Fixing the unfixable

I was listening to a New Orleans radio station while driving to the store today and heard something startling. A Cardinal just sent a letter to the Vatican stating in essence that allowing priests to marry would help fix the attraction of pedophiles to the priesthood. Since I am all about solutions, I applaud him for suggesting a “fix” for this tragic situation in the Church. But his fix is no fix at all.

I’ll be straight with you here. I’m not sure that anything can be done to fix pedophilia. No one is. Simply put, pedophilia is a fixation on children as the preferred sexual partner. There ain’t no fixing that. And marriage certainly won't. Pedophiles by nature gravitate to any occupation that allows them access to children, such as the priesthood.

Perhaps the answer is in fixing the process by which candidates are selected for the priesthood. Is there a checklist for hiring priests somewhere in the Vatican?  If not, there should be. Here’s mine:

Love God? Check.Love the Church? Check. Love people? Check. Love children? Check. How do you love children? Wait a minute. Houston we have a problem.

That thing about confession being good for the soul doesn't work in this case. Were it only that easy. But, wait it is that easy...

There are psychological assessments that can help the Church identify pedophiles trying to get into the priesthood. I figure if companies can use the Myers-Briggs assessment to help determine if someone is a good fit in the office, surely the Church could do this one crucial thing. Use the assessment as a tool to get the answer to that last question on my checklist. You know they aren't going to tell you they fantasize about children. If the assessment throws up red flags don't bring them into the priesthood.Will it catch all of them? No, but you have got to do better than you are now.

Marriage affixes your paycheck to your family, fixes your regular sleeping partner (unless he or she snores like me), and fixes your spouse to the TV when a game is on, but fix this? I think not...