Posted on 04/07/2005 5:00:46 AM PDT by Teófilo
I guarantee I'd laugh it off, just as I would if it were said by Mormons or Muslims.
Well, have a nice day.
Hey, according to your church, I and all my brethren are anathema.
So, maybe I'm just returning the favor. :-)
Where do you get that idea?
The teaching of the Church is obviously that being a visible member of the Church is best. What church doesn't think that about itself?
But Church teaching has always allowed for the idea of "invincible ignorance": that one will not be held accountable for that which he is unable to know.
With God, all things are possible, after all.
While I have my disagreements with aspects of Protestant theology, I hope that I may nevertheless approach discussion thereof with charity. I certainly try to do so with my dad, who is Methodist, as does he with me.
Ofcourse. Always ready to give reason for the joy in my heart.
Windmills?
LOL! Y==== {windmill emoticon}
I think it was the Council of Trent or Nicea or something like that. Maybe Vatican II. Anyway, the gist of it was that anyone who says salvation comes by faith alone is anathema.
First conciliar legislation regarding lex continentiae: Canons XXVII and XXXIII of the Council of Elvira 295-302 Anno Domini.
"The FSSP won't allow their priests to concelebrate with the bishop or other priests for fear of being "contaminated" by the Novus Ordo. I can see why a bishop wouldn't want this attitude in his diocese."
This is a baldfaced lie. In fact, while the constitutions of the order prohibited it, the Vatican overruled this several years ago, and there are some FSSP priests every year who "concelebrate" the Chrism Mass with their local Ordinary.
Why not FORCE the Eastern-rite priests and the Orthodox priests to "concelebrate" the Novus Ordo too? Why is this concern only for the Traditional rite of the Latin rite?
I don't know where the word "threaten" was used. But in any case, the immemorial custom of the Church stood for 1995 years. Customarily, the acolytes who served Mass were a minor order step to the priesthood.
Psychologically, when 10, 11 and 12-year-old girls take over from 10,11 and 12-year-old boys who have to be encouraged to serve anyway, then the boys disappear. There are very few activities of responsibility left anywhere any more where boys can have responsibility and comaraderie to development their manhood without girls being foisted on them.
And then later on, those dioceses which have a vast majority of altar girls have no priets. Voila!!! Then we get into debates about why we should allow married men to be priests and women priestesses. All because we ignore the root cause of the problem.
Really?
In fact, while the constitutions of the order prohibited it,
Then it wasn't a lie.
the Vatican overruled this several years ago, and there are some FSSP priests every year who "concelebrate" the Chrism Mass with their local Ordinary.
Where are they? I know one of these guys, and he came to a priest's funeral here last year--one of his classmates--and sat in the front pew in his cassock, lace surplice and biretta and read his office during the entire Mass. He didn't receive the Eucharist, and left before Mass was over so he wouldn't have to sprinkle the body with Holy Water.
I wouldn't let a weirdo like this anywhere near my diocese if I were a bishop.
Why not FORCE the Eastern-rite priests and the Orthodox priests to "concelebrate" the Novus Ordo too? Why is this concern only for the Traditional rite of the Latin rite?
Because the FSSP priests report to the bishop of the Latin Rite diocese. The Eastern Rite priests don't.
Indeed that is our Lord's standard for who should stay single. But it says nothing whatsoever about our Lord's standard for becoming priests. At least some of the Apostles to whom he made this comment, were married men, yet the Lord himself ordained them.
The later-ordained celibate Apostle Paul, who taught that singless opened unique opportunities to serve, nevertheless instructed believers who couldn't handle celibacy to marry, and also instructed that bishops should be "men of one wife". Even if one interprets this latter passage as prohibiting polygamists, the divorced, etc, rather than forbidding the single, nevertheless certainly he permitted married bishops -- and stricly forbade marital abstinence except as part of temporary periods of fasting and prayer.
True. But the argument being advanced here, is that a restoration of the ancient custom of married priests, might make it easier to resist and reverse this homosexual takeover.
Of course I'm an Evangelical, so it doesn't directly affect me, but the cultural ripple effects hit everyone eventually. So I see it's in my own interest that the Catholics resist the homosexual movement. I hope and pray the moral traditionalists win.
On what authority do you base your interpretation?
Tolle lege. In context.
Well spoken on the "altar girl" nonsense afflicting the Roman Catholic Church, M. I am Orthodox myself but many of my friends and family are Catholic and I often attend weddings or other services in their churches. I have always sensed a truly nasty "Hey, lookit me!! I'm an altar girl!!" spirit of pride and an idiotic worship of modernism in these imps and their supporters. I hope the next Bishop of Rome will be able to restore order on the "west side" of Christendom. Sure, we have our problems in the Eastern Church but oh brother do I feel sorry for you guys...
Is it time?
No, it isn't.
"What is so wrong with sex within marriage that makes God require priests to forgo it?"
There is absolutely nothing wrong with sex within marriage - it is good and we should have as much of it and as many children as possible.
If it was wrong, the Church would require all of us to forego it. The grace of the celibate calling is that the celibate offers up in sacrifice something that is good to God - his or her fertility. If it was not a good that they were sacrificing for God, then their sacrifice would have no meaning and no value.
They offer something that is very good and precious to God in order that they may achieve a higher good - the total consecration of self to God, above and before all others.
If people approach celibacy with the idea that sex is something bad or grubby they miss the point. Also those who approach it as a negative deprivation of something miss the point, and in both cases they will struggle with it. It should be positively offered to God as a sacrifice of a very great and holy gift.
To tell you the gospel truth, this is the thing that causes me to hold priests most in awe. I mean, I love God, but to give up sex for life?
I could take a vow like that, in a moment of headstrong belief in my own power. But it'd be a vow I would be destined to break.
Soon.
I do not know how they do it. Truly I don't.
And I am pollyannaish to actually believe that the priests I meet really are celibate (even if you installed hidden cameras all over their house), and that they really have that level of committment.
It isn't faith. I have faith. I'm sure God is there, as sure as any priest. Had visions and the like. But even with certitude and genuine love for God, there...is...just...no...way...I...could...do...it.
Given that I am a pollyanna and believe that almost all priests really DO do it, really do keep their vow of chastity, I see each and every one of them as living proof that men truly are sometimes CALLED by God to serve in that capacity. Without that grace, that charism of the holy spirit to protect them against the screaming hormones that sometimes flow in my veins, they could not do it.
The fact that priests take that vow, and are celibate, is the strongest of all proofs to my simple eyes that they really are under a special grace of God extended specifically to be able to do the priestly role.
I DON'T think this necessarily makes them HOLIER (although it ain't hard to be holier than me), but I DO think that it demonstrates that one does not CHOOSE to be a minister of God. Rather, God chooses you, and makes you capable of fulfilling that role, and the greatest sign of that is that He makes you able to fulfill a vow of celibacy.
Precisely because I could never do it, but priests routinely do, I hold celibacy as a sign of divine grace, and the most imposing way I could possibly imagine whereby God could really demonstrate to the world who HE wants as his priests.
That said, I've always found it funny to call them "Father", given Jesus' comments about not calling anybody "father". Now, I assume Jesus didn't mean "Don't call your dad you dad", but I figure he was referring to customs of the time of doing what we Catholics do with our priests, revering them by calling them "father".
Of course, I don't know what else I'd call a priest if we didn't call them father..."your blessedness", perhaps?
Anyway that was all stuff that didn't need to be said, but now I can't take it back, can I?
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