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Pope says favors celibacy for priests but door open to change
Chicago Tribune ^ | 05/26/2014 | Reuters

Posted on 05/27/2014 5:18:07 AM PDT by GIdget2004

Pope Francis on Monday said he believed that Roman Catholic priests should be celibate but the rule was not an unchangeable dogma, and "the door is always open" to change.

Francis made similar comments when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires but his remarks to reporters on a plane returning from a Middle East trip were the first he has made since becoming pope.

"Celibacy is not a dogma," he said in answer to a question about whether the Catholic Church could some day allow priests to marry as they can in some other Christian Churches.

"It is a rule of life that I appreciate very much and I think it is a gift for the Church but since it is not a dogma, the door is always open," he said.

The Church teaches that a priest should dedicate himself totally to his vocation, essentially taking the Church as his spouse, in order to help fulfill its mission.

However while priestly celibacy is a tradition going back around 1,000 years, it is not considered dogma, or an unchangeable piece of Church teaching.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


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To: Sacajaweau

I marvel that you allowed yourself to be ministered by such bad men. No wonder you’re so confused.


41 posted on 05/27/2014 7:22:08 AM PDT by Romulus
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To: stanne

The Church does not state this in any official document that I am aware of. But many lay people are of the impression that the policy of mandatory clerical celibacy is somehow etched in stone like the Ten Commandments. It clearly is not. Mandatory clerical celibacy is a Catholic invention, not a Biblical requirement. The Lord, in fact commands us to be fruitful and multiply. God created Eve because he did not want Adam to be alone. Jesus glorifies the institution of marriage. We are to celebrate life, not celibate life. That is God’s plan.


42 posted on 05/27/2014 7:30:00 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: GIdget2004

The Pope is running with it. Plug in your idea here...



43 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:42 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Mach9
Correct. But Henry VIII viewed him as akin to clergy, even though More made it clear when he took the job that he would have nothing to do with Henry's divorce, one way or the other.

Remember that the reason that Wolsey was deposed (and the job open for More) was Wolsey's failure to get a Papal blessing on Henry's divorce from Catherine.

And the reason that Sir Thomas More was beheaded was based on false testimony that he had opposed the divorce.

So short answer is that Henry, in the few short years More was in office, considered him clergy in the English version of the Catholic Church. The formal split did not come until years later. And Rome, of course, accepted More's appointment of clergy despite his marital status in the interim.

44 posted on 05/27/2014 7:50:20 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

Brilliant. You should join the theologians over at the Vatican and set them straight and to quit inventing stuff, and why it matters to you.

You could tell them to consult the Bible.

While you’re at it, you could tell them where in the Bible it states that they are not allowed to interpret the Bible and Tradition as they see fit.

But do consult an encyclopedia to discover who founded Catholicism.

Being fruitful to God means nothing but having babies, is that it?


45 posted on 05/27/2014 7:52:02 AM PDT by stanne
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To: Romulus
So, what's your take on why Pope Francis is bringing up this topic now? I'm sure he has his reasons.
46 posted on 05/27/2014 7:53:35 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: Vigilanteman

Further, the Pope would not grant Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, because he was a prisoner of Catherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor.


47 posted on 05/27/2014 7:53:43 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: Buckeye McFrog
Excellent point!

It seems a lot of folks on this forum halve a tough time separating Catholic doctrine from Catholic tradition.

But I guess the same could be said about Baptists, Presbyterians, Mormons or any other brand out there.

48 posted on 05/27/2014 7:57:43 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: stanne

I’m saying stick to the Bible and don’t make up things.

I’m a loyal and faithful Catholic, but if you do the research on the history of mandatory clerical celibacy, you will discover the policy was implemented much later in the development of the Church and was put into place in an effort to weed out clerical corruption, there are certainly no Biblical requirements for a such a policy.


49 posted on 05/27/2014 7:59:51 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

Making things up and inventing?

Who’s doing that? Where exactly?

If you are what you say, a loyal and faithful Catholic, why are you saying stick to the Bible?


50 posted on 05/27/2014 8:03:03 AM PDT by stanne
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
Valid point. But the Pope still had solid ground in Canon law with or without the duress involved. In the end, Henry's only real reason for asking for the divorce was because Cathrine was beyond the years of child bearing and Henry needed a younger woman of child bearing age to make a little male Tudor heir.

Anne's flirtations, Henry's over active libido and all the soap opera stuff notwithstanding, this is all it came down to.

51 posted on 05/27/2014 8:04:15 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: impimp
A “noncanonical” marriage is, nonetheless, still a marriage as Wolsey was allowed to keep his post as Cardinal.

All I am saying is the precedent was established a lot less than 1000 years ago.

And Wolsey was hardly alone. There is the case of Cardinal Richelieu, the French equivalent of Cardinal Wolsey a century later. The biggest difference is that Richelieu never married but merely shared his affections with multiple women. He got away with it because he had the confidence of King Louis XIV in much the same way Wolsey enjoyed the confidence of King Henry VIII.

Another reason why we have the First Amendment and another reason why the most morally respected religious leaders maintain an arms length relationship with political leaders.

52 posted on 05/27/2014 8:17:17 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: stanne

The Catholic Church has made up a number of yarns over the years:

1) That Mary was ALWAYS a virgin. Never mind the fact that she was happily married Joseph and Jesus had brothers and sisters mentioned in the Bible.

