The Perils of Celibacy: Clerical Celibacy and Marriage in Early Protestant Perspective

Social Science Research Network ^ | John Witte Jr

[the_conscience]

The current battles over clerical celibacy are nothing new. When mandatory celibacy was first universally imposed on the clergy a millennium ago, clergy and laity alike broke into riotous rebellion for more than two generations, and a good number of bishops and priests flouted these laws for several generations more. When the Protestant Reformation broke out half a millennium ago, clerical celibacy and marriage were among the most bitter grievances over which the Western Church ultimately splintered. Today, the exposures of child abuse by some enterprising Catholic priests has rejoined these ancient battles within Catholicism and between Catholics and Protestants -- and triggered all manner of media exposes, private law suits, and criminal prosecutions.

In this Lecture, I would like to revisit the original Protestant case against clerical celibacy and for clerical marriage in its sixteenth century Lutheran Reformation context. I shall then draw out a few implications of the significance of these historical battles for the theology and law of clerical celibacy and marriage today.

The Case of Johann Apel

In good lawyerly fashion, let's begin with a concrete case. Our case comes from 1523. This is six years after Luther posted his 95 Theses, three years after Luther’s excommunication from the Church, and two years after the Diet of Worms. Luther is back in Wittenberg from the Wartburg Castle. The Lutheran Reformation is gaining real revolutionary momentum in Germany and beyond.

Our case involves a priest and lawyer named Johann Apel. Apel was born and raised in Nuernberg, an important German city, still faithful to Rome at the time of the case. In 1514, Apel enrolled for theological studies at the brand new University of Wittenberg, where he had passing acquaintance with a new professor of theology there, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther. In 1516, Apel went to the University of Leipzig for legal studies. He was awarded the doctorate of canon law and civil law in 1519. After a brief apprenticeship, Apel took holy orders and swore the requisite oath of clerical celibacy.

One of the strong prince-bishops of the day, Conrad, the Bishop of Wuerzburg and Duke of Francken, appointed Apel as a cathedral canon in 1523. Conrad also licensed Apel as an advocate in all courts in his domain. Apel settled into his pastoral and legal duties.

Shortly after his clerical appointment, Apel began romancing a nun at the nearby St. Marr cloister. (Her name is not revealed in the records.) The couple saw each other secretly for several weeks. They carried on a brisk correspondence. They began a torrid romance.

She apparently became pregnant. Ultimately, the nun forsook the cloister and her vows and secretly moved in with Apel. A few weeks later, they were secretly married and cohabited openly as a married couple. This was an outrage. Clerical concubinage was one thing. The records show that at least three other priests in Conrad’s diocese kept concubines and paid Conrad the standard concubinage tax for that privilege. Earlier that very same year of 1523, another priest had fathered a child and paid the Bishop the standard cradle tax and oblated the infant in the very same St. Marr’s cloister that Mrs. Apel had just forsaken. Clerical concubinage and even fatherhood were known and were tolerated by some obliging bishops of the day. But clerical marriage? That was an outrage, particularly when it involved both a priest and a nun -- a prima facie case of double spiritual incest. Upon hearing of Apel's enterprising, Bishop Conrad annulled the marriage and admonished Apel to confess his sin, to return his putative wife to her cloister, and to resume his clerical duties. Apel refused, insisting that his marriage, though secretly contracted, was valid. Unconvinced, the Bishop indicted Apel for a canon law crime and temporarily suspended him from office. Apel offered a spirited defense of his conduct in a frank letter to the Bishop.

Bishop Conrad, in response, had Apel indicted in his own bishop’s court, for breach of holy orders and the oath of celibacy, and for defiance of his episcopal dispensation and injunction. In a written response, Apel adduced conscience and Scripture in his defense, much like Luther had done two years before at the Diet of Worms. "I have sought only to follow the dictates of conscience and the Gospel," Apel insisted, not to defy episcopal authority and canon law. Scripture and conscience condone marriage for fit adults as "a dispensation and remedy against lust and fornication." My wife and I have availed ourselves of these godly gifts and entered and consummated our marriage "in chasteness and love."

