Posted on 11/08/2003 6:58:17 AM PST by ninenot
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.
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.
Of course, there's this..
Peter, the first pope, and the apostles that Jesus
chose were, for the most part, married men.
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.
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
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.
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.
Not if he was married.
Oh, and believe me, regardless of the existential consequences, I go where my rationality takes me, leading up to my beliefs.
Does it seem to you he had sex with a prostitute, a married woman or a single woman?
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.
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
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
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.
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