The Archbishop of Vienna has linked priestly celibacy to the rampant sexual abuse which plagues the Catholic Church. You think? As some weirdo or another said… “A god ignored is a demon born.”

In an article for Thema Kirche, his diocesan magazine, Christoph Schonborn became the most senior figure in the Catholic hierarchy to make the connection between the two and called for an “unflinching examination” of the possible reasons for paedophilia.

He wrote: “These include the issue of priest training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution.

“It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the church and of society as a whole.”

Schonborn is not the first person to suggest a link between celibacy and paedophilia – the theologian Hans Kung has made the same assertion.

(Archbishop: Priestly Celibacy Leads to Sexual Abuse)

(Related: Chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth says Devil is in the Vatican)

Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry absolutely scathingly slammed the sins of the Church at the Intelligence?Ǭ? talks. See resources below.

Here’s a good discussion thread about the talk.

And here’s the whole conference, via Richard Dawkins.

(Previously on Dangerous Minds: Canonizing Sinead O’Connor, Catholic Church Covered up Child Sexual Abuse for 30 Years.)

An Irish Church investigation has come to absolutely damning findings that the Church actively covered up institutionalized sexual abuse for thirty years. Via the Irish Times:

The Commission of Investigation into Dublin?