Call To Action: Dump Celibacy

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

[ninenot]

Optional celibacy backed at Catholic conference

By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com

Last Updated: Nov. 7, 2003

About 2,800 reform-minded Catholics from around the nation gave a standing ovation Friday to a few of the 169 Milwaukee-area priests who took the rare step of supporting optional celibacy in letters this year to the president of the U.S. bishops conference.Celibacy's History

A short history of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church:

300: The Council of Elvira, a local synod in Spain, mandates celibacy for clergy under its jurisdiction.
366: A growing body of papal teachings favors celibacy, but the observance of celibacy is not uniform.
1073-1085: Pope Gregory VII declares that celibacy be universally observed as part of an overall reform of the church.
1522: Martin Luther condemns celibacy.
1545-1563: The Council of Trent upholds universal celibacy in direct response to Martin Luther's statements.
1967: Pope Paul VI reiterates the tradition.
1971: The World Synod of Bishops reaffirms celibacy.
1978-2003: Pope John Paul II consistently reaffirms his belief in celibacy. However, in 1980, he authorizes an exception for married Episcopal priests who want to join the Roman Catholic Church.

Source: Father Andrew Nelson, retired rector of St. Francis Seminary.

The reaction came at the annual Call to Action conference, where reformers launched a national letter-writing and education campaign to sustain and intensify the ripples of outspokenness that have spread from here to a number of dioceses across the country.

Dan Daley, co-director of the Chicago-based group, kicked off the 18-month campaign by calling attention to the Milwaukee priests in the Midwest Airlines Center on the opening night of the three-day conference.

At least three of the priests who signed the letter were seated at the front of the ballroom - Father Richard Aiken, pastor of St. Alphonsus Church in Greendale; Father Carl Diederichs, associate pastor of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist; and Father Kenneth Mich, pastor of Good Shepherd Church in Menomonee Falls.

Last weekend, a sample letter in support of optional celibacy was inserted into the bulletins at Aiken's church, one of the archdiocese's largest congregations. It included instructions for mailing the letter or any other comments about the issue to Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"I think that we just have to open ordained ministry up to everyone, both men and women, married and single," Aiken said in an interview at the convention center. "I think it's time we start looking at it now, probably a little late."

Both Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and Gregory have spoken out on the issue in response to the Milwaukee priests' letter, saying, among other things, that the celibacy issue had already been discussed at length by bishops in past years and would not be reopened.

But that has not deterred reformers, some of whom hope the Vatican's opposition to optional celibacy might change under the successor to the aging Pope John Paul II.

The new Corpus Christi Campaign for Optional Celibacy is being launched by Call to Action and a Cleveland-based reform group, FutureChurch.

Letters to Gregory in support of optional celibacy were handed out and collected Friday night. Education packets also were handed out that included, among other things, information about how to start discussion groups and spark parish-based campaigns.

There also were petitions for people to sign and send to the U.S. delegates who will participate in an International Synod on the Eucharist that the Vatican is expected to hold in late 2004 or early 2005.

At the heart of the effort are demographic data from the Official Catholic Directory that have been posted on a Web site - www.futurechurch.org - for Catholics to see how the number of priests in their dioceses is dwindling as more of the aging corps of priests reaches retirement age or die.

The campaign is building on the work of three Milwaukee-area women who earlier this year started a grass-roots campaign with a post office box and the name People in Support of Optional Celibacy - Terry Ryan of New Berlin; Roberta Manley of Greenfield; and Nancy Pritchard of Milwaukee.

Ryan wrote a rough draft of a petition and letter supporting the Milwaukee priests and shared it with David Gawlik, editor of Corpus Reports, a newsletter for married priests. Gawlik surprised Ryan by posting the letter on the Corpus Web site without further consultation with her, and the effort was quickly endorsed by Call to Action Wisconsin as the electronics documents began circulating around the country and abroad.

As of Friday, 4,485 petition letters had been returned to the post office box. Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch, planned to combine them with the petitions that were signed at the convention Friday and submit more than 6,000 petitions to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops when it meets next week in Washington, D.C.

The celibacy issue is not new for groups such as Call to Action, which called for optional celibacy when it was founded in the 1970s. But the National Federation of Priest Councils - and groups of priests in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and some other dioceses - are joining in open appeals for the hierarchy to consider optional celibacy as one solution for the worsening priest shortage and its impact on the availability of the Eucharist.

[gcruse]

You could very well be right. And Jesus did tell disciples to give up their wealth and turn their backs on their families.

Of course, there's this..

Peter, the first pope, and the apostles that Jesus
 chose were, for the most part, married men.

[WackyKat]

It is if it's not within marriage. And I think there's no doubt that if our Lord had married it would have been mentioned in the Bible.

