Re: "If there is no dogma against priests marrying, and cost is the only reason not to allow them to marry, I don't see that as a good reason."
You did not read my post. Cost was only one and your opinion does not matter. There were other reasons with chapter and verse. Please read again.
Re: " If the number of priests is declining and Catholic churches are having to close their doors, then doesn't it make sense to allow priests to marry so that you will be able to open seminaries to more young men who are just as qualified to be good priests but who also want to marry and have families?"
You have focused on just one small part of may post. Please reread. When you have done so I will address the above but not until then. It is the more important part and I suspect there is a reason you have sailed right past it. I will not address the above because I want you to first address the salient part.
The job of the Roman Catholic Church is to confront and fight the world and not to conform to it.
Why the matter of the celibacy of the Roman rite of the Roman catholic Church is such an endless source of fascination to those who do not even belong to the Church is beyond me.
Whatever the church to which you may belong may do what it pleases. This is, after all, America. OTOH, whatever the Roman Catholic Church does in self-governance is Roman Catholic business and not yours. You are also wrong in saying that Catholics all offer criticism of other religions here. I hold my tongue and so do many other Catholics.
Many of us reserve our fire for those who CLAIM to be Catholic while being one or another form of schismatic or attack the Roman Catholic Church and its disciplines and its teachings from within, while making alliance with its secularist enemies on the outside like homosexuals, abortion and birth control supporters.
Any Catholic candidate for the priesthood who feels he simply CANNOT LIVE without being married AND being a priest simultaneously can seek the priesthood in several other rites of the Roman Catholic Church which allow exactly that.
Protestants can feel free to regard their respective individual flavors of Christianity to be the wave of the future. As always, Catholics will disagree with that and Catholics always will disagree with that. We are not Protestants. We are not reformed Christians. We are not Sola Fide. We are not Sola Scriptura. We are not Sola Gratia. In all three of those, may we never be. We do allow marriage of clergy without much regulation as other faiths may do.
Just because we insist on being Catholic, don't take it personally. Many of us also recognize the many fine qualities displayed by those who are reformed Christians, their faiths, their dedication to the word and Word of the Lord, the manifest morality of their judgments and their lives, their awesome contributions to such common goals as pro-life, pro-family, evangelization of non-Christians, and so much more.
What we want and what is part of our tradition in the Roman rite, is young men burning with a zeal for sacrificing much to serve God, such a zeal as to turn their backs on worldly things (many of them great goods in themselves like marriage and family) to be the heroes we expect them to be. Watering down the priesthood anmd its requirements is compromising with the world. We intend to conquer that world and not compromise with it. With Jesus Christ, all things are possible, as I suspect you would agree. Our ways are not your ways in this simple matter of ecclesiastical discipline.
God bless you and yours!
The job of the Roman Catholic Church is to confront and fight the world and not to conform to it.
Why the matter of the celibacy of the Roman rite of the Roman catholic Church is such an endless source of fascination to those who do not even belong to the Church is beyond me.
Whatever the church to which you may belong may do what it pleases. This is, after all, America. OTOH, whatever the Roman Catholic Church does in self-governance is Roman Catholic business and not yours. You are also wrong in saying that Catholics all offer criticism of other religions here. I hold my tongue and so do many other Catholics.
Many of us reserve our fire for those who CLAIM to be Catholic while being one or another form of schismatic or attack the Roman Catholic Church and its disciplines and its teachings from within, while making alliance with its secularist enemies on the outside like homosexuals, abortion and birth control supporters.
Any Catholic candidate for the priesthood who feels he simply CANNOT LIVE without being married AND being a priest simultaneously can seek the priesthood in several other rites of the Roman Catholic Church which allow exactly that.
Protestants can feel free to regard their respective individual flavors of Christianity to be the wave of the future. As always, Catholics will disagree with that and Catholics always will disagree with that. We are not Protestants. We are not reformed Christians. We are not Sola Fide. We are not Sola Scriptura. We are not Sola Gratia. In all three of those, may we never be. We do allow marriage of clergy without much regulation as other faiths may do.
Just because we insist on being Catholic, don't take it personally. Many of us also recognize the many fine qualities displayed by those who are reformed Christians, their faiths, their dedication to the word and Word of the Lord, the manifest morality of their judgments and their lives, their awesome contributions to such common goals as pro-life, pro-family, evangelization of non-Christians, and so much more.
What we want and what is part of our tradition in the Roman rite, is young men burning with a zeal for sacrificing much to serve God, such a zeal as to turn their backs on worldly things (many of them great goods in themselves like marriage and family) to be the heroes we expect them to be. Watering down the priesthood anmd its requirements is compromising with the world. We intend to conquer that world and not compromise with it. With Jesus Christ, all things are possible, as I suspect you would agree. Our ways are not your ways in this simple matter of ecclesiastical discipline.
God bless you and yours!