Don't be afraid to become priests, says Pope Benedict
(AFP) Pope Benedict XVI has urged young people to follow "the call" to the priesthood, as the Catholic Church struggles to shake off the impact of a series of homosexual sex abuse scandals.
"Don't be afraid, dear young people, if the Lord calls you to the religious, monastic, or missionary life," the pope urged in a message issued ahead of World Youth Day on March 28.
"He can impart deep joy to those who respond with courage," wrote the pope, who is struggling with an avalanche of predator [child molesting] priest scandals in several European countries.
"I wish to exhort youths and adolescents to be very attentive to a call from the Lord...on the path of a priestly ministry," he said.
Those who instead "sense a [heterosexual] calling to marriage" should embrace it "with faith, promising to lay a solid foundation to live a great and faithful love." More>>
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The Church's requirement of celibacy for priests has been called into question in the midst of the child sex abuse scandals in Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the pope's own native Germany.
No sex please! World's first legally genderless person
Norrie May-Welby of Australia, who has passed as a man — and a woman — and is now the first person legally designated neither, London's Telegraph reports. The genderless 48-year-old was born male in Scotland, and moved Down Under at age 7. Twenty-one years later, May-Welby underwent a sex change, but really wasn't happy living life as a woman either, according to Telegraph.co.uk. Which left neuter, naturally — and that seemed to fit. "The concepts of man or woman don't fit me," May-Welby said. "The simplest solution is not to have any sex identification." More>>
Norrie May-Welby of Australia, who has passed as a man — and a woman — and is now the first person legally designated neither, London's Telegraph reports. The genderless 48-year-old was born male in Scotland, and moved Down Under at age 7. Twenty-one years later, May-Welby underwent a sex change, but really wasn't happy living life as a woman either, according to Telegraph.co.uk. Which left neuter, naturally — and that seemed to fit. "The concepts of man or woman don't fit me," May-Welby said. "The simplest solution is not to have any sex identification." More>>