Contrary to Scripture, Apel continued, the church's canon law commands celibacy for clerics and monastics. This introduces all manner of impurity among them. "Don’t you see the fornication and the concubinage” in your bishopric, Apel implored Conrad. “Don’t you see the defilement and the adultery ... with brothers spilling their seed upon the ground, upon each other, and upon many a maiden whether single or married." My alleged sin and crime of breaking "this little man-made rule of celibacy," Apel insisted, "is very slight when compared to these sins of fornication” which you, “excellent father,” “cover and condone if the payment is high enough.” "The Word of the Lord is what will judge between you and me," Apel declared to the Bishop, and such Word commands my acquittal.

Bishop Conrad took the case under advisement. Apel took his cause to the budding Lutheran community. He sought support for his claims from Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and other Evangelical leaders who had already spoken against celibacy and monasticism. He published his remarks at trial adorned with a robust preface by Martin Luther, and an instant best seller.

Shortly after publication of the tract, Bishop Conrad had Apel arrested and put in the tower, pending further proceedings. Apel's family pleaded in vain with the Bishop to release him. The local civil magistrate twice mandated that Apel be released. Jurists and councilmen wrote letters of support. Even Emperor Charles V sent a brief letter urging the Bishop not to protract Apel's harsh imprisonment in violation of imperial law, but to try him and release him if found innocent.

Apel was finally tried. He was found guilty of several violations of the canon law and of heretically participating in "Luther's damned teachings." He was defrocked and was excommunicated and evicted from the community. Thereafter Apel made his way to Wittenberg where, at the urging of Luther and others, he was appointed to the law faculty at the University. Two years later, Apel served as one of the four witnesses to the marriage of ex-monk Martin Luther to ex-nun Katherine von Bora.

This was a sensational, but not an atypical, case in Reformation Germany in the 1520s. Among the earliest Protestant leaders were ex-priests and ex-monastics who had forsaken their orders and vows, and often married shortly thereafter. Indeed, one of the acts of solidarity with the new Protestant cause was to marry or divorce in open violation of the Church's canon law and in open contempt of episcopal instruction. As the church courts began to prosecute these offenses of its canon law, Protestant theologians and jurists rose to the defense of their budding co-religionists. Classic Arguments for Clerical Celibacy Bishop Conrad's position in the Apel case was in full compliance with the prevailing Catholic theology and canon law of marriage and celibacy.

Prior to the sixteenth century, the Church regarded marriage as “a duty for the sound and a remedy for the sick,” in St. Augustine’s famous phrase. Marriage was a creation of God allowing man and woman to "be fruitful and multiply." Since the fall into sin, marriage had also become a remedy for lust, a channel to direct one's natural passion to the service of the community and the Church. When contracted between Christians, marriage was also a sacrament, a symbol of the indissoluble union between Christ and His Church. As a sacrament, marriage fell within the social hierarchy of the Church and was subject to its jurisdiction, its legal power.

The Church did not regard marriage as its most exalted estate, however. Though a sacrament and a sound way of Christian living, marriage was not considered to be so spiritually edifying. Marriage was a remedy for sin, not a recipe for righteousness. Marriage was considered subordinate to celibacy, propagation less virtuous than contemplation, marital love less wholesome than spiritual love. Clerics, monastics, and other servants of the church were to forgo marriage as a condition for service. Those who could not were not worthy of the Church's holy orders and offices.

This prohibition on marriage, first universally imposed on clerics and monastics by the First Lateran Council of 1123, was defended with a whole arsenal of complex arguments.

The most common arguments were based on St. Paul’s statements in I Corinthians 7. In this famous passage, Paul did allow that it was better to marry than to burn with lust. But Paul also said that it was better to remain single than to marry or remarry. “It is well for a man not to touch a woman,” he wrote. For those who are married “will have worldly troubles.” It is best for you to remain without marriage “to secure your undivided attention to the Lord.” These biblical passages, heavily glossed by the early Church Fathers, provided endless medieval commentaries and commendations of celibacy. They were buttressed by newly discovered classical Greek and Roman writings extolling celibacy for the contemplative as well as by the growing medieval celebration of the virginity of Mary as a model for pious Christian living.

