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To: wideawake

The problem in that line of argument is two-fold.

First it reads something into the next, namely that the Apostle Paul's thoughts on the issue are conditional ie "What I have to say is only good for a while until there are enough like me..."

Second the undivided Church understood this passage to mean that Clergy could be married because they continued to be so for a number of centuries in the West and continue to be so in the East. So clearly the earliest thinkers in the undivided Church understood that marriage was an option for clergy. Later councils shaping canons on the issue also affirm that marriage was an option by the very act of their attempting to regulate clerical marriage. All of this is completely in line with a passage in 1 Corinthians where the Apostle Paul (9:5) indicates that the Apostles, including Peter (Cephas) traveled in their ministries with their wives and the even earlier tradition of Levitcal Priests being married.

Quite frankly the idea that MANDATORY celibacy for clergy is ancient, apostolic, and the general rule of the Church simply does not have the textual or historical evidence to stand. Even the Roman Church does not define the mandatory celibacy of clergy as a dogma but rather as a discipline. It is the same in the East where the mandatory celibacy of Bishops is a rule born not of antiquity but rather of practical discipline and most would not claim otherwise.


52 posted on 10/03/2005 2:47:07 PM PDT by Polycarp1
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To: Polycarp1

Given that, there is also evidence to support the proposition that the Easterns found a way to ignore a decision-for-celibacy made at Nicea, c. 328.

Some say the message-runner suffered a fatal accident and his message was lost...

Obviously, Rome has decided to live with the Eastern situation as-is; that's fine.


62 posted on 10/03/2005 3:41:50 PM PDT by ninenot (Minister of Membership, Tomas Torquemada Gentlemen's Club)
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To: Polycarp1; BlackElk; ninenot
Did you realize that the passage in Corinthians you cite to demonstrate that Peter and the others had a "wife",uses the same word for "wife" that Jesus uses when addressing his Mother at the Wedding in Cana? Interesting,no?
74 posted on 10/03/2005 6:59:43 PM PDT by saradippity
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