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Should Catholic priests have the right to marry?
beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon ^ | Wednesday, December 06, 2006 | Rod Dreher

Posted on 12/16/2006 1:07:45 PM PST by Zemo

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Should Catholic priests have the right to marry?

A Protestant friend who saw the video of Father Plushy giving his Barney blessing -- and truly, I don't know what is more irritating, the priest or the full house of ninnies who sat there singing and clapping -- writes this morning to say:

That video you just posted is the best single argument I have ever seen for ending the celibacy of the priesthood.

Well, maybe. One is entitled to wonder how seriously Father Plushy takes his vow of celibacy, or anything about the dignity and responsibilities of the priesthood. Still, even if priests were allowed to marry, why would that necessarily prevent future Father Plushies from entering the priesthood? On paper, it wouldn't, but if it made the priesthood open to men who would consider it if they could also fulfill vocations as husbands and fathers, it seems to me that you'd stand a greater chance of creating a more healthy manly culture within the ranks of clergy.

Priestly celibacy is not a dogmatic teaching, but rather a discipline of the Catholic Church. The Pope could not overturn the Church's teaching on (say) abortion, but he could theoretically change the celibacy discipline with a stroke of his pen. But should he?

Mandatory clerical celibacy is a discipline that was imposed on Catholic clergy in the Middle Ages. In the Orthodox churches, priests are still permitted to marry, as was the ancient practice. There are limitations on this -- you have to marry before your ordination, and the bishops are drawn from the monastic ranks, which means they must be celibates. But parish priests can and do have families. I've been going to an Orthodox church for a year or so now, though only in full communion for a few months, and I see that the two priests at my parish -- both of whom are married, and have children -- are really wonderful. I find it hard to understand why the Catholic Church insists on clerical celibacy.

Well, let me take that back: for many conservative Catholics, the celibacy requirement is seen as a valuable sign of contradiction to our oversexed age. That resonates with me. I think, though, that it's also the case that many orthodox Catholics resist thinking about ending the celibacy discipline because it's something that progressive Catholics have been pushing for, and to do so would appear to be a major concession to their agenda. But I tell you, after the Scandal revealed how the Catholic priesthood has become heavily gay, and at least some of the gays in the priesthood in positions of power were shown to be systematically using their power to discourage straight men considered a threat to them from continuing in the priesthood -- the "Goodbye, Good Men" thesis, and believe me, I have heard directly from seminarians and priests in the trenches how this works -- more than a few orthodox Catholics (including at least one deeply conservative priest) have said to me that it's time to consider ending mandatory celibacy. Before I even considered becoming Orthodox, I had spoken to Catholic friends about my own doubts on the wisdom of maintaining an exclusively celibate clergy (the distinction being that there will always be men and women called formally to the celibate state, and they must be honored and provided for, as they always have been in the Christian church.)

I think they're right. I mean, look, by year's end we will have seen ordained to the Catholic priesthood of two former Episcopal priests, Al Kimel and Dwight Longenecker, who converted to Catholicism. I have every expectation that they'll be wonderful, faithful, orthodox Catholic priests. And they are also married men. If they are to be welcomed and affirmed as Catholic priests, why not others? To be sure, these men are not campaigning for the end of the celibacy discipline, and as the Longenecker article I linked to in this sentence brings out, a married clergy poses special problems of its own.

Still, I think it's worth talking about, especially because to open up the Catholic priesthood to married men requires no change in the Church's doctrinal teaching. Would bringing married men into the priesthood cause a culture change within the priesthood that would discourage the Father Plushies from celebrating their diversity? I don't know. But I'd sure like to hear what orthodox Catholics and others have to say about it.


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; General Discusssion; Orthodox Christian
KEYWORDS: catholicbashing; clergy; narriage; nomoreplease; zot
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To: vladimir998
Only you and other Protestants deny what is known. You need a code book. We already have the knowledge.

