Posted on 06/09/2008 1:00:14 PM PDT by Borges
Melbourne, June 9: A paraplegic man was recently denied a church marriage by a bishop in Italy because he was impotent, say reports.
The 26-year-old man ultimately had to go for a civil marriage on Saturday in Viterbo.
"No bishop, no priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence as it is a motive for annulment (of the marriage),'' the Australian quoted Salvatore de Ciuco, spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli of Viterbo in central Italy, as telling SkyTG24 television.
The groom has been paraplegic since he was involved in a car accident, said the television report.
His fiancee was aware of his impotency, the report added.
The curate of the parish, who was banned from marrying the couple, was present at their civil ceremony.
I do not think I will go to hell or purgatory because I have not been confirmed, taken the Holy Host, or confessed my sins to another sinful and fallen man. Jesus died on the cross so he could be our intermediary to the Father and no longer need the ritual acts of old.
Don't think so. It's about ability to consummate marriage not having babies.
IF those so hung up on this one issue actually bothered to sit down and read Paul's teachings then the Catholic Church position would have to be Man should not marry at all. Paul was very cynical on that subject but Paul was human.
You are right in the fact there are alternatives to sex or variants. What the RC Church again has done is taken certain scripture completely out of context and made it Canon Law. For example the spilling of ones seed. One man IIRC was told to marry his brothers widow I think and make her pregnant. He despised the woman and spilled it on the ground instead. Now what was the actual sin? This one man {not the human race} was told to do something and did not {for which he was punished & I challenge anyone to show me another example of where another one was punished for spilling his seed to the ground} for that the RC Church placed a law on mankind completely ignoring the context of scripture. GOD simply wanted that man to marry that woman and produce a child and told specifically that man to do so.
Actually several ridiculous Canon Laws are born from that very part of scripture one relates to birth control. The prohibitions under OT law for sex are pretty simple. Do not lie with a man if you are a man. Do not have intercourse with a woman during her period. Stay with your own wife. Stay away from your neighbors wife. Render unto each other yourselves. That one was written to keep either partner from using sex as a means of control or punishment over the other as it is as old a problem as post Eden. IOW simply meaning it is wrong to say I will not have sex with you because you did not but me that fur coat or a reversal you won't let me buy new gold clubs. It is simply showing each other respect and is a good rule like. Do not let the sun set on your anger is another one. If more couples worried more about that one there would be far fewer divorces. If a married couple is mutually happy with each other not having sex that is their business and not the churches.
The woman in question the man was going to marry knew that sex as in intercourse was not possible yet she was OK with it. I can see a Priest or Clergy asking about sex, talking to the couple about sex, even saying do you realize that he can not have intercourse, but that should be as far as the church {any church} is involved in it. If both understand and agree to it then it is their business and their lives to live and not the Bishops.
Before the curse upon man it is very clear woman was created solely to be mans companion in life as GOD saw man was lonely. Thanks to a misguided Bishop that man is still LONELY as likely will be the woman. The Bishop needs to remember that. Sex as such was not even mentioned till the expulsion from Eden. The curse was broken at the cross although we still suffer it's cause and effects. This requirement of the church for the paraplegic is as ridiculous as arguing over circumcision. It does not matter.
Correction the man and woman married in a civil ceremony. Good for them! Man should not be lonely nor should woman. Disability should not mean a live tucked away somewhere alone. The pious Temple leaders in Christ time did as much yet they used the law to control the people and placed burdens on them that they themselves could not keep.
You understand a lot indeed :>} Christ tells us we can go directly to the Father for our needs. BTW here is a piece of interesting scripture also.
8Don’t ever let anyone call you ‘rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are on the same level as brothers and sisters. £ 9And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father.
You understand a lot indeed :>} Christ tells us we can go directly to the Father for our needs. BTW here is a piece of interesting scripture also.
8Don’t ever let anyone call you ‘rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are on the same level as brothers and sisters. £ 9And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father.
I also agree with the issue of birth control, the Bible does not speak about this in detail but does state that life begins at conception, therefore any form of birth control which prevents fertilization is not a sinful act. Paul also said that it was better for a man to be celibate but it was not good for man to burn.
A couple who can and do have children are blessed. But there seems to me to be a responsibility to only have as many as you can provide for thus birth control is a good practice. I am opposed to abortion which is a different matter all together. Many of the OT laws were written for the sake of mans survival in a time where men died quickly and there were many more women thus many wives to some. That is not the case today as many kids await parents in foster care and orphanages. There are no shortages of children. To understand the laws you have to also realize the times they were written and why.
Israel as such had no laws till the Exodus. It was because of their own stubbornness and disobedience that the Laws of Moses as they are called were created. It kept them busy from worshiping idols and illicit acts which was the prevailing problem. Before GOD gave them He had done laid the Foundation for Salvation.
I like a lot of Paul's writings as it's common sense. I was just making the point that if we took him literally this would be a less populated world. If a man can be Celibate fine but few actually can and the same with women. Loneliness is a very dark place to be. A place that was not GOD's plan for man nor women to dwell too long.
