the Catholic church but they allow marriage among clergies and you hear little to no abuse, unlike the Catholics. As with most religious, Catholic laymen and women are stuck in their own bubble and do not think that clerical marriages should not be an issue.

        • crackajack@reddthat.com
          1·
          1 year ago

          I meant that the priest still has private property. Of course, if the priest has his own family and passed away, all his possessions will go to the family. The Catholic church wouldn’t want that.

          • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            But the Catholic Church is it’s own business entity. If the priest owned property, the church would have to buy it?

            • crackajack@reddthat.com
              3·
              1 year ago

              Not sure to be honest. But the Catholic requirement for celibacy for priests definitely stems from owning poroperty:

              "…But the early Christian church had no hard and fast rule against clergy marrying and having children. Peter, a Galilee fisherman, whom the Catholic Church considers the first Pope, was married. Some Popes were the sons of Popes.

              The first written mandate requiring priests to be chaste came in AD 304. Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira stated that all"bishops, presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics" were to"abstain completely from their wives and not to have children." A short time later, in 325, the Council of Nicea, convened by Constantine, rejected a ban on priests marrying requested by Spanish clerics.

              The practice of priestly celibacy began to spread in the Western Church in the early Middle Ages. In the early 11th century Pope Benedict VIII responded to the decline in priestly morality by issuing a rule prohibiting the children of priests from inheriting property. A few decades later Pope Gregory VII issued a decree against clerical marriages."

              https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/696

              To be fair, there is theological argument to ban marriage of Catholic priests if you read the entirety of the link, but who are we kidding that it’s about morality.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
      61·
      1 year ago

      You believe people become abusing sex traffickers because they don’t have a wife?

      People who seek to control other people are attracted to positions where they have access to vulnerable people.

      You could also argue that religious people have surprisingly often fucked up moral values. Beginning with believing you can pray away your sins instead of taking responsibility. Or that people are of different worth.

      But the idea that marriage makes people less likely to be abusers is a theroy that doesn’t make a lot of sense in my opinion.

      • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        “It wouldn’t cure these men of their “issues” but at least adults who like other adults would be pushed towards the front more.”

    • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I agree completely. The church could put certain restrictions on it if they wanted. For example, all relationships need to be approved, only priests and nuns can marry, you need to have already been a priest for a certain time before you can get married, etc. I don’t think it’ll happen in the near future unfortunately.

      • kingludd@lemmy.basedcount.com
        1·
        1 year ago

        When pope francis stepped up, therewas a petition to allow married men to be priests. As far as I can tell it didn’t go anywhere. But at least it’s been brought up officially.

      • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        As another person replied, the issue is related to property. It seems the Catholic Church is worried somehow the priest’s offspring will somehow inherit church property?