Posted on 07/08/2005 10:41:30 PM PDT by gamarob1
Fathers, Husbands and Rebels: Acting outside the Catholic Church, many married priests are attracting a following.
BOSTON — The priests came from three states, converging on a suburban park one Sunday to conduct an outdoor Mass. Wearing white vestments with rainbow-hued stoles, they led the worshippers in prayer and song. They stuck closely to traditional Roman Catholic liturgy.
But as they raised their arms in blessing, the five men revealed unmistakable proof of defiance: All wore wedding bands.
These men, who still consider themselves Roman Catholic priests, have wives, children — and unflinching commitments to their 2,000-year-old faith. As married priests, they say, they are not heretical anomalies but, instead, are following a model set by priests and popes in the earliest days of their church. They are part of a growing national network of thousands of deeply religious men who believe marriage does not compromise their ability to serve as spiritual ministers.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
There is no such thing as a Catholic Priest in Christianity so who really cares if they marry or burn incense or what they do?
Hermann,
To your comment, "...many of the criminals in the Priesthood were ordained in the 1950's and 1960's well before the homosexual takeover of certain seminaries in the 1970's and early 1980's":
If we limit ourselves to only pedophilia and pederasty, we limit the scope of the problem. There's much more to this. What of heterosexuals who were just not able to control themsleves, men who went into the priesthood with pure hearts and who just were not able to live by their vows, men who did as Archbishop Cranmer did before the death of King Henry VIII? It is said that he married secretly and kept his wife in a box as he travelled about the archdiocese. My wife has told me of her parish priest (in her youth), who had a "housekeeper" and that it was well known that this housekeeper was more than just that. There are many such tales.
I do not condemn these men. I say that all of this stuff has resulted from a system that is not based on reality. And I wonder. A lot is coming out into the open now. How much went on from the 9th century to the present that we will not learn of until the dread Day of Judgement when all must give account?
I am reminded of the words of the first Pope of Rome to the Council of Jerusalem: Act 15:10 "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?"
Many Priests in the middle ages - especially in the rural parts of the northlands - were not asked to follow the law, whether they knew of it or not, and so a contrary custom was able to develop in those parts.
The stories of the Church authorities attempting to correct abuses around the time of Pope St. Gregory VII and later mainly center on France, and concerned priests who had vowed celibacy, but had not bothered to try to follow it.
The case of Archbishop Cranmer is simply another piece of the long story of men given over to lust projecting their distorted lives outwardly into the realm of doctrine. In the case of Cranmer, the "wife" you are thinking of was actually his second, and the second he had "married" AFTER his ordination.
I wasn't aware of the Orthodox Church campaigning for diagamists in the clergy, or clerical marriage after ordination, so I trust this isn't your point in bringing up such a sorry example. I would hope you could find it within yourself to condemn a man who broke not only the laws of the west on celibacy, but also the universal laws even upheld by the east against second marriages and marriages subsequent to ordination.
If those laws, which are the ones that Cranmer broke, are too heavy a yoke to bear, then the Orthodox East is as guilty of imposing this burden as the Catholic West is. Cranmer would not have faired better in the Empire or Muscovy.
The west does not force anyone to celibacy. Everyone who wants to be ordained has to freely chose both ordination and celibacy, or instead leave themselves free to marry. If someone feels that they cannot be chaste in the Priesthood though, married to their parish and foregoing intercourse with all women, there is little reason to suppose they will be chaste in marriage, where they oblige themselves to forego all women save one. Looked at from that perspective, and our Lord's warnings about lust in the heart, the committment hardly differs.
Hermann,
I'm not waging a campaign, just offering an observation as to human nature. The Latin discipline is simply on the wrong side of reality. But hey, if you want to defend it to your last breath, be my guest. St. John of Kronstadt prophesied that the day would come when the entire Roman Catholic structure would collapse. I may be very wrong, but I personally think this sex scandal thing is 1) just the tip of the iceberg and 2) the beginning of the end for the Latin organization. But that's OK. You go ahead and defend your system and I'll just watch from the sidelines as you fall. Agrarian and Kosta and MarMema and I could care less as to what sort of discipline the Pope of Rome cares to impose upon his clergy.
Dear Hermann the Cherusker,
Although I'd agree that the "boundaries" between these orientations are not hard and fast, nonetheless, I assure you that there are men who overwhelmingly are attracted sexually to men, and men who are overwhelmingly attracted sexually to women.