A permanently impotent man has no right to the sacrament of marriage.
To pretend that he did would be immoral, because that would be lying about the essence of marriage - which is a holy thing that should be discussed truthfully and not misrepresented.
but not right for that same impotent man (impotent during his marriage) to please his wife in other ways?
Natural, unimpeded intercourse is the only moral way to satisfy the sexual appetite. Anything else is a peverse abuse of God's gift of sexuality.
The sin of the sodomites was not non traditional sex, it was sex outside of marraige and degrading sexual acts.
The sin of the Sodomites was unnatural intercourse - or as the politically correct leftist would put it: "nontraditional sex."
This is precisely what Leviticus condemns in the behavior of the Sodomites and what Genesis condemns in Onan.
Unnatural intercourse, by its very essence, is degrading.
In the bonds of marraige any act done out of love and with respect to each spouse is not sinful.
An act of unnatural intercourse, by its very essence, is an act of hatred and disrespect toward God, toward one's own body - which is supposed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit - and an act of hatred and defilement toward any other person involved.
I believe your point about Viagra is that most people are driven by sex in their marriage and see it as a very important aspect to their marriage.
My point was that you claimed that there are millions of impotent men who are delighted to be impotent and whose marriages are wonderful despite their impotence.
The fact is that normal men do not enjoy being impotent and that normal women do not enjoy being married to impotent men - they may love their impotent spouses, but they are not happy that they are impotent.
The sin of Onan was not the act itself it was not fulfilling his duty to his brothers widow. You can look to the teaches of Jesus and adultery of the heart if you want to condemn that particular act.
Never did I say men are happy to be impotent I merely said they can understand marraige means more than just sex. I would hope my future wife would still be happy and love me if I became injured and could no longer perform physically. But I guess people are just selfish and only after pleasures of the flesh.
Including covering up serial pedophilia in its Churches for decades I suppose....
L
Unbelievable.
(1) Odin was the Scandinavian god of the sky.
(2) Onan was one of the very few people in history that God killed with His own hand using no intermediary.
(3) Onan's sin was to deliberately turn a natural act of intercourse into an unnatural one.
(4) How can a duty be not required?
(5) The law of levirate marriage (marrying one's deceased brother's wife to provide offspring in his name) was a duty and its violation was not punishment with death. The punishment for failing to consummate levirate marriage was to be publicly insulted by the wife of one's deceased brother.
(6) God killed Onan because he turned natural intercourse into unnatural. By the way, God also destroyed Sodom for unnatural intercourse. And God also mandated capital punishment in the Levitical law code for a number of the most heinous acts of unnatural intercourse.
(7) If you are completely unfamiliar with the actual text of the Scripture as written, why should we trust your invented-on-the-spot exegesis?
I never really knew how much Catholics put stock into Canon Law instead of the Word of God.
What did Saint Paul teach the Corinthians on this point? Do you even know?
Also can the wife of an impotent man demand a divorce?
Of course not.
The sin of Onan was not the act itself it was not fulfilling his duty to his brothers widow.
Onan's sin was against the very nature of the God-given sexual faculty. The disrespect for levirate marriage was also a sin, but one which the Scripture explicitly says is not a capital offense.
You can look to the teaches of Jesus and adultery of the heart if you want to condemn that particular act.
Onan's sin was not one of actual or contemplated adultery.
The Canon Law is nothing other than the juridical application of the Word of God. There cannot be any conflict between the Word and the canons, since the canons are based on that Word.
Go back and read this thread.
Catholics also believe that the Pope, whomever he happens to be, is 'infallible' on the 'word of God' in spite of the fact that Popes have changed what they say is the 'word of God' dozens of times throughout history.
So the very idea that the Catholic church somehow is protecting the immutable word of the Supreme Being of the Universe is poppycock on its face.
Popes married, sometimes having multiple wives in their lifetimes. For hundreds of years the Catholic Church condoned prostitution.
So to take the word of some Italian bishop as the "word of God" is utterly and completely ridiculous. Now it may be that as far as Church rules he's right.
But to say he's carrying out the will of the Almighty is patently absurd.
L
Utter bs.....
I suppose God demands the man be on top and the lights be out, too.
L
Like I said if you want to condemn the act Onan is commonly accused of doing, look at the teaching of Jesus and adultery of the heart. The act it self is not wrong, it is what accompanies the act.
The Baptists and Presbyterians, I assure, did not condemn artificial birth control because it conflicted with the canon law of Rome.
They condemned it because artificial birth control is intrinsically immoral.
For one thousand nine hundred and thirty years all Christian theology condemned artificial birth control and abortion.
But then, when the Anglicans in 1930 decided that these practices were suddenly to be countenanced, every Christian community gradually fell away from that universal consensus.
Except one.
Like I said all sexual acts condemned by God all occur outside of marraige, and to claim any non traditional sex is immoral or degrading makes sex into a rigid act like washing the dishes.
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