Various philosophical arguments underscored the superiority of the celibate clergy to the married laity. It was a commonplace of medieval philosophy to describe God's creation as hierarchical in structure -- a vast chain of being emanating from God and descending through various levels and layers of reality down to the smallest particulars. In this great chain of being, each creature found its place and its purpose. Each institution found its natural order and hierarchy. It was thus simply the nature of things that some persons and institutions were higher on this chain of being, some lower. It was the nature of things that some were closer and had more ready access to God, and some were further away and in need of mediation in their relationship with God. Readers of Dante’s Divine Comedy will recognize this chain of being theory at work in Dante’s vast hierarchies of hell, purgatory, and paradise. Students of medieval political theory will recognize this same theory at work in the many arguments of the superiority of the spiritual sword to the temporal sword, of the pope to the emperor, of the church to the state.

This chain of being theory was one basis for medieval arguments for the superiority of the clergy to the laity. Clergy were simply higher on this chain of being, laity lower. The clergy were called to higher spiritual activities in the realm of grace, the laity to lower temporal activities in the realm of nature. The clergy were thus distinct from the laity in their dress, in their language and in their livings. They were exempt from earthly obligations, such as paying civil taxes or serving in the military. They were immune from the jurisdiction of civil courts. And they were foreclosed from the natural activities of the laity, such as those of sex, marriage, and family life. These natural, corporal activities were literally beneath the clergy in ontological status and thus formally foreclosed. For a cleric or monastic to marry or to have sex was thus in a real sense to act against nature (contra naturam).

The Lutheran Position on Celibacy and Marriage Johann Apel’s arguments with Bishop Conrad anticipated a good deal of the Lutheran critique of this traditional teaching of marriage and celibacy. Like their Catholic brethren, the Lutheran reformers taught that marriage was created by God for the procreation of children and for the protection of couples from sexual sin. But, unlike their Catholic brethren, the reformers rejected the subordination of marriage to celibacy. We are all sinful creatures, Luther and his followers argued. Lust has pervaded the conscience of everyone. Marriage is not just an option, it is a necessity for sinful humanity. For without it, a person's distorted sexuality becomes a force capable of overthrowing the most devout conscience. A person is enticed by nature to concubinage, prostitution, masturbation, voyeurism, and sundry other sinful acts. “You cannot be without a [spouse] and remain without sin,” Luther thundered from his Wittenberg pulpit. You will “test your neighbor’s bed” unless your own bed is happily occupied and used.

“To spurn marriage is to act against God’s calling ... and against nature’s urging,” Luther continued. The calling of marriage should be declined only by those who have received God's special gift of continence. "Such persons are rare, not one in a thousand [later he said one hundred thousand] for they are a special miracle of God." The Apostle Paul has identified this group as the permanently impotent and the eunuchs; very few others can claim such a unique gift.

This understanding of marriage as a protection against sin undergirded the reformers' bitter attack on traditional rules of mandatory celibacy. To require celibacy of clerics, monks, and nuns, the reformers believed, was beyond the authority of the church and ultimately a source of great sin. Celibacy was a gift for God to give, not a duty for the church to impose.

It was for each individual, not for the church, to decide whether he or she had received this gift. By demanding monastic vows of chastity and clerical vows of celibacy, the church was seen to be intruding on Christian freedom and contradicting Scripture, nature, and common sense. By institutionalizing and encouraging celibacy the church was seen to prey on the immature and the uncertain. By holding out food, shelter, security, and economic opportunity, the monasteries enticed poor and needy parents to oblate their minor children to a life celibacy, regardless of whether it suited their natures. Mandatory celibacy, Luther taught, was hardly a prerequisite to true clerical service of God. Instead it led to "great whoredom and all manner of fleshly impurity and ... hearts filled with thoughts of women day and night."

Furthermore, to impute higher spirituality and holier virtue to the celibate contemplative life was, for the reformers, contradicted by the Bible. The Bible teaches that each person must perform his or her calling with the gifts that God provides. The gifts of continence and contemplation are but two among many, and are by no means superior to the gifts of marriage and child-rearing. Each calling plays an equally important, holy, and virtuous role in the drama of redemption, and its fulfillment is a service to God. Luther concurred with the Apostle Paul that the celibate person "may better be able to preach and care for God's word." But, he immediately added: "It is God's word and the preaching which makes celibacy--such as that of Christ and of Paul--better than the estate of marriage. In itself, however, the celibate life is far inferior."

