"While admitting married men into the priesthood would solve some problems, it would "create other equally serious" problems, he said in his Oct. 7 talk."
He's right.
A married priest has to provide for his wife and children and their education, he said. It also becomes difficult if not impossible for the bishop to transfer a priest and his whole family if tensions arise in the parish because the priest "does not have a good relationship with his parishioners."
Funny he'd think about these issues, a) money and b) the power of a hierarch to move a priest. As to the first, if the Roman Church ordains married men, the Church, meaning essentially the laity will just have to pay up; we Orthodox do, at least in countries where there is no state church. The second id even easier. If the priest becomes a problem in the parish, the bishop moves him whether he and/or his family like it or not. Its called obedience.
The real problem with a married priesthood is divorce and the attendant scandal among the faithful, especially if it involves adultery and even more especially if it is the priest who is the adulterer. That very situation is happening right now in one of our GOA parishes out West. Its awful.
" The church needs to clarify its position concerning the nature of the Eucharist, he (Bishop Orowae) said.
"Some feel that eucharistic hospitality is important," that "the Eucharist is food for the hungry, not a reward for being good."
He added that there was concern the Eucharist not be seen as "an elitist sacrament" but as "a celebration of the generosity of God."
"Others feel that the Eucharist be given only to those who are adequately prepared," he said. "How should the church explain these different opinions?"
Bishop Denis Browne of Hamilton, New Zealand, president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops' Conferences of Oceania, told the synod Oct. 7: "We, as church, need to be continually open to finding ways in which the Eucharist can become easily available to all our faithful people."
Really????: "He, therefore, who approaches the Body and Blood of Christ in commemoration of Him who died for us and rose again must be free not only from defilement of flesh and spirit, in order that he may not eat drink unto judgement, but he must actively manifest the remembrance of Him who died for us and rose again, by being dead to sin, to the world, and to himself, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus, our Lord." St. Basil The Great, "Concerning Baptism" Book I, Ch. 3
And some silly people simply can't understand why we Orthodox say that the Latin Church does not teach the same Faith as we do and thus we are unwilling to rush into the embrace of Rome!
When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope in April, one of our parishioners asked Abouna if he thought the Latin Church might 'relax' its rules on married clergy in the Latin Church. His response is too long to post but one that I have shared on previous threads. Essentially, he noted that in the East, matrimony is still viewed as a Sacrament; whereas in the West, divorce rates demonstrate that it has lost its sacramental value (I'm ad libbing probably with poor choice of words). In order for married men to serve as priests, they must view take their marriage vows seriously. Marriage is a Sacrament as is Holy Orders. Married candidates to the priesthood in the Maronite Catholic Church, are subjected to scrupulous evaluation, along with their family, before being allowed to proceed with ordination to the deaconate. It's a long and slow process to reach the priesthood. The Maronite Church still places a much higher value on celibacy. As Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Cardinal Sfeir pointed out in his comments to ther Synod,
"celibacy is the most precious jewel in the treasury of the Catholic Church,"
Lamenting a culture which is all but outright opposed to purity, the Cardinal asked: "How can [celibacy] be conserved in an atmosphere laden with eroticism? Newspapers, Internet, billboards, shows, everything appears shameless and constantly offends the virtue of chastity."