Posted on 03/28/2002 11:34:00 AM PST by Romulus
I don't personally have a problem with married priests as my own parish priest is married----and a most holy and wonderful man he is, but THIS...
Further, and worse, the mere fact of change would encourage those in the Catholic Church who also want women priests and homosexual marriages.
is also my fear if the Church decides on a wide scale to admit married men to the priesthood.
Priests who live in community takes vows of poverty. I'm not sure all do, however.
You must differentiate between dogma, which is forever, and practice, which may change.
The question to ask is, "Where does God draw the line?" If he draws the line here, and we have drawn the line 10 feet behind it, "why"? Even if drawing that line there was valid in the past (no married men), is it valid for today? Don't confuse dogma with practice. God draws the line at women, but he does not appear to draw the line at married men. IF he does, why has the church allowed married Episcopalians to become RC priests today?
God apparently does allow married men, so shouting down those who question the celibacy rule is like shouting God down. The topic should, at least, be open for discussion.
And all of those are still dogmas--not practices. The celibate priesthood is not a dogma. Please do some more studying. If God had said "no", it would be a dogma, and there would be no married priests in the church today. Remember, the church never changes in practice of dogma? Well, it already has, as it already has married priests. A real problem if you believe the church never errs when it comes to dogma, don't you think?
This is an important point that is missed far too often in the debate about celibacy within the Catholic Church. Actually two important points.
The first is that our modern view of sexuality, which is often described as "natural" is in fact anything but. We live in one of the most sex obsessed cultures the world has ever known. We've taken the healthy, normal, and natural human sexual desires and exagerrated them in frequently bizarre ways. This is hardly a healthy "baseline" from which to derive permanent rules of sexual conduct for a universal Church for the ages.
The second is that celibacy is therefore, not less relevant as many of the worldly contend, but rather more important than ever. It stands as a firm rebuke to the spirit of our overly lustful age. It is a constant reminder that there are more important things than sex, and higher callings than those of the body.
Any notion of opening the Catholic priesthood to married men (which I think is a healthy topic to discuss regardless of one's position on the issue) must be careful not to demean the value of celibacy for the message it sends to a society that increasingly cannot see anything more important than sex.
More and more churches are being run by the laity.....especially WOMEN laity, because of the shortage of priests. One priest cannot adequately care for thousands of Catholics, unless dispensing the sacraments is the only thing you think a good priest needs to do. Is it any wonder that the feminazis have taken control of so many parishes?
I should have placed more emphasis on this, because I too think it's important. Thanks.
There is no Biblical reason why the church cannot have a married clergy and a celibate clergy. The two can exist side by side, and work well together. Much like a large family with married and celibate members.
Podles gets to the heart of the matter when he states that married or celibate, the clergy MUST BE strongly masculine.
I look forward to he new book by this very sensible man.
I submitted a proposed web design to Dale Vree, but got no response. And I've also offered - and emailed - HTML-ized scans of the printed journal to the webmaster, but apparently he hasn't used them. Much of the older material is only available in printed form, but the newer stuff is available to the webmaster as "captured keystrokes" in some non-HTML format.
For my own archival purposes, I intend to burn a CD-ROM with all of my back-issues using the structure of the website I designed. I'll then send a copy to Mr. Vree and let him make what he will of it - I think subscribers might want to buy it. But it's a big, tedious project, and nowhere close to being done.
For now, I'll work on getting this review up, if I can manage it before I have to turn my attention to final preparation of music for tonight's Easter Vigil.
And, on being in love, there is this:
> "Celibacy is hardest when we fall out of love with Christ. Then it becomes a great burden. I could draw a curve of my own life, and I am sure any priest could draw a comparable one, and my attitude toward celibacy would be seen always in direct relationship to my personal love of Christ. Once our passions cease to burn for Him, then they begin to burn toward creatures...Christ on the Cross and Christ in the Eucharist forever become the touchstone of the question of celibacy. The more we fall away from response to that gift, the less we want to look at a crucifix, the less we want to vist the Lord in His Sacrament."
from Bishop Fulton Sheen's book Treasures in Clay in a chapter entitled "Reflections on Celibacy," sent in to OSV by Father Joseph Follmar.
Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it does breed complancency. The sacred can become mundane if one doesn't constantly renew one's sense of wonder, and deepen one's understanding. As you say, it's a relationship with God we are called to live out in every moment of our lives.
St. Paul's admonition to "pray constantly" in order to focus on things above, was taken up by John Cassian, who advocated what we would call today the "prayer of the heart". With every inhalation, one prays "God, come to my assistance," and with every exhalation, "Lord, make haste to help me." These are the Psalm verses with which each of the Divine Offices begins. The readings, prayers, hymns, and psalmody spread throughout the day puts in perspective where our heart really belongs: not to the world but to Christ.
So, as a practical way of addressing some of these problems, I would advocate the public recitation of the Office in every parish church, preferably at the appropriate hours of the day, with the laity encouraged to attend and participate. It's not a panacea, of course, but it would at least reprioritize one's life. The public nature would ensure that the priests are fulfilling their obligations as well. I think it's far more important than attending another committee meeting, or doing some of the countless things that tie up a priest's time, many of which could be handled by the laity.
Thank God for Fulton Sheen! We need another like him.
I'll look forward to reading the new book. Thanks.
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