Posted on 05/19/2014 5:58:54 PM PDT by Gamecock
A group of 26 Italian women - all claiming to be in affairs with priests - have written to Pope Francis pleading with him to end the Catholic Church's celibacy vow.
The women said that there were many more like them who were "living in silence."
"We love these men, they love us, and in most cases, despite all efforts to renounce it, one cannot manage to give up such a solid and beautiful bond," they wrote in a joint letter.
They added that "very little is known about the devastating suffering of a woman who is deeply in love with a priest".
The women met through Facebook, reports the Telegraph.
Some 6,000 former priests in Italy have left the church so they can marry.
Pope Francis, who had a girlfriend as a young man in Argentina, has previously said he favored maintaining celibacy, but claimed it was more church tradition than dogma.
Oh really?
IBPBAMOHRC
Wouldn’t this mean, at least for the priests involved, celibacy is already a thing of past? Just ax’n
I wonder if all the women are democrats, you know because it’s just sex!
It is a Roman Catholic tradition!
Celibacy or the ignoring there of? ;-)
ive always thought it was sort counter productive to Christianity for the most devout to not marry and procreate.
Trouble with celibacy in the church in Africa
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/trouble-celibacy-church-africa
TTIUWOP.
“ive always thought it was sort counter productive to Christianity for the most devout to not marry and procreate.”
Just because a man is a priest does not mean he is the most devout compared to all laymen. Also, Jesus and Paul were celibate. Was anyone more devout than they were?
The first “Pope” was married.
Please, let’s leave Paul out of this! He was a Pharisee, which meant he had to be married. In fact, some people have suggested that the “thorn in the flesh” was his wife, LOL!
“ive always thought it was sort counter productive to Christianity for the most devout to not marry and procreate.”
As a married man and a grandfather, my perspective is that a celibate person can raise the bar dramatically, in terms of how much he or she can give.
If a man like me wanted to enter the priesthood, he would have to abandon his responsibilities to his family—cut ties entirely—if he were to have any hope of being half as good a priest as Abp. Fulton Sheen.
Any given person only has 100%. That particular thing *is* a zero-sum game. No matter how you add it up, only the celibate can give 100% to their vocations.
And yet Scripture teaches otherwise.
“And yet Scripture teaches otherwise.”
Oh, good grief. Spare me whatever dizzying contortions and distortions were necessary to that conclusion.
Actually it takes dizzying contortions and distortions to deny Scripture.
Titus 1:6 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believersContort away.
Aren’t priests and nuns are already married - to God? isn’t that part of their contract? (for some reason I’m thinking of an Audry Hepburn movie but can’t for the life of me recall the name?)
I asked you to spare me.
Unkindly, you refused.
Now I am left, agog, jaw hanging open, gob-smacked at the proposition that there exists an English-speaking person who thinks that passage says anything at all about the Catholic discipline of celibacy.
Oh, unkind.
I must now read from a book written by someone much more intelligent than I, in the hope of achieving a normal level of tranqulity once again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.