Call To Action: Dump Celibacy

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 11/8/03 | Tom Heinen

[ShadowDancer]

I would be thrilled to see priests allowed to marry. I wouldn't turn to my hairdresser for advice on my carburetor, why would I turn to a priest for advice in marriage? Not everything can be fixed spirtually and by quoting scripture. Sometimes common sense derived from experience is the best there is.

[Catholicguy]

Envy?

Maybe they see in others who are celibate, men who are able to control their sensual appetites and that serves as a rebuke to their own inability to exercise chastity.

[gcruse]

Thank you !! :)

[Campion]

The Gospels provide no basis for that assumption.

St. Paul says that the love of man for his wife images that of Christ for the Church. Doesn't sound like there's room for a "Mrs. Christ" in there, does it?

And we know from the Gospels that St. Peter was married, at least at one point. Do you seriously think they would have mentioned Peter's marital status and neatly avoided mentioning Jesus'?

As near as I can tell, you aren't a Christian. At least I haven't observed you self-identify as one. If I am correct, why is any aspect of this issue any of your business?

[Catholicguy]

It doesn't tell me that. It merely tells me the penalty was codified.

If you are interrested, there is a book that Documents the "Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy," and it was writen by Christian Cochini.

Or, you can continue to ignorantly rant that your desires/opinions are Ecclesiastical History.

[Catholicguy]

Man oh man, you again? What is your obsession with the Jesus had sex issue? Why is it that more and more this issue arises?

Is Howard Stern writing a book on Theology or something?

[Catholicguy]

Lisen, Ace; most pedophiles are married men.

[RobbyS]

God's redemption isn't bought with deeds. Amen! One of the main points of the whole Protestant Reformation. Luther nor any of the other Reformers ever said anything this simplistic, beause this Pelagaian doctrine was always rejected by the Catholic Church.

[gcruse]

It tells me Jesus surrounded himself with married disciples, and that the first pope, Peter, was also married. That tells me celibacy was on nobody's mind. Seeing that priests were advised to not sleep with their wives before Mass as late as AD 300 tells me celibacy is just something created for its own ends hundreds of years later. There is no benefit to it in God's eyes, inasmuch as it is not commanded nor even preferred by Jesus for his followers. I don't need to read apologetic treatises to see what is before my very eyes, as Martin Luther also came to realize.

[RobbyS]

You missed the point. The Catholic Church has never taught that redemption can be bought with deeds.

[Petronski]

...why would I turn to a priest for advice in marriage?

I'm guessing then that you would never have a cancerous tumor removed by a surgeon who has never himself had cancer? You would never accept psychological counseling from a psychologist who had not himself been disturbed? You would not accept financial advice from a broker who was not fabulously wealthy?

[ShadowDancer]

You can't be serious. Either that or you're single.

[Petronski]

You don't understand the difference between expertise and experience.

[Petronski]

Must these things be done in order to be saved? How is that not making salvation conditional upon the doing of certain deeds?

If you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, but thereafter lead a life filled with sins of omission and commission, are you still saved? Is this kind if 'saving' sealed and guaranteed, no matter how heinous the sin you might commit thereafter?

I suspect the answer must be know, which must in turn mean salvation is at some level 'conditional.'

[invoman]

Spritually, Jesus is engaged to be married. The Church is his bride.

[Kenny Bunk]

We need to slow the heck down and give our predecesors the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they were not complete idiots for a change.

Actually, Snuff, this is my position. Ya gotta know when to do do nuthin'. The RCs have one major flaw, IMHO, and that is they think they are the only Catholics on the planet. Of course, they're not. If some churches want to keep celibacy of the clergy as a church rule, they certainly are entitled to do so.

If those born to Roman Catholicism wish to join one of the Eastern Churches, the Copts, The Syriacs,the Abyssinians, The Armenians, or whatever, what exactly is to stop them? It would in no way undermine their allegiance to the Bishop of Rome.