Not only is the celibacy no better than marriage, Luther insisted. Clergy are no better than laity. To make this argument cogent, Luther had to counter the medieval chain of being theory that naturally placed celibate clergy above married laity. Luther’s answer was his famous theory of the separation of the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. For Luther, the fall into sin destroyed the original continuity and communion between the Creator and the creation, the natural tie between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom. There was no series of emanations of being from God to humanity. There was no stairway of merit from humanity to God. There was no purgatory. There was no heavenly hierarchy. God is present in the heavenly kingdom, and is revealed in the earthly kingdom primarily through "masks." Persons are born into the earthly kingdom, and have access to the heavenly kingdom only through faith.

Luther did not deny the traditional view that the earthly kingdom retains its natural order, despite the fall into sin. There remained, in effect, a chain of being, an order of creation that gave each creature, especially each human creature and each social institution, its proper place and purpose in this life. But, for Luther, this chain of being was horizontal, not hierarchical. Before God, all persons and all institutions in the earthly kingdom were by nature equal. Luther's earthly kingdom was a flat regime, a horizontal realm of being, with no person and no institution obstructed or mediated by any other in access to and accountability before God.

Luther thus rejected traditional teachings that the clergy were higher beings with readier access to God and God’s mysteries. He rejected the notion that clergy mediated the channel of grace between the laity and God—-dispensing God’s grace through the sacraments and preaching, and interceding for God’s grace by hearing confessions, receiving charity, and offering prayers on behalf of the laity.

Clergy and laity were fundamentally equal before God and before all others, Luther argued, sounding his famous doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. All persons were called to be priests their peers. Luther at once “laicized” the clergy and “clericized” the laity. He treated the traditional “clerical” office of preaching and teaching as just one other vocation alongside many others that a conscientious Christian could properly and freely pursue. He treated all traditional “lay” offices as forms of divine calling and priestly vocation, each providing unique opportunities for service to one’s peers. Preachers and teachers in the church must carry their share of civic duties and pay their share of civil taxes just like everyone else. And they should participate in earthly activities such as marriage and family life just like everyone else.

This same two kingdoms theory also provided Luther with a new understanding of the place of marriage within this earthly life. For Luther, marriage was one of the three natural estates of the earthly kingdom, alongside the church and the state, and was essential to the governance of the earthly kingdom. The marital household was to teach all persons, particularly children, Christian values, morals, and mores. It was to exemplify for a sinful society a community of love and cooperation, meditation and discussion, song and prayer. It was to hold out for the church and the state an example of firm but benign parental discipline, rule, and authority. It was to take in and care for wayfarers, widows, and destitute persons--a responsibility previously assumed largely by monasteries and cloisters.

The marital estate was thus as indispensable an agent in God's redemption plan as the church. It no longer stood within the orders of the church but alongside it. Moreover, the marital estate of marriage was as indispensable an agent of social order and communal cohesion as the state. It was not simply a creation of the civil law, but a Godly creation designed to aid the state in discharging its divine mandate.

The best example of such an idealized marital household was the local parsonage, the home of the married Lutheran minister. The reformers had already argued that pastors, like everyone else, should be married--lest they be tempted by sexual sin, deprived of the joys of marital love, and precluded from the great act of divine and human creativity in having children. Here was an even stronger argument for clerical marriage.

The clergy were to be exemplars of marriage. The minister’s household was to be a source and model for the right order and government of the local church, state, and broader community. As Adolf von Harnack put it a century ago: “The Evangelical parsonage, founded by Luther, became the model and blessing of the entire German nation, a nursery of piety and education, a place of social welfare and social equality. Without the German parsonage, the history of Germany since the sixteenth century is inconceivable.” [SNIP]

That said, it must also be said that there seems to be something gravely amiss with the American Catholic Church’s insistence on maintaining mandatory clerical celibacy -- despite the mounting evidence of homosexual and heterosexual abuses among its clergy, and despite the rapid dwindling of eligible novates within its seminaries. There is something strangely anomalous with a hierarchy that will ordain married Anglican and Orthodox priests to fill its vacant parishes, yet deny Catholic priests and novates any such marital option.

