ANGULO ORDORIKA, IANIRE
No
Theol. Sex.
Article
Científica
25/09/2025
001581711000001
The sexual abuse crisis is not the first critical situation that the Church has experienced globally and in relation to sexuality. Although it has not received much attention, clerical self-castration was forbidden at the Council of Nicaea and seems to have been a bigger problem than it is sometimes considered. Both situations have certain points in common. Some analogy could be drawn between the practice of self-castration of priests or candidates for ordination, which the first canon of Nicaea sought to eradicate, and the current situation of abuse in the Catholic Church. Thus, this paper seeks to draw an analogy between abuse and self-mutilation in order to suggest lessons from the past for the current time, to warn against a superficial approach to the question of abuse, and to invite deeper theological reflection on abusive dynamics.
Sexual abuse; self-castration; council of Nicaea; canonical rule; dualism; narrative