[NYer]

This article appears as an Editorial in this week's edition of The National Catholic Register. There is no link.

[franky]

Dear NYer:

I subscribe to the Register. How do you get their articles to post? Their Web site does not appear to have these type articles.

Regards

Franky

[Tantumergo]

"There are even a FEW married priests in the Catholic Church today - in some Eastern Catholic rites, and in a few cases of Protestant ministers who converted."

Considering that there are several thousand such priests, he must have an interesting definition of "few"!

[Salvation]

For later.

[m4629]

Nothing beats the time tested winning formula. Agenda for the opposite is to be treated with high suspicion.

[SaltyJoe]

I see the survival of a celibate Roman Catholic priesthood as a message of God's Spirit being present in the Catholic Faith.

This observance doesn't mean to question God's presence in other Rites, their authority to proclaim Christ's teachings, and be custodians of the Sacraments. Rather, it should show Faithful observers of the blessings bestowed upon the succession of Popes. If God's Spirit weren't with Roman Catholics, the celibate priests of this Church would have wilted and died a very long time ago.

I see a similarity of God's presence with His Chosen, the Jews. Any other people would have been destroyed by time, mankind's cruelty, and amalgamation (inter-racial/inter-faith marriage). That Jews have survived all manner of persecution is testimony to God's Covenant which He still Honors.

[RKBA Democrat]

I stray from the reservation a bit on this one.

Celibacy for priests is a practice and a tradition within the latin rite church. From what I've read, it isn't as much a practice or a tradition within the eastern rite churches, except in the U.S. and Canada.

I think there is plenty of room within the larger church for both perspectives. I think that as a practical matter it is necessary for the western church to continue with it's traditions and practices, and for the eastern church to continue with it's. I do not agree with eastern catholic priests in the U.S. and Canada needing to amend their practices to conform with the latin norm.

[Tax-chick]

Taken to its logical end, this is an argument not just for an end to celibacy by priests, but an end to the prohibition of sex outside of marriage. After all, we expect unmarried men who aren’t priests to abstain, too.

Bingo! It's funny how many of the so-called "controversial" issues regarding the church really just involve people saying, "We're just upright apes, after all ... we gotta scr*w!"

[Desdemona]

Notice how in 100 years, these topics have become "controversial". It's all just a part of trying to destroy the church.

[biblewonk]

1 Tim 4:3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.