To be sure, the First Amendment free exercise clause mandates that the Catholic hierarchy be free to conduct its internal affairs without interference by the state. And to be sure, this constitutional protection frees the Church to find its own internal resources to repeat, repair, or replace its rules of clerical celibacy as it sees fit. The First Amendment is one of our most cherished freedoms, which protects popular and unpopular religious practices alike.

But the First Amendment does not license violations of the life and limb of another, and does not protect corporate complicity and conspiracy. Child abuse is a very serious felony which the modern criminal law now punishes severely. And even mutually consensual sexual contact with a minor is a strict liability offense called statutory rape. Priests who engage in such sexual acts with minors must be aggressively prosecuted and severely punished if found guilty after receiving full due process. Bishops who harbor and hide such sex felons are accomplices after the fact and are just as guilty under modern criminal law as the sexual perpetrator himself. Church corporations who conspire in such subterfuge invite serious charges of corporate criminality and corruption.

The American church hierarchy today needs to stop hiding behind constitutional walls and sacramental veils and take firm public responsibility for its actions and omissions -- ministering first and foremost to the abused victims and their families, exposing and evicting the clerical sex felons and accomplices within their midst, and getting on with their cardinal callings of preaching the word, administering the sacraments, catechizing the young, and caring for the needy.

In medieval centuries past, the church and its clergy may have been above the law of the state, and thus privileged to deal with such clerical abuses by their own means, in their own courts, at their own times. No longer. Privilege of forum and benefit of clergy have been dead letters in this country for more than a century. Clergy are not above the law. They should exemplify its letter and its spirit. The church is not above the state. It should set a model of justice and equity.

Few issues are as sublime and serious today as those involving sex and sexuality. Few crimes are as scarring as rape and child abuse. To rape a child is to destroy a child. To abuse a child is to forfeit one’s office. No cleric found guilty of child abuse can continue in office. No Christian church found complicit in child abuse is worthy of its name. Bureaucratic wrangling and political lobbying are no way for the church to respond to recent events. Repentance, restitution, and reformation are the better course.

This text is drawn in large part from his From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) and Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

[Heliand]

The 6th century has plenty of documtation, as long as you are not trying to document the history of England. In the 6th century, it was the time of the Emperor Justinian, who ruled over what is now modern day Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and Southern Spain. This was the time of Pope Gregory the Great in Rome, St. Isidore of Seville, St. Gregory of Tours, St. Fulgentius of Ruspe in Africa, St. Sophronius in Jerusalem. The 6th Century saw the famous and well-documented Roman military campaigns of Narses and Belisarius in the west and Persia. The Second Council of Constantinople was held. Certainly there was the ruinous plague of the early mid-century, but it is not as though the history of this period is not well known.

and then the very bad time of the 9th Century

Actually, the 9th century wasn't so bad. That was the time of Charlemagne. I think you are really thinking of the 900's, or the 10th century. This was a true nadir in civilization across Europe, even in the East Roman Empire until the time of Emperor Basil II in AD 975. There are almost no written records of the period, Europe was under continual raids by Vikings, Slavs and Arabs, there was constant civil war the papacy completely degenerated into a plaything of the remaining powerful Roman families and their feuds, and the East Roman Empire was under continuous attack from outside and reduced to just a small rump. But even at this darkest hour is when the Cluniac Monastic revivial started.

As for celibacy, the rule became universal in the rite as as result of the Investiture scandal.

Pope St. Siricius, Pope St. Leo the Great, and Pope St. Gregory the Great all already thought it was a universal rule hundreds of years earlier. Were they that mistaken?

[Heliand]

What are things uncreated?

Almighty God in His Essence and Energies, and the High Heaven wherein He lives forever. Amen!

[Notwithstanding]

And it is wrong on what “sola scriptura” basis?

[NYer]

Are you going to give an argument or just make an assertion?

