Posted on 01/24/2018 8:50:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The choice quite frankly is going to be between married priests and no priests. This has already reached crisis levels in places like Brazil where the ratio of Catholics to Priests is getting insanely high (and where married Evangelical Protestant ministers are drawing away much of that flock).
This Cardinal seems to be advocating married Priests in Brazil but not necessarily in other countries. That is problematic.
Well we have a taste of what a married clergy is like. It is called a permanent deaconate.
But remember what starts in one country spreads to another.
Having married disciples/apostles seemed to work just fine for the New Testament Church.
"1) The ideal situation is not to marry because then you can focus exclusively on pleasing the Lord.
2) On the other hand, there's a hell of a lot of sexual immorality going on around (and also among) you guys. So, if you can't handle remaining celibate, it's totally cool to marry--in fact, it's even advisable in that case. You are definitely not sinning, but it's a fact that this will result in specific marital duties that will divide your focus.
3) To summarize, if your passions are too strong and you want to get married, go for it--you are doing well. Nevertheless, if you can handle not marrying such that your focus is 100% on pleasing God, then you are doing even better."
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So, as a Roman Catholic in the West, I do not have a problem with celibacy for priests, but it certainly not a divinely ordained 'commandment'.
The East has a good solution and compromise, keeping the integrity and holiness of the two sacraments, working together with and complimenting each other.
What am concerned about is that the Roman church, as primary and lead of the whole OHCA Church, will make a sudden change in a desperate and reactionary fashion. :/
Married men are less likely to die for their faith than single ones; in the Spanish Civil War about 7,000 members of the clergy (including 12 bishops) were martyred by the communists in only one half of the country, and most could have saved their own lives if they’d simply renounced their faith. The Russian Orthodox Church had less than a quarter of that number of martyrs of Bolshevism throughout the USSR; the men had families to consider.
Even the married Apostles abandoned their families and with the exception of John, died as martyrs.
I don’t think your numbers are accurate. About 90% of the clergy at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution were either martyred or died in prison. Every single bishop who attended the Great Sobor of 1917 was killed or died in a prison/camp. The Orthodox Church in Russia was very nearly eradicated. For the most part it went underground. Between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to fewer than 500. The church hierarchy that remained above ground was more or less a front for the NKVD. The number of clergy murdered overall between 1917-1940 is not known with certainty but is undoubtedly in the hundreds of thousands. If one adds in the martyrs among the laity the final figure is generally accepted as being in the millions. And this is without adding in the non-Orthodox who also suffered harsh persecution, especially the Greek Rite Catholics of Ukraine.
See the very good article on the subject at...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
But you're in the position to tell us what the qualifications are?
In some places, they have been (wrongly) tolerated by people such as seminary rectors, "discernment" committees, and bishops acting against, not "with", the traditional norms, canons and disciplines of the Catholic Church.
The Episcopalians manage to have both: sometimes both in the same man (check out Gene Robinson in Wikipedia).
How is this ironic?
And blessings to him for seeing the light of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
In the context of marrying (1 Cor 7) Paul wrote, "But I speak this by indulgence, not by commandment.... For I would that all men were [single] even as myself: but every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that."
(Who's your bishop, by the way? Mine is Bishop Richard Stika in Knoxville, TN).
Yes, yes, Paul recommended married bishops. He also offered a counter-argument:
"The unmarried man is busy with the Lord’s affairs, concerned with pleasing the Lord; but the married man is busy with this world’s demands and occupied with pleasing his wife. This means he is divided." (1 Cor 7:32-33)"
Paul himself was single and wished other to be so. In the end he neither required nor excluded the noble way of "singleness for the Kingdom" Christ spoke of (Matthew 19:12).
Yet as Christ said, "Anyone who is able to receive this, ought to receive it."
That excludes both Jesus and Paul, then.
Got proof of that?
"Apostles and disciples"? Apples and oranges. Of course many "disciples" were "married men". Not only that, many disciples were women! The disciples include the whole body of Christian believers! The Church never taught that all believers are to be single. It took heretical groups like the Shakers to make such a weird rule. And they didn't have much of a future.
That's a supposition of yours, though, that many of the Apostles were married. Many? Six of the 12? Or even one? You can't name one wife of one of the twelve Apostles.
Even though we know Peter "had been" married --- because he had a mother-in-law who was cured of a fever by Christ--- it is never explained whether Peter was at that time a married man or a widower. I notice no wife is mentioned as being present or alive at the time of the mother-n-law's illness.
From the standpoint of history (defined as "Stuff that actually happened") you'd have to delve into the Apostles' successors to find wives if you can. Got any names for Mrs. Matthias, Mrs. Timothy or Mrs. Titus? Mrs. Barnabas, Silas? Mrs. Clement of Rome, Mrs. Ignatius of Antioch, Mrs. Polycarp of Smyrna? Mrs. Bishop Linus, Cletus (Anacletus), Clement, Sixtus?
(You might want to mention "Junia(s)," but --- aside from the fact that the sex of "Junia(s)" is unknown or at least debatable--- if you included this name as a "wife" of Anndornicus, you'd be proving more than you'd want to, I think, since you'd be proving her an Apostle or successor to the Apostles, and Paul excluded women from leadership in the Church. As I think you know.) Anyhow, interesting topic. Do get back to us when you find somebody.
That isn’t history?
Matthew
Sufffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.
Mark
Died in Alexandria, Egypt, after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead. Luke- was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.
John
Faced martydom when he was boiled in huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was mircaculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos. He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation on Patmos. The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.
Peter
Was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross. According to church tradition it was because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died.
James the Just
The leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller’s club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.
James the Greater
A son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.
Bartholomew also known as Nathanael
Was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed for our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death by a whip.
Andrew
Was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: “I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.” He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he expired.
Thomas
Was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the sub-continent.
Jude, The brother of Jesus
Was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.
Matthias
The apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded.
Barnabas
One of the group of seventy disciples, wrote the Epistle of Barnabas. He preached throughout Italy and Cyprus. Barnabas was stoned to death at Salonica.
Paul
Was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.
In the end the Orthodox Church served the Bolsheviks; the communists killed some, but in the end the Church got in line.
It would also cut off the 15,000 married deacons (all of whom are ordained Catholic clergy) in the USA alone--- I don't know what the number would be worldwide.
So I have not been making an argument against married clergy here per se. I AM saying that celibacy is a legit. holy way of total consecration as recommended and exemplified by Christ and Paul, and that marriage is not a requirement for all, as you seem to think.
No. For the most part the church got buried. Those outside of Russia broke communion with the Moscow patriarchate. Most of those trapped inside went underground.
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