Posted on 10/25/2009 4:31:29 PM PDT by Salvation
I think this is aimed squarely between the eyes of the Catholic church. Just read it:
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
You and I both know that plenty of people won't bother (or don't know how to) look it up for themselves.
You and I both know that plenty of people won't bother (or don't know how to) look it up for themselves.
I charge that your footnotes have an agenda.
In what way do they have an agenda? Your footnotes are influence by Luther and others, aren’t they?
Can you defend yourself without counter-attacking?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2370734/posts?page=42#42
I see that you found the scriptural references here.
Yes; I replied to that post.
I’m in agreement with you, Salvation. I trust in Pope Benedict to handle this correctly.
Oh I get it.
No, I don’t mean just post the reference to a scripture, I mean post the TEXT of the scripture.
As I said before, most people either cannot or will not look it up.
There are several Online Bibles you can click on, if you’re not too afaraid of reading the Bible in person. If a person is reading at FR, they have access to the Internet to look up the passages for themselves don’tchaknow. Salvation posted the book, chapter, and verse so you can quickly find the passages, if you’re genuinely interested.
Here's my favorite on-line access: Bible Gateway
That's where I got the actual TEXT of the scriptures I posted, in response to Sal's posts.
Since “celibate” really means “Not married” (not “doesn’t have sex”) this is a totally non-sensical thing.If your premise was valid your claim would be correct.
...celibacy is by definition a freely chosen state of being unmarried and practising sexual abstinence.Even Wikipedia disagrees.
Q.E.D.
As you can see, I did look one up. Thanks.
The discussion of the relationship between marriage and Holy Orders in the East is correct regarding the priesthood (though it overlooks the fact that deacons and even us lowly subdeacons may not marry and remain in our orders), but not quite correct in discussing bishops: a bishop must be celibate. Most often candidates are selected from among priest-monks, or other celibate clergy, but widowed priests are sometime elevated to the episcopate (for instance, there is a Ukranian Orthodox bishop in Canada whose son is on the Canadian Supreme Court).
In the Orthodox understanding of marriage a marriage does not disolve at death—hence the very penitential nature of the rite of second (and even more so third) marriage, which exists only as a condescension to human weakness. There is no “’til death do us [or you] part” in the Orthodox rites of betrothal or marriage (crowning), so it is not correct to characterize a widower who has been elevated to the episcopate as “unmarried”.
There is also an even rarer circumstance, for which the notable example is Patriarch Philaret of Moscow. He and his wife agreed to both pursue the monastic life (there is a very beautiful, though rarely used rite for this—though in their case political pressures compelled them to the decision), and parted to each live out the remainder of their life in celibacy. Rather ironically for Patriarch Philaret’s political opponents, as Patriach, which he could not have become without parting from his wife, he became functionally co-Tsar.
I am actually coming to the conclusion that (with the possible exception of widowers), celibate clergy without some formal connection to a monastery are a bad idea. (And I thoroughly support the celibate episcopate—I just think bishops should be monks, ideally monks who have to be cajoled or even dragged unwilling from their cells to their consecrations.)
Amazing post.
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