Sexual Abuse of Children by Protestant Ministers - none of whom are practicing celibacy.

[wmfights]

My grandfather was the only maritally chaste minister his Southern Baptist Church had during the 20 years from 1980 to 2000. All the rest of them had to be run out of town...

Welcome to FR Heliand.

It seems to me that the sexual problem in the RCC is one of same sex activity between adult priests and post pubescent boys. The issue you note with heterosexual sex among adults is not really a moral equivalent. Both are wrong, both are sinful but in the latter it is activity between two consenting adults. The former is abuse of a minor by an adult.

[wmfights]

The article looks to agree with my husband who believes that the Roman Catholic priestcraft is at the root of the papacy’s corruption.

If you mean an elevated clergy superior and unaccountable to the congregation when saying "priestcraft" I think you are right.

[wmfights]

As for celibacy, the rule became universal in the rite as as result of the Investiture scandal. Pope Gregory was reaching back for a way of fighting imperial control over the clergy.

If this is the case then why continue the practice?

[Notwithstanding]

Welcome to a collection of news reports on ministers who have sexually abused children:

ALL Protestant denominations - 838 Ministers

147 Baptist Ministers

251 "Bible" Church Ministers (fundamentalist/evangelical)

140 Anglican/Episcopalian Ministers

38 Lutheran Ministers

46 Methodist Ministers

19 Presbyterian Ministers

197 various Church Ministers

[Heliand]

It seems to me that the sexual problem in the RCC is one of same sex activity between adult priests and post pubescent boys.

It "seems" that way, because that is what is reported in the MSM. In reality, there are a small minority of priests who had sex with grown and teenage women, and a seperate small minority of priests who had sex with grown and teenage boys. In other words, just like the general male population they are drawn from, some men who are priests have illict sex (adultery, fornication, sodomy, buggery, etc.). The same of course, goes for Protestant ministers as well. Unfortunately, there is no lack of examples of all kinds of deviance from all the Churches.

[BlueDragon]

The distinction you obviously miss with your document dump is that these are still held as sins by the Catholic Church.

...that was exactly the sort of reply that I expected. Yes, such are doctrinally held to be "sin", not only by Catholic teachings, but by a great many others, too.

I absolutely do weep at the sins of those in my Church or any other

Yes. We can agree on this. The appalling condition of the fallen creature can be quite grievous.

But you were and still are attempting to lay at the feet of the reformers, the depravity of certain people, and even groups present depravity.

Such statements as;

The fact that so much of the Lutheran Church has fallen into defining the abominations of sodomy and even abortion as good behavior is most certainly the rancid fruit of a wicked tree.

only work when one (willfully?) ignore all those other children of the Reformation, who vehemently oppose such.

Since we can agree, I assume, that it is most certainly not the Catholic's church's fault that humans are indeed sinners, even as one can easily enough point at gross sins within portions of historical Catholic hierarchy, up to the very highest levels; then to blame Luther for present sinning, is comparably preposterous.
He himself never recommended such sinning, nor sought to COVER IT UP, either! That last part, is very important. The cover-ups, have continued unto nearly this present time, at very high levels.

Teaching, and leading, is not only by what one says but by what one does

I realize that the thesis you offer here (it's all Luther's fault!) sounds good to your own ears, and is popular rhetoric amongst some Catholics, but once dragged into the light of day, it miserably fails. Luther did indeed bring needed correction, some of which is obliquely, rather quietly acknowledged [by the Catholic Church].

As far as *some* of the Lutherans now, presently being openly seen to continence sins, I can agree with you that they are. For them to do so is grievous, damaging to the body & cause of Christ. We can find wide agreement on this forum, of that...

But again, to stress the point, is that what you yourself seem to be ignoring, (willfully, to make your argument work?) is at the same that a GREAT MANY "children of the reformation" churches, are raising a standard against such sins, in very much the same way as factions within the Catholic church fought (ideologically) for centuries, for purity.

What I mean by this, is that in the history of the Catholic church, there were groups and clergymen, many times of very high rank, who not only winked at certain sins amongst themselves, but had gone so far as to formalize how such could be justified. Clerical concubinage comes to mