To embellish His Eminence's presentation, in the Maronite Church, only celibate priests are assigned outside of Lebanon. As my Maronite pastor pointed out, the biggest problem in the West is the lack of reverence for the Sacrament of Matrimony, resulting in large scale divorce. This is less of a problem in the East.
To embellish His Eminence's presentation, in the Maronite Church, only celibate priests are assigned outside of Lebanon. As my Maronite pastor pointed out, the biggest problem in the West is the lack of reverence for the Sacrament of Matrimony, resulting in large scale divorce. This is less of a problem in the East.
A question for you, NYer. It appears to me that on a per capita basis, eastern Catholics in the U.S. have many more priests than our RCC counterparts.
Am I missing something, or is the "priest shortage" being felt more in the western church?
I guess they could all just read the Bible where it says that preachers are all married (1 Timothy 3), and the part where Paul says forbidding to marry is a doctrine of demons. Then this discussion would be over for the RCC, Maronites, etc...
I guess they could all just read the Bible where it says that preachers are all married (1 Timothy 3), and the part where Paul says forbidding to marry is a doctrine of demons. Then this discussion would be over for the RCC, Maronites, etc...
These are very good points that are not often considered in all the hand-wringing over Latin Rite celibacy.