H.C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church 1957, is an extensive investigation of the sexual abuse and failure of enforced celibacy. It is not a recent problem but been a plague that began with the acceptance of dualistic concepts that equated natural sexual response with evilness. This can be traced back to the influence of Plato and an a number of pagan philosophers.
In fact if any one is actually interested as to their heritage they should take out a very short time to read Plato's dialogue, the Phaedo written some 300 years before the birth of Jesus in which he develops the concept of the the immortality of soul, heaven, hell and purgatory. Plato was a lifetime celibate and shunned riches in any fashion, from clothing to meals. His dialogue is a basic outline of the fundamental concepts that Christians mistakenly believe are Christian developed concepts. It is unfortunate that most modern people have no acquaintance with the classics and are unaware of there influence on their our own lives. The quote over Nolan Library at the Colorado University, that "People who are aware of only their own generation remain forever a child" seems to ring true.
I have encouraged some of my fellow Christians to read Plato's dialogue and they are amazed that it formulates in detail what many accept as original Christian theology. The fact is that the followers who became known as Christians were in actuality converted to the acceptance Platonism the incorporation of its fundamental concepts.
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