The Gospels provide no basis for that assumption. They say nothing about Jesus between the ages of about 13 and 30. They also say very little about what Jesus said and did between the Resurrection and the Ascension. These are huge and unaccountable omissions; obviously the Gospels did leave out a great deal, which certainly could have included Jesus being maried.

[WackyKat]

1,970 years of Catholic tradition tells us so. If that is not good enough for you, see ya!

If you think that saying something over and over again makes it true, you must be one of those people who buy a lot of junk from TV infomercials

[Loyalist]

I suspect that most of the priests who agitate for clerical marriage are not themselves the marrying kind.

[independentmind]

These are huge and unaccountable omissions; obviously the Gospels did leave out a great deal, which certainly could have included Jesus being maried.

Don't most people consider marriage (along with birth and death) to be one of the most significant events in a person's life? The Bible certainly speaks highly of the institution.

[Cicero]

I suppose it's no use arguing with you, but there's no historical basis whatever to claim that any of the apostles were married. It's a story made up out of whole cloth for ideological purposes.

The problem with Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, and others who label themselves as "reformers" is that they don't really belong in the Catholic Church.

If they want homosexual priests, women priests, and married priests, they should look elsewhere. But they want all these things while still hanging onto their little shreds of power and money which they continue to get by leaching off the Church they abuse.

As an American, you can believe whatever you want, but then you should go where your beliefs take you.

[BlessedBeGod]

Oh, please. If our Lord had married it would have been considered a MAJOR event in his life and would have been documented.

[tortoise]

You mean like Jesus did?

In the culture at the time, it would not have been considered a "sin" in the usual sense. The virginity of a man was not considered something that needed to be preserved for either religious or social reasons. Therefore, I see no reason to exclude the possibility that Jesus had sex, and it seems to me it would be more likely than not.

[BlessedBeGod]

The Seventh Commandment didn't exist at the time?

[Oztrich Boy]

Are you saying he sinned?

Not if he was married.

[gcruse]

Well, this is from the same source you disbelieve, but here it is anyway

306-Council of Elvira, Spain, decree #43: a priest who sleeps with
 his wife the night before Mass will lose his job.

...which tells me, along with the previous post, that married priests and apostles and popes
were good enough for Jesus and good enough until at least three hundred years later.  The
'tradition' seems entirely manmade and late in the game.

Oh, and believe me, regardless of the existential consequences, I go where my rationality takes me, leading up to my beliefs.

[BlessedBeGod]

Chapter and verse documenting he was married?

[D-fendr]

I see no reason to exclude the possibility that Jesus had sex, and it seems to me it would be more likely than not.

Does it seem to you he had sex with a prostitute, a married woman or a single woman?

[independentmind]

Make sure to ask tortoise if he believes Christ is the Son of God, also.

[Salvation]

And I know you are aware that Call to Action is a dissenting organization. CTA does NOT represent the views of the Catholic Church

But many others do not know this. For those I ask that you please check out the link above by clicking on dissent and then organizations.

[DallasMike]

If you are not Catholic, why on earth do you care how we govern our own Church and whatever makes you think it is is any of your business?

Because our entire society -- not just the Catholic church -- is hurt when someone is molested by pedophile priests who would not have been in office were it not for the fact that the Roman Catholic church continues to preserve a decidedly non-biblical man-made practice that was not practiced by the early Church. Jesus told the religious leaders of his time that they should not place burdens upon men that they couldn't carry.

I have a LOT of good things to say about the Roman Catholic church, so don't call me a Catholic-basher or anything like that. However, when a practice is wrong, you have to throw it out, just like the Catholic church finally quit the practice of selling indulgences, though its reluctance in doing so created a schism in the process.

Want another schism? Then keep on perpetuating the man-made doctrine of priestly celibacy which is nothing more than a Gnostic heresy continued into the 21st century.

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth."  1 Timothy 4:1-3

"Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Peter?"  1 Corinthians 9:5
 

[WackyKat]

If our Lord had married it would have been considered a MAJOR event in his life and would have been documented.

Really.So there were no "major events" in His life between the ages of 13 and 30?

Those weren't recorded, were they?

You're making unfounded assumptions based on an uncritical acceptance of a certain tradition

[Cap'n Crunch]

To the tyrants never yield!

[independentmind]

Make sure you address the occurence of pedophila in the Protestant denominations,also. You will have to explain why the absence of the celibacy requirement does not prevent pedophilia from occuring at the same frequency as in the Catholic Church. Or didn't you know that?

[BlessedBeGod]

You're making unfounded assumptions based on an uncritical acceptance of a certain tradition

You're the one making unfounded assumptions that if a major event like that took place it wouldn't be in the Bible. I can't imagine a bigger event than that which would have taken place during that age range which would have been documented instead.

His first miracle occurred at a wedding -- that's how important he thought it was. It wasn't just a photo op, you know.