Oh, so you do have a secret code book. Did Peter have the same one? Did you get the secret decoder ring with it? or didn't you save up enough boxtops?

I never once said it wasn’t a real place. Why do you lie about what I said? Listen, I don’t mind you embarrassing yourself by trying to refute obviously known history, but there’s absolutely no reason to lie about what I said. I never once said there was no Babylon. I never once said that Babylon no longer existed, had no population in it, etc. Don’t lie about what I said. Do you think you can muster up the integrity to actually deal with what I said rather than making things up out of thin air?

Good --- I accept your admission of the truth that Babylon was a real place in Peter's day. So what is left to refute. Your code book is inaccurate. You should trade it in for a good encyclopedia.

Let us part company then by meditating on those famous words of the Apostle Peter from that Jewish church at that real place in Babylonia:

"The Church that is at Babylon ... greeteth you". [I Peter 5:13]

What more needs to be said. Amen.

361 posted on 12/18/2006 10:11:11 AM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)
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To: Zemo

Yes, it was a power hungry Pope, not Jesus who took away a Priests ability to marry. God also gave us a natural drive to mate.


362 posted on 12/18/2006 10:13:18 AM PST by jackieaxe (Unsourced reporting is not reporting but a lie or a manipulation)
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To: jackieaxe

It is traditional Christianity to celebrate and revere celibate clergy but also to allow married clergy up to a point.


363 posted on 12/18/2006 11:19:01 AM PST by Zemo ('Anyone who is able to speak the truth and does not do so will be condemned by God.' - St. Justin)
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To: jackieaxe
Yes, it was a power hungry Pope, not Jesus who took away a Priests ability to marry. God also gave us a natural drive to mate.

What "power" is it that you think the papacy derives from this?

Saint Paul extolled the virtues of celibacy for those that are called to it. You obviously discount this, so I'm curious, which other points do you disagree with Paul on?

364 posted on 12/18/2006 12:16:15 PM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: Uncle Chip

You wrote:

"Oh, so you do have a secret code book.”

Did I claim to?

“Did Peter have the same one?”

No, Peter had common sense. Do you?

“Did you get the secret decoder ring with it? or didn't you save up enough boxtops?”

When I was no longer a child I put away childish things.

“Good --- I accept your admission of the truth that Babylon was a real place in Peter's day.”

I am glad you do. Now maybe you could explain why you were ignorant enough to insinuate I believed otherwise.

“So what is left to refute. Your code book is inaccurate. You should trade it in for a good encyclopedia.”

Got several. The ISBE, put together by Protestants, says that Babylon means Rome in 1 Peter. Vol. 1, p. 391.

“Let us part company then by meditating on those famous words of the Apostle Peter from that Jewish church at that real place in Babylonia: "The Church that is at Babylon ... greeteth you". [I Peter 5:13]. What more needs to be said. Amen.”

Well, according to at least two cursive mss. of 1 Peter 5:13 two extra words were considered necessary at that point. Those words were “en Roma”. Early Christians knew Peter was writing from Rome. Thanks to the PROTESTANT editors of the ISBE for providing that little factual gem!


365 posted on 12/18/2006 2:36:21 PM PST by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: jackieaxe

You wrote:

"Yes, it was a power hungry Pope, not Jesus who took away a Priests ability to marry."

Nonsense. Priests didn't marry. If a man was already ordained he didn't marry. No pope could take away what never existed.

"God also gave us a natural drive to mate."

Incorrect. We don't mate. We aren't animals. God gave us a natural desire to seek completion with a member of the opposite sex. He also praised those who sacrificed those natural desires to accomplish something for God. He did that in Matthew 19:12. Did you know Jesus praised celibacy?


366 posted on 12/18/2006 2:42:18 PM PST by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: vladimir998
"Why were some married men allowed to become priests in the Roman Church while most are required to take a vow of celibacy?"

