20100517 Question: Sexual Sin

12:It seems to me that clergy rarely falls into murder, thievery, or other sins that are primarily not carnal, but, when they do fall it is typically sin of a sexual nature. (Protestants just as often or perhaps more so than Catholics) Is this more so now than in biblical and later ages?

It doesn't seem that satan tried this temptation with our Lord, nor was there much problem that I know of in the early church or the apostles, etc. It would seem that our whole world is much like Sodom and that we must be very near the end!

12. I don't generally speculate on when the end of days will be, but we certainly do live in a degenerate time. You are correct that there is no record of the adversary tempting the Lord with lust. He did tempt Him with food, however. And generally, the spiritual doctors would say that more sins are committed in the dining hall than the bedroom. Again, I am not sure if that is still the case. What we do know is that it is certainly easier to resist temptations of the flesh in the one sense if we routinely deny ourselves in the other. I believe that one of the reasons we have such issues with sexual temptation in this day and age is because we have fallen out of the habit of regular fasting. The Church made allowance for substituting acts of charity for regular Friday fasting, and it seems we have taken to this wholesale. It is necessary to remember that, while the clergy are here to continue the personal ministry of Jesus Christ to His Church, they are still men who must strive for holiness just the same as we. When they sin, as all men in this fallen world do, they separate themselves from the Body of Christ and must seek to be reconciled to it through the sacrament of Penance.