Men who are overwhelmingly attracted sexually to women predominate in society, probably on the order of 97% or more. Men who are overwhelmingly attracted sexually to men perhaps constitute 1% - 3% of the population.
These sexual attractions are relatively stable (although not necessarily unchangeable) and persist as an attribute of the psyche of the individual. I'm agnostic as to from where deviant same-sex attractions arise (although they are stable, I see no evidence that they are in-born, or genetic).
There are certainly ambiguities at the boundaries of these populations. Some number of men who are predominantly heterosexual are also willing to engage in homosexual activities, and some number of men who are predominantly homosexual will engage in sex with women. But the overwhelming majority of heterosexual men find the thought of sexual contact with another man to be repulsive.
Men who are overwhelmingly attracted sexually to women may also find thoughts of sodomy with women pleasant and attractive, even though these same men have absolutely no attraction to men, and the overwhelming number of these men are repulsed by the thought of sexual contact with other men. In fact, I know plenty of men who are repulsed by male-male sexual contact, but find the thought of sodomy with attractive women to be a pleasant thought.
As for what men do in extreme situations, that's another story. Nonetheless, I'll note that my own anecdotal evidence (taken from men who have served time in prison) indicates that it is a small number of aggressors who prey on a somewhat larger number of coerced victims, but even so, that most men do not have sexual contact with other men while in prison.
It is a serious problem, in that with 2 million men in prison in the United States, several hundred thousand men are involved, and most of them as victims. Nonetheless, even the pressure and distortion of prison life does not cause a large percentage of men to take sexual gratification from homosexual acts.
sitetest
God chose Paul knowing that he was up to the task of setting policy as it were, else why choose him? God chooses whom He will and is never wrong. Paul's words, his epistles are considered Scripture. One who picks and chooses which Scripture to recognize is ipso facto heretical.
Not even a mild stretch. Just trying to help you think outside of the box. If there is a deficiency in the metaphor I'd love to hear why you think so.
Then so is St. Paul.
... You go ahead and defend your system and I'll just watch from the sidelines as you fall. Best wishes.
The singular example you provided from history - of Archbishop Cranmer - was also a violation of your own system. If he is proof we are on the wrong side of reality, the proof goes against you also.
As to celibacy and chastity being contrary to reality, I must disagree vehemently. First, you do a disservice to all holy monks and nuns, and to the Roman priesthood, with such a proclamation, by declaring that they are living contrary to themselves, when the reality is that they are far more in tune with their trueself than the vast part of humanity. Second, you do a disservice to Our Lord and Lady, to St. John the Baptist, and many other Holy Prophets, Apostles, and Fathers, who also lived after this manner, by claiming that their lives and victory over the flesh was the wrong side of reality. Lastly you make a mockery of humanity, treating us as no better than animals in our ability to live chastity, and this even after the reception of grace.
That some people do not live chastely is because they do not wish to. If they wished to, and prayed for it, they would. THAT is reality, not the humans must have sex or explode into vice arguement, which is a vain modern reinvention of Freudian psychological error, a revival of the errors of Vigilantius and Jovinianus which were fought by St. Jerome and condemned by the Roman Church 1600 years ago.
I again invite you to familiarize yourself with the arguements against these errors.
Against Vigilantius - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3010.htm
Against Jovinianus - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3009.htm
If Catholic Priests WERE allowed to be married, we would then have a whole new set of problems introduced - that of clerical adultery and divorce, which we can see so often in highly publicized cases among Fundementalists. And we would still have offenders with young men, as you see also in your own Church, and as we see in secular society at large.
Marriage isn't some magic shield that protects you from all sexual immorality. Only the grace of God can do that, and that grace is not limited to the married.
You go ahead and defend your system and I'll just watch from the sidelines as you fall.
The fall will be you and your pride.
All the same, there is no creature as the homosexual, as if this is some inborn trait, rather than a mental tendency a person can free himself from with grace, just as others must free themselves from nymphomania, kleptomania, or congenital lying.
Homosexuality appears stable because it is quasi-illegal to try to convert people from it.
Cranmer was, I grant, a poor example. But he was hardly an example of the Orthodox discipline as to the episcopate because, he was an Oxford don, not a monk, upon being tapped by the king to be Abp.