1) No one is required to take a vow of celibacy. It is voluntary. All vows are by their nature voluntary.

No, we see that the semantics are going strong here. If no one is required to take the voluntary vow of celibacy, then how many Roman Catholic men who opt not to take it become priests in the Roman Catholic Church?

What's that you say, none?!?!

Sounds like a required vow then. If you disagree, show how it is now.

367 posted on 12/18/2006 4:17:51 PM PST by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: Uncle Chip
"The Church that is at Babylon ... greeteth you". [I Peter 5:13]

When Peter writes his first epistle he addresses it to [I Peter 1:1] To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappodocia, Asia, and Bithynia who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the father. These folks were Israelites along the southern shore of the Black Sea in an area that Paul was told to stay out of [Acts 16:7]. The order in which Peter names the provinces of Asia Minor (east to west and back) clearly proves that this letter was sent from Babylon in the east....not Rome in the west.

Peter's manner of speaking and writing was not apocalyptic...it was plain...almost blunt. He would never inject anything mystical about his whereabouts. It was not until after Peter died that Rome was even suggested as a possible modern Babylon by John in chapter 17 of Revelation.

I always come back to [Acts 28:21-22] "And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee. But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against." These words, of course, being spoken by the leaders of the Jewish community in Rome upon Paul's arrest and arrival there. Doesn't it seem likely that these Jewish leaders would have heard more than this....about this sect.....if the Apostle Peter had been setting up the church at Rome and ostensibly recruiting Jews....because that was his responsibility [Galatians 2:7].

368 posted on 12/18/2006 4:43:30 PM PST by Diego1618
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To: FormerLib

You wrote:

"No, we see that the semantics are going strong here. If no one is required to take the voluntary vow of celibacy, then how many Roman Catholic men who opt not to take it become priests in the Roman Catholic Church?"

The vow is not forced on anyone. Someone who chooses FREELY to not take the vow will usually not be ordained. The same is true in the Orthodox Churches in that they do not ordain men and THEN have them marry. A few years ago a Greek Orthodox bishop said that the GO church might have some celibate priests soon because so many seminarians were having trouble finding wives. Once ordained the men would not be able to marry. We are no different. Only we rarely ordain a man who does not elect to take a vow of celibacy.

"What's that you say, none?!?!"

Incorrect. A handful a year. No more.

"Sounds like a required vow then. If you disagree, show how it is now."

All vows are binding only if they are voluntary. The vow of celibacy is voluntary. The Church's decision to ordain is voluntary. If the Church chooses to ordain, then she does. If not, not. If a man elects not to take a vow of celibacy, and the Church is not interested in ordaining married men or unmarried men without a vow of celibacy, then she doesn't ordain them.

There is no vow forced on anyone. Men are chosen for the priesthood. No one is forced to become a priest. No one is forced to take the vow. The Church is not forced to ordain anyone.

Refute any of that if you can. Of course, you can't. Calling it semantics without demonstrating how it is supposedly untrue is not an argument. It is a distortion and an evasion. It's also all you've got.


369 posted on 12/18/2006 5:07:33 PM PST by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: Diego1618
Some have said that there couldn't have been a church in Babylon because in Peter's day, it was a mere "caravan stop". Well, on the contrary, can you think of a better place to start a church --- at a place where caravans stop on their way from east to west from Rome, north and south along the Euphrates. What a great location to disseminate the Gospel and the Scriptures along the trade routes --- the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

And what a perfect place to mail an epistle to the sojourners in Asia Minor, delivery by caravan express.

370 posted on 12/18/2006 5:19:41 PM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)
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To: Uncle Chip
Some have said that there couldn't have been a church in Babylon because in Peter's day, it was a mere "caravan stop".

It's simply amazing what some folks want to believe....isn't it?

Josephus clears that up with his statement of the immense multitudes of Israelites still residing in Babylonia in the first century. Sheeeeesh!

371 posted on 12/18/2006 5:52:16 PM PST by Diego1618
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To: Diego1618

Apparently, although I lack the citation, Josephus claimed that Jews were slaughtered in, and expelled from, Babylonia during the reign of Caligula (AD 37-41). Anyone know of the citation?

Alexander Campbell, a Protestant minister, mentions this in his book, The Living Oracles (1835). It is also mentioned in this old book: http://books.google.com/books?id=QzrslGl_bUQC&pg=RA5-PA598&lpg=RA5-PA598&dq=jews+expelled+babylon+caligula&source=web&ots=ysSB2WYItr&sig=NNRxGjVltwxqdniyks1sLLs-PTk#PRA5-PA598,M1

Strabo the Geographer, who lived in the reign of Augustus several decades before Caligula, said Babylon was deserted to the point that it could be called a "vast wasteland" (See Rosenmuller, BIBLICAL GEOGRAPHY).

Jacques Basnage, in HISTORY OF THE JEWS, in the 18th century, mentions that Pliny said Babylon was like one vast solitude in the reign of Vespasian (that's when Josephus was fighting rather than writing!).

So are you so sure there were Jews there? Just 15 or so years before the letter was written (according to one Protestant here) there were NO Jews in Babylon. Hmmmm...


372 posted on 12/18/2006 7:21:15 PM PST by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: Diego1618
As an after thought.........

Babylonian Jewry .....and

[Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI, Chapter V, Paragraph 2]"When Esdras had received this epistle, he was very joyful, and began to worship God, and confessed that he had been the cause of the king's great favor to him, and that for the same reason he gave all the thanks to God. So he read the epistle at Babylon to those Jews that were there; but he kept the epistle itself, and sent a copy of it to all those of his own nation that were in Media. And when these Jews had understood what piety the king had towards God, and what kindness he had for Esdras, they were all greatly pleased; nay, many of them took their effects with them, and came to Babylon, as very desirous of going down to Jerusalem; but then the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country; wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers." to be found here.

373 posted on 12/18/2006 7:32:12 PM PST by Diego1618
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To: Diego1618

You posted Josephus: "...wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers."

Hmmmmm...Josephus, AJ, 11.5.2. Sounds like fancy. The ten tribes disappeared and were not known after the end of the Babylonian-Assyrian eras.

Most likely Josephus was not relying on info he knew first hand, but upon common apocrypha of the day. In THE TESTAMENT OF MOSES, we find: "Then some of the tribes will go up and come to their appointed place, once again surround the place with walls. Two tribes will continue on in the way appointed for them and the ten tribes will be fruitful and increase among the Gentiles during their time of captivity."




374 posted on 12/18/2006 7:50:06 PM PST by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: Diego1618
It's simply amazing what some folks want to believe....isn't it?

Umm ... yeah, especially when it happens to be the truth. Look up any secular history of the region. Babylon was depopulated and in ruins by the time the NT was being written; in fact, for a couple of centuries before.

Josephus clears that up with his statement of the immense multitudes of Israelites still residing in Babylonia in the first century. Sheeeeesh!

Josephus says the ten tribes lived "beyond the Euphrates". In fact, they were absorbed by the Assyrians (through intermarriage, etc.), and nobody really knows where they are now. (Nobody knew exactly where they were in Josephus' time, either.)

The Assyrians, BTW, weren't Babylonians, but they did live on the Euphrates.

375 posted on 12/18/2006 7:59:32 PM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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To: Uncle Chip
Some have said that there couldn't have been a church in Babylon because in Peter's day, it was a mere "caravan stop". Well, on the contrary, can you think of a better place to start a church --- at a place where caravans stop on their way from east to west from Rome, north and south along the Euphrates. What a great location to disseminate the Gospel and the Scriptures along the trade routes --- the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Peter was never in Babylon. In fact, Peter was never in Iraq. No NT epistles were written in Babylon.

