From: Adam Flinton 

Rich Gauszka wrote:

Course.....it's...ahem.....one way round the celibacy thing.....not a woman
nor a man etc.....

Adam


> Even more frightening that was that they kept the castrati up until 1959.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,536420,00.html
>
> Revelations that the Vatican encouraged the castration of choir boys in the
> name of art for hundreds of years have prompted calls for a papal apology.
> Human rights groups, historians and Italian commentators said the Pope, a
> singer himself, should ask forgiveness for his predecessors' role in the
> mutilation of castrati singers.
>
> New research suggests that the employment of castrati was tolerated by the
> Vatican as late as 1959, long after other states had banned it as barbaric.
>
> From the 16th century onwards generations of Italian boys were castrated in
> the hope that their voices, prevented from breaking, would combine a child's
> high register with the vocal power of a man.
>
> Their ability to sing beyond normal human limits enraptured opera-goers,
> emperors and popes, who commissioned a choir of castrati to perform in the
> Sistine chapel. An edict by St Paul prevented women singing in church.
>
>
>
> "John Cuccia"  wrote in message
> news:s0rk30tj4thruejhdo17havkiuisj9e94d{at}4ax.com...
>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/international/europe/23CND-VATI.html
>>Excerpt:
>>"VATICAN CITY, Feb. 23 - A report on child sexual abuse that the
>>Vatican released today found fault with and challenged American
>>bishops' zero tolerance policy of seeking to remove from ministry any
>>Roman Catholic priest who has abused a child."
>>
>>
>>
>>Are they worried about running out of priests?
>
>
>

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