This oughta do it...
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."
Newgeezer: Great to know that the feeling is mutual.
Annalex: Your Faith is admirable. Your patience awe-inspiring. Some of us cannot muster as much cghairty as you do.
Everyone else: Apparently all it took was for me to let #1 daughter use computer for half an hour (i.e. for me to shut up for half an hour and let you guys in) to bring about helter-skelter retreat of the usual gang of suspects. High fives! I am taking #3 daughter to he softball game. Imagine what you guys can do over three hours or so!
So, is "cghairty" the Celtic word for charity?
LOL
A couple "graven images" ought to do the trick. LOL
Interesting observation.
True. True. We could also ping a priest and refer to him as "Father".
You rang? How may we assist our Maronite sister?
Kolo! Great to hear from you! Just take a look around at the fruitloop posts from these protestants who hijacked this thread. They claim, among other things, that there is no biblical justification for the priesthood. Okay, take a moment to pull yourself together after the laughing fit induced by the previous sentence!
Ah, well give me some time to get home to the library and see what the Fathers have to say. I'll be back, young sister/cousin. By the way, the old country was great. The wine cold, the lamb delicious and the fish fresh with a rather dramatically higher level of theological discourse in the monastery than one usually finds around here (the political discussions were a bit less one sided too!).
I am not a sister, but since you are so kind to ask, would you comment on the use of hieros and presbyteros in patristic texts? Does it reflect a distinction between a priest effecting a sacrament and a priest as an administrative elder?
Yes! Now this is going to get interesting. Quick, somebody, call the protestants back.
This oughta do it...
Meanwhile, I'll just continue to mind my own business.
Words cannot express how hard I am laughing right now... *practically choking*...
However, I think it's going to take a ping to get them back. I don't think I should be the one to do it. They'll see my name and know something is up. Annalex should do it. She's been consistently nice to them!
Hey, welcome back! We started to miss you.
If anyone has a question, they know where to find me.
I am, by the way, a He. My dear Ann is, still, a Protestant...
Her loss, eh?
Your friend Kolokotronis doesn't strike me as one who would be inclined to turn his back on an honest debate. It would also be a huge surprise if he would either sink to your level of name-calling or join in the hedonism of the mob-mentality gabfest of late.
There may yet be hope for this sorry thread.
Whoopsy. Sorry, sir.
Calling out the big guns, aren't ya?
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