My Life in Argentina and Beyond

South American priests are expected to have a woman and maintain the facade of celibacy. Eugenia Renskoff

Celibacy should never be a job criteria. Not for the prieshood, not for anything. Eugenia Renskoff

Why is it so difficult to understand that yes, the Church does in all probability know that President Lugo has fathered several children with several women? I wish our knowing this could change the Priestly Celibacy ruling, which is and has always been on the hypocritical side. Things will not change until somebody in power (The Pope, for instance) has the need to do something about it. Eugenia Renskoff

know full well about the complications of a man and a woman falling in love if the man is a priest. Please google my novel Different Flags. It is the story of my Forbidden Love. What I care about is people. The rest, all about rules and regulations is not important. Once you have fallen in love, it is too late to think about such things. Besides, if the Pope or whoever wanted to, they could allow optional Celibacy. Not every priest is going to find a woman who will love him.

I believe that it is time for Optional Celibacy. I also believe that it will come. It's going to happen. People, whther they are priests or not, are going to fall in love. If they fall in love, they will want to be with that person. It is a very painful experience and I would not want anyone to go through it.

It will take a long time to get used to it, but it's in the future. There are many priests from well to do or rich families. Most mothers from those families do not want priest sons. I have known/heard of a few. Statistics will not work as far as I am concerned. The experiences of real people with similar experiences are what I most care about.

I have personally known mothers who push their sons to become priests. Nothing else will do for these women. It was like in the past mothers wanting their sons to become a doctor, lawyer. Eugenia

I totally agree with you. The Church is doing itself in by honing the image of the priesthood. There is nothing glorious about being celibate. If I had a son, I would not want him to be a priest. Eugenia Renskoff

Estoy totalmente de acuerdo. El celibato no solo es totalmente anticuado, tambien es inhumano e hipocrita. Todos los hombres son hombres y como tales necesitan el amor humano, que tambien incluye el amor entre un hombre y una mujer. Siempre debio haber sido opcional y no impuesto. Yo vivi una historia de amor con un sacerdote y se de que estoy hablando. Eugenia Renskoff, autora de Different Flags.

I hope that in my lifetime (and yours) Catholic priests can have the option of marrying or not. Maybe this is a dream with my etes closed. Maybe not. But I hope that, anyway. And maybe there should be no more ordinations, no young men entering the seminaries. Maybe this is another eyes closed dream. Or maybe a great big scandal (bigger than the sexual scandal of recent years) involving a cardinal or a bishop or someone very high up. A scandal so big that no amount of settlement money can hide.
Yes, I believe that the people running the Church have stopped caring about souls and saving souls a long time ago. They just care about not changing anything even if events are crying out for changes, radical ones. Eugenia

Friday, October 12, 2007: After a long trial, Catholic priest Christian Von Wernich was convicted of genocide. The veredict was read in the city of La Plata, capital of the provincia of Buenos Aires this past Tuesday. Von Wernich was convicted of taking part in murders, the torture of prisoners and the disappearance of people during the military regime of the 1970s. Witnesses overwhelmingly testified against him. He will get life in prison, though in Argentina life is only about 25 years. Given the fact that Von Wernich is close to 70, the sentence will probably be the same as life.
Everyone, from the president of Argentina on down, agrees with the veredict. This is the first time in Argentina that a member of the Catholic Church is convicted of such horrible crimes. It is well known that the 70s in Argentina were very much like the Nazi war camps.