Now as to the rest, why such hostility? The Orthodox have no desire to force you to change your system. Do as you wish. St. Photius the Great was appalled by it but he also knew that it fell outside his jurisdiction. If you really want to go down in flames with your system, have at it.
Dear Hermann the Cherusker,
Sure there are creatures who are homosexuals. Just as there are creatures who are alcoholics. And kleptomaniacs, nymphomaniacs, etc.
Whether these defects are in-born or not hardly seems the question, to me. We all have our crosses. There is no excuse for not trying to carry them, no matter how often one might fall.
"Homosexuality appears stable because it is quasi-illegal to try to convert people from it."
I think that homosexuality is relatively stable in many persons. The political correctness surrounding this spiritual disorder is of relatively recent origin, yet in the past, the attraction to persons of the same sex appeared persistent in some individuals.
sitetest
It seems to me that you would agree with this statement. It says exactly what you are saying. I wasn't aware that you are one with the Mohammedans in your beliefs.
Islam does not believe in unnatural life. It demands a life according to the law of nature. Hence, Islam does not approve of a piety which is based on the suppression of sensual urge of man. Proper channel for releasing sexual energy leaves a person physical and mentally satiated and satisfied. It gives a sense of relief and saves from depravity, degradation and sexual perversions. Observing asceticism and celibacy means unnatural, improper and unprincipled life.
http://anwary-islam.com/life/married-life.htm
When he took his post, he became a cleric.
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/thomas-cranmer.html
Thomas Cranmer entered the ministry for a simple reason: his father only had enough land to give his eldest son, so Thomas and his younger brother - as poor members of the gentry - joined the clergy. Cranmer was given a fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge in 1510, which he lost when he married the daughter of a local tavern-keeper. She died in childbirth, at which point he was re-accepted by the college and devoted himself to study. He took holy orders in 1523
So Cranmer had already been married once prior to ordination. Orthodox Canon Law prohibits any subsequent marriage to clerics after their first, and prohibits those already ordained from marrying for a first or second time.
Cranmer was sent to Germany to learn more about the Lutheran movement, where he met Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran reformer whose ideology appealed to him. Osiander's niece also appealed to him, and Cranmer and the niece, Margaret, were married that year. Cranmer was becoming a Protestant… in the Kings Court! On March 30, 1533, he became Archbishop of Canterbury, and forced (for a time) to hide his married state.
So his second "marriage" was after ordination and after a previous marriage. Both acts are violations of Orthodox Canon Law. Further, his second marriage was prior to become Archbishop, so his later epsicopal orders have no bearing on this.
Again, you example is of a man who violated the laws of celibacy which still unite the East and West - no diagamists, and no marriages after ordination.
Now as to the rest, why such hostility?
Hostility? You are the one being hostile by attacking the Latin discipline as against nature and reality. I am pointing out that this language of yours and your stance is a heresy St. Jerome wrote against and which the Apostolic See condemned 1600 years ago. I'm sorry if you think that is hostility - I took it as pointing out the facts. So you then call me hostile? I think you are projecting your own feelings onto me.
St. Photius the Great was appalled by it but he also knew that it fell outside his jurisdiction.
St. Photios is another poor example for your arguments. Just as you were drawing the distinction that Bishops must be Monks, you bring up the infamous person of the layman Photios hurried into the Episcopal state to become Patriarch.
Of course, if he really believed it fell out of his jurisdiction, then why did he anathematize the Pope partially on those grounds?
If you really want to go down in flames with your system, have at it.
The Catholic Church continues to grow and prosper aroudn the world. Where is this "going down in flames" you keep referring to. Is this a fantasy of yours or something?
No question about it. Cranmer was a bad dude.
But as to St. Photius the Great, it's been a long time since I reviewed the "Photian Schism". I was not aware that he declared the Pope of Rome to be anathema, or that he did so because of the Latin discipline as to clerical celibacy.
We are not the original creatures God made, but rather fallen. And with fallen nature, you have imperfect offspring. And through us, the rest of Creation became corrupt. However, one can observe that in absence of females, or out of some "inborn tendency," animals do not engage in same-gender sex. So, homosexual behavior is an anomaly on the level of anima.
Human anima has no instincts past infancy. Everything we do and choose is a product of some type of learning. So, if there is a homosexual "creature" it is not inherited or congenital.
I would say it was over filioque. Celibacy is a discipline in the Church, not theology.
What God may want vs. what man wants. Big deal.
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