James Stuart Russell (a Protestant) writes:

But the more important question relates to the identity of the place here called Babylon. It is natural at first sight to conclude that it can be no other than the well-known and ancient metropolis of Chaldea, or such remnant of it as existed in the apostle’s days. We are ready to think it highly probable that St. Peter, in his apostolic journeyings rivalled the apostle to the Gentiles, and went everywhere preaching the Gospel to the Jews, as St. Paul did to the Gentiles.

There appear, however, to be formidable objections to this view, natural and simple as it seems. Not to mention the improbability that St. Peter in his old age, and accompanied by his wife (if we accept the opinion that she is referred to in the salutation), should be found in a region so remote from Judea, there is the important consideration that Babylon was not at that time the abode of a Jewish population. Josephus states that so long before as the reign of Caligula (A.D. 37-41) the Jews had been expelled from Babylonia, and that a general massacre had taken place, by which they had been almost exterminated. This statement of Josephus, it is true, refers rather to the whole region called Babylonia than to the city of Babylon, and that for the sufficient reason that in the time of Josephus Babylon was as much an uninhabited place as it is now. Rosenmüller, in his Biblical Geography, affirms that in the time of Strabo (that is, in the reign of Augustus) Babylon was so deserted that he applies to that city what an ancient poet had said of Megalopolis in Arcadia, viz. that it was ‘one vast wilderness.’ Basnage, also, in his History of the Jews, says, ‘Babylon was declining in the days of Strabo, and Pliny represents it in the reign of Vespasian as one vast unbroken solitude.’

376 posted on 12/18/2006 8:06:37 PM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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To: vladimir998; Diego1618; Uncle Chip
Apparently, although I lack the citation, Josephus claimed that Jews were slaughtered in, and expelled from, Babylonia during the reign of Caligula (AD 37-41). Anyone know of the citation?

He talks about a massacre of Jews in Mesopotamia in book 18, chapter 9. The discussion is long-winded (characteristic of Josephus) but I don't see that he refers to a general expulsion of Jews from the area, just to a massacre.

There were certainly some Jews, and later on, some Christians in "Babylonia" (= Mesopotamia). The city of Babylon, itself, was in ruins and unimportant. What there definitely wasn't was St. Peter.

The "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia" (on a Nazarene site; again I'm using Protestant sources here) notes the massacre described by Josephus, and then points out that 1 Pt 5:13 has Mark sending his greetings ... and we know from 2 Tm 4:11 that Mark had been summoned by Paul to Rome. There is of course again no evidence from tradition that Mark was ever in Iraq.

377 posted on 12/18/2006 8:26:34 PM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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To: vladimir998
Sorry, that's Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 9.
378 posted on 12/18/2006 8:27:32 PM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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To: vladimir998; Diego1618; Uncle Chip
I found it. He talks about the Jews being driven out of the region around Babylon, and moving to Seleucia. Once in Seleucia [Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 9, paragraph 9]:

Accordingly, they [Greeks and Syrians in Seleucia] fell upon them [the Jews], and slew about fifty thousand of them; nay, the Jews were all destroyed, excepting a few who escaped, either by the compassion which their friends or neighbors afforded them, in order to let them fly away. These retired to Ctesiphon, a Grecian city ...

It sounds like the Jewish population of the area around Babylon was driven out, and then mostly slaughtered.

379 posted on 12/18/2006 8:32:36 PM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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To: Campion; Uncle Chip
Look up any secular history of the region. Babylon was depopulated and in ruins by the time the NT was being written; in fact, for a couple of centuries before.

This is about 15 paragraphs down right here in Babylonian Jewry

"At the beginning of the present era there were many conversions to Judaism all over the Middle East. In about 40 CE, in northern Iraq, the Royal Family and many of the people of Adiabene became Jews. It is estimated that there may have been as many as one million Jews around Babylonia at that time."

380 posted on 12/18/2006 8:40:32 PM PST by Diego1618
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