2) The idea that Mary herself was conceived of an immaculate conception is sheer nonsense. There is no basis for this in the Bible.

3) Mandatory celibacy too is a Catholic invention. Marriage and consummation of marriage is celebrated all throughout the Bible.

The Church has the right to institute its own rules, rituals, traditions, and so forth. But NO Church has the right to rewrite history or rewrite the Bible.


53 posted on 05/27/2014 8:17:28 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: Vigilanteman

He brought it up because he was asked. He was asked because the secular media have a teenager’s fascination with pelvic matters, especially as they pertain to clerical celibacy — which they find impenetrably weird, given their unexamined assumption that appetite and impulse can only be obeyed, never controlled.


54 posted on 05/27/2014 8:21:32 AM PDT by Romulus
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

You are in error on your third point. The Latins established priestly celibacy long before the “reformation”. Initially the requirement was not that priests be unmarried, but a requirement that priest be continent — abstain from all carnal intercourse. This seems to have grown up gradually.

In the West the marital fast before communion was longer than in the East — we Orthodox require abstinence from marital relations from (the hour of) Vespers the night before receiving communion, in the West it was for the entire day before. What became the normative custom of serving daily Mass (at which the priest in a small parish would have to commune as the celebrant) made the marital fast effectively a requirement for life-long priestly continence. The requirement of priestly celibacy seems to have been a natural outgrowth of this, and was plainly established among the Latins even prior to their schism from the Church, so the thousand year estimate of the duration of the custom among the Latins is about right. (It also had the virtue of preventing attempts to pass ecclesiastical positions from father to son.)

The canonical requirement that bishops be celibate is common to the East and the West and dates to the disciplinary session of the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 692 (called in the West since the schism either the Quinsext Council or the Trullan Synod, though the papers of Popes of Rome prior to the schism refer to its canons as those of the Sixth Ecumenical Council), and was motivated chiefly by suppressing attempts to pass sees from father to son, though it is plainly beneficial to the good order of the Church in other ways.


55 posted on 05/27/2014 8:25:42 AM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: Romulus; Buckeye McFrog

There is a lot of truth to your statement. There is also a lot of truth to post #32.


56 posted on 05/27/2014 8:25:51 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: I want the USA back
Catholic priests have a a lot to do during the week. They just don't say Mass on Sunday. Some of them teach, some are canonical lawyers, some counsel, some have more then one parish to attend to.

They also run schools, budgets, grounds and buildings, they have Diocese meetings, daily Masses, special Masses, funerals, committee meetings, personnel to supervise, tons of paperwork and then there is the sick and dying that they drop everything for.

It's really like running a small business. I went to one parish where there were 1500 families! The priest had two assistants and a retired and he still ran raged most of the time. I have a friend who is married to a United Methodist Minister, she says he's never home, you can't plan anything and even if you do plan something, those pesky congregants are always dying or having accidents.

57 posted on 05/27/2014 8:36:19 AM PDT by defconw (Well now what?)
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

Where in the Catechism does it state that the Immaculate Conception is Biblically based?

And I ask you again, where in the Bible does it state that religious tenets have to be Biblically based?

You might want to consult the Catechism about the Blessed Mother’s status and the actuality of all your statements.

Of course, you COULD just quit calling yourself Catholic and forget learning about the faith at all. However, when you invent stuff and make it up, and call yourself Catholic, it feels powerful. People do it all the time.

You’d have to give up that power...you know, that “my friend is really Catholic and he says...”

But the Catechism is kryptonite.

I can guess why, if I cared. But it is a symptom of our sick society that people do not think and take the word of people who say they know, while making stuff up. or repeating what some “really Catholic” person said.

a quick google reveals the trepid but to many, abhorrent Catechism on these two questions you present as fact.

I’ll post the site and the Biblical and theological references cited for just the few paragraphs

but, really, why don’t you just go to the Vatican and set those dopes straight?

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/mary/main-marian-documents-of-the-church/perpetual-virginity-catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

154 Cf. DS 291; 294; 427; 442; 503; 571; 1880.
155 LG 57.
156 Cf. LG 52.
157 Cf. Mk 3:31-35; 6:3; 1 Cor 9:5; Gal 1:19.
158 Mt 13:55; 28:1; cf. Mt 27:56.
159 Cf. Gen 13:8; 14:16; 29:15; etc.
160 LG 63; cf. Jn 19:26-27; Rom 8:29; Rev 12:17.
161 Council of Friuli (796): DS 619; cf. Lk 2:48-49.
162 1 Cor 15:45,47.
163 Jn 3:34.
164 Jn 1:16; cf. Col 1:18.
165 Lk 1:34; cf. Jn 3:9.
166 Jn 1:13.
167 Cf. 2 Cor 11:2.
168 LG 63; cf. 1 Cor 7:34-35.
169 St. Augustine, De virg. , 3: PL 40, 398.
170 LG 64; cf. 63.


58 posted on 05/27/2014 8:36:25 AM PDT by stanne
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

I said four times in my posts, I cannot care whether the Church allows married priests.

Why do people care?

It’s not in the Bible. Who cares?

Why care about this?


59 posted on 05/27/2014 8:38:18 AM PDT by stanne
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To: stanne

Your my HERO! No, I am not being sarcastic.


60 posted on 05/27/2014 8:39:14 AM PDT by defconw (Well now what?)
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