Posted on 01/28/2011 9:05:07 AM PST by marshmallow
In 1970 Fr Joseph Ratzinger signed a petition that suggested the Church re-examine the obligation of priestly celibacy, according to a German newspaper
As a young priest, Pope Benedict put his name to a document calling for the Church to seriously investigate the obligation to priestly celibacy.
Joseph Ratzinger was one of the signatories of a 1970 document calling for an examination of priestly celibacy which was signed by nine theologians.
The memorandum was drawn up in the face of a shortage of priests and other signatories included Karl Rahner and the future cardinals Karl Lehmann and Walter Kasper.
The German newspaper Die Sueddeutsche reported about the document today.
The memorandum, which was sent to the German bishops reads: “Our considerations regard the necessity of a serious investigation and a differentiated inspection of the law of celibacy of the Latin Church for Germany and the whole of the universal Church.”
According to the Sueddeutsche, the document said if there were no such investigation, the bishops’ conference would “awaken the impression that it did not believe in the strength of the Gospel recommendation of a celibate life for the sake of heaven, but rather only in the power of a formal authority”.
If there weren’t enough priests, the document said, then the “Church quite simply has a responsibility to take up certain modifications”.
The signatories who had drawn up the document acted as consultors to the German bishops’ conference in a commission for questions of Faith and Morals.
The document’s release coincides with a renewed debate on priestly celibacy after prominent German politicians called for the Church to change the teaching on priestly celibacy in the face of a serious lack of priests.
Ping!
celebacy in the priesthood does not go back to the beginnings of the church by any stretch.
When talking to my parish priest about family matters I was struck by how the priest just did not get it....he was completely unaware of such problems.
So lets say I want to be married and be a priest....I could become an Anglican priest, get married, then decide to join the Catholic Church as a priest and bingo...married priest...
these is just so much confusion regarding this issue.
What is the confusion?
Could it be something so simple like what you describe? No, can't be. There must be a conspiracy or other salacious story...the press - UGH.
Except that Apostle Paul, who was unmarried was an apostle.
“When talking to my parish priest about family matters I was struck by how the priest just did not get it.”
What, did he tell you that contraception was bad or something of that sort? Yeah, I’m sure he didn’t ‘get it’.
What do you base that incorrect assertion on? It certainly isn't Scripture or history.
So lets say I want to be married and be a priest....I could become an Anglican priest, get married, then decide to join the Catholic Church as a priest and bingo...married priest...
Number one, 21 of the 22 Churches sui juris which comprise the Catholic Church already ordain, as a norm, married men. Number two, the revolving door scenario you describe is indicative of your ignorance of the formation process and the overall topic at hand.
“It would be a mistake to imagine that these permanent concubines, especially in the countryside, would have aroused a lot of scandal,” said Jedin. “We know of many cases where these `keepers of concubines’ possessed the sympathies of their parishioners and were looked upon as good and virtuous pastors.” (ibid page 162)
No finer mind than Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologia II-IIa, 88, 11)had provided stubborn opposition to those who saw celibacy rulings as part of divine law. Thomas contended that the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests was merely Church law that could be reversed by any time by papal or conciliar authority. (MacGregor pages 108-109)
When the Reformation indirectly brought forth the Council of Trent in the mid 1500’s, the Roman Catholic Church reformed itself and remodeled the priesthood to its present form. Not only did the Council reiterate the Church's prohibition of a married clergy but also instituted reforms to try to insure the implementation of the decrees of the Church on this subject.
Since the Council of Trent, celibacy has remained Church law, specifically upheld by Pope Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus. Despite opposition from half of the bishops attending the Synod of 1971, requests from bishops in the United States, France, and Latin America in 1988, Pope John Paul II has not budged from his opposition to a married priesthood.
That doesn’t address the argument of Paul, which is in scripture.
The ban on marriage for the priests goes back far further than 1139. You might want to check out the council of Elvira which was in the 4th Century.
Celibacy for priests is simply a church rule, not a a Scriptural requirement and could be changed with a stroke of the pen.
Given the past corruption of the clergy it would seem like a no brainer.
You wrote:
“celebacy in the priesthood does not go back to the beginnings of the church by any stretch.”
Yes, it does.
Jesus, first and ONLY High Priest of Christianity was celibate.
Of which corruption are you speaking?
My understanding is that it is no great secret that in early days then Cardinal Ratzinger was on the more “liberal” side of certain questions. None arising to any hint of embracing heterodox views.
May I suggest to you Lea’s History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church or History or the Christian Church by Schaff. Both are quite good and provide rather detailed accounts of the long history of sexual immorality amongst the Catholic clergy.
How's marriage working out for the Anglicans and the Methodists and the Presbyterians and the rest of the alphabet soup?
I'm talking about heterosexual marriage, not homosexual marriage which seems to be very much in vogue in certain parts of Protestantism.
No thanks.
We follow the example of Christ himself. We want priests who are totally given over to God as St. Paul advises.
Why don't you ask a member of the Catholic churches like the Ukrainian or Romanian that allow married priests? They're all over the Pittsburgh and Chicago areas.
and if everyone was like Jesus....the world would be a better place...but we are HUMAN....with all the wonders of being human as endowed by our creator....better to use that equipment in marriage for love and procreation than in the abomination that a few priests have taken it to.
The older-and-wiser Ratzinger (now Benedict) knows much better - eliminating celibacy would not solve the problem... indeed, it would make the issue worse.
>> So lets say I want to be married and be a priest....I could become an Anglican priest, get married, then decide to join the Catholic Church as a priest and bingo...married priest... <<
You write as if successfully deceiving people were a given. You’d have to be ordained a bishop who himself was ordained by three bishops who had apostolic succession undisrupted by formal heresy. Of course, for your priestly formation, the Anglicans would have to believe your conversion was sincere. The conservatives — those whose ordination would be meaningful to the Catholic Church — would be the least likely to accept that. Then you’d have to convince your Catholic bishop that your re-conversion was sincere. Yeah, what kind of an idiot to take him for?
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