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As a Catholic, I will attempt to explain what is change and what is not. To do so, you must understand the difference between a dogma of the faith and a discipline.

A dogma is an unchanging tenent of the faith- the trinity, the incarnation, basically the Apostles creed. These things cannot be changed ever. They are the faith. Another dogma is women priests. This will never be changed no matter how hard they try. Jesus only chose men, tho as GOD, he certainly could have chosen women for the role of apostle if he wanted to. It was not unheard of, and there were many religous groups then that had priestesses, so it would not have been counter cultural. Jesus considered the church his bride. He is the bridegroom. The only way a Catholic priest can act in persona christi (as another Christ) is if he is male, so he too can stand in for Christ and his bride.

Disciplines are things that are right and good, and have long been practiced within the church. They do have a basis in scripture, or, they are in harmony with it. Unmarried priests fall into this catagory. We know Peter was married, and we know that scripture tells us a bishop should be the husband of only one wife. But other scriptures point to the fact that priests are told the better way is to remain single, so they can devote all they have to the priesthood and the church. Jesus also speaks about becoming a unich for the kingdom of God, as well as promising anyone who gave up wives or husbands or children for the kingdom would be rewarded. He would never advocate leaving a family in order to follow him, as that would be against scripture, so he was referring to those who chose not to have those things in the first place for the sake of the kingdom.

Disciplines can and do change. They are often given exceptions based on individual circumstances. The anglican church has left these priests. They are left with nothing, yet their call to the priesthood may have been absolutely legitimate. They answered it, and in their churches rules, clergy could marry. They have now looked to Rome to bring them home so exceptions will be and should be made.

The priesthood, like marriage, is a vocation. We can really only have one vocation as it is who we are, not what we do. Catholic priests accept their vocation to the priesthood, just as married couples accept their vocation to marriage. It is sad that the splintering of the faith has caused this to become an issue, but I am glad to see Rome working on repairs.

I love responses like yours. You seek to educate, not berate; and I apprecaite that. Thus, we are seeign a deviation in the discipine, not a change in a fundamental belief. Change in something as fundamental as Christianity bothers me; as I see it as a ‘slippery slope’; and once we accept this, there will always be a more controversial change coming along - that would have been rejected outright, if there wasn’t a gradual movement to begin with.

We have seen changes in traditional ‘Christian’ churches that would have been considered impossible just 10 years ago. I see this as ‘apostacy’; and that bothers me - the change of the church from the teachings of Jesus is inevitable; sudden changes seems to move things towards an event I hope I never hope to see in my lifetime. I would really rather not be around for the ‘End of Days’; if it’s all the same to you. It just doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun.