Posted on 05/25/2005 10:35:49 PM PDT by sinkspur
THE leader of Scotland's Catholics has risked reigniting a row over married priests by predicting the Vatican will eventually relent and allow the practice.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, said the success of married deacons in the church means the change is likely.
The church leader has upset traditional Catholics in the past with his views on celibacy, homosexuality and the priesthood.
His latest comments were made in an interview with the Catholic Times, which will be published on Sunday,
Asked if he believed married priests will become a reality, he said: "Having seen something of the apostolate of married deacons, I can foresee the day when there will be married priests."
The Cardinal has angered conservative Catholics in the past with his acceptance of gay priests, as long as they remained celibate.
However, since being elevated to the College of Cardinals he has espoused views more in line with Vatican teachings. Cardinal O'Brien's latest comments drew criticism from the right-wing Catholic Truth movement.
A spokesman for the group said: "He is trying to say that he is not necessarily personally in favour of this but we can debate it. It's a sleekit way of trying to have his cake and eat it."
However, a poll of 80 Catholic priests in Scotland conducted only last month suggested 40 per cent believed they should be allowed to marry, but the issue remains thorny to many conservative Catholics.
Cardinal O'Brien gained a reputation as a liberal after he said in 2002, before he became a cardinal, that he saw no end to theological argument against celibacy within the priesthood.
A day later he issued a joint statement with Mario Conti, the archbishop of Glasgow, in which the pair said: "While no-one would suggest clerical celibacy is an unchangeable discipline, we believe it has an enormous value."
The following year he risked angering conservatives again when he broached the subject of married priests.
He said in a thanksgiving mass that the church should have "at every level" a discussion about clerical celibacy.
He said the argument for married priests was supported by the case of married Anglican priests who have converted to Catholicism and been allowed to continue their ministries.
However, at the ecclesiastical senate in Rome in October 2003, he made a statement at the end of the Nicene Creed in which he affirmed support of the church's teachings on celibacy, contraception and homosexuality.
It was claimed at the time, but denied, that the added words were said under pressure from the Vatican.
Since then the Cardinal has been careful not to speak out on any of the issues that caused so much controversy.
A spokesman for the Church said today that the Cardinal's comments were not incompatible with his profession of faith in 2003.
He said: "It is a neutral comment on the issue, it is neither a ringing endorsement of the concept, neither is it an outright denunciation."
heh! What is it with people? Why can't they just form their own branch like the hootnanny churches do? It's not as if the Vatican is going to send the Swiss Army after them.
It will be interesting to see if B-16 slaps this down.
It's about ambition and power. It's about saying "my ambition is more important than your rules, and my power will change your rules, and I will be in charge." It's about marking territory.
It's no different than a feral cat spraying its territory. "This institution will serve ME. This is MY turf." Not one bit of difference.
I've discovered what you've been referring to all along...
http://www.angelfire.com/pa3/OldWorldBasic/AmChurch1.htm
Remember that article earlier tonight, on the reunion of the Anglicans, Orthodox and Catholics?
That will hasten it even more.
Could you point me to the article you are talking about?
Precisely. CFC is all about Frances Kissling saying "This Church will bow to MY gospel, the book of Frances." She's marking her territory by rhetorically pissing all over the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
And why? So she and her ilk can feel GOOD about infanticide.
It is all guess work, but I have this gut instinct that B-16 in his presumably relatively short term, has at least one big surprise to offer up. I don't think this practical intellectual has a do nothing but further calcify and ossify mind set. We shall see.
You had my comment in #2 pulled. How quaint.
All I did was point out how this article is your big dream come true! I used a different word that better captures your sense of excitement, and the accuracy of it really made you nervous.
You can't just paper over things like this. There's something desperately wrong about a Vatican that would hand a red hat to this man.
bookmark
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