[JohnHuang2]

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Quote of the Day by McGavin999

[cgk]

I go back and forth on this issue. The offenders took vows of celibacy, and have broken them. They knew from before Day 1, that it was a requirement for the service. Would not ending celibacy for priests be akin to rewarding the offenders? Making them the new "revolutionaries" who got the church out of its "archaic" views? I fear that.

On the other hand, would ending celibacy end this abuse of children and minors? Celibacy does not specify age, only ALL sex, regardless. Would a man who is married, and a priest, have an aversion to molesting a child in his "care" if he already had an attraction to the innocent, and voiceless?

Mrs Kus

[Spar]

Why do Eastern rites catholic get a pass at celibacy? Their priests can marry.

I guess if I was for example Irish and wanted to a wife and wanted to be a priest in the Catholic church I would head on out to one of those Uniate Churches and get all that I want via a very big Papal loophole.

[Tax Government]

End celibacy for priests. It is pointless, draws some of the wrong kind of people into the clergy, and occurs in old age in any case.

What kind of inappopriate, intrusive, voyeuristic attention to other people's personal lives gave rise to the celibacy requirement in the first place?

[The Raven]

I think they should end celibacy for married people.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Catholic priests have a dual devotion to God and parishioners — there simply isn't room in their lives for families of their own.

I disagree with the argument that priests don't have room in their lives for families. Some of the priests have spent plenty of time and energy molesting kids, instead of on their pastorly duties. The sex-obsessed priests with homosexual compulsions spent untold hours plotting their predatory strategies.

The straight priests,on the other hand, may be living lives of desperate lonliness. Parishioners may want their priests to be celibate, but how long can the church survive if mothers refuse to send their sons to what they see as gay-dominated seminaries?

This problem will not be solved for decades because so many people think that celibacy is necessary. The question is, "How many are actualy celibate?"

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

If reports cited by Father Donald Cozzens, a former head of a seminary, in his book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood" are correct, then 25 to 50 percent of American priests are gay.

I want to know where Cozzens gets his numbers? If he is basing it on what he witnesssed while he was running a seminary and tolerated it, then he is part of the problem.

[Don Myers]

You know, I am not sure that celibacy is one of their problems right now.

[Antoninus]

Since it's relevant, let's let St. Paul have a say on this:

"But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord: how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world: how he may please his wife. And he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord: that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she that is married thinketh on the things of the world: how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your profit, not to cast a snare upon you, but for that which is decent and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord, without impediment."
1 Corinthians 7:8-9, 32-35

I agree.

Get rid of priestly celibacy? Bad idea.

Defrock priests who don't take their vows seriously? Great idea.

[DallasDeb]

Catholic priests have a dual devotion to God and parishioners — there simply isn't room in their lives for families of their own.

If priests could marry, there would be more of them to share the duties. Thing I can't figure out is, if a married Deacon's wife dies, the Deacon must then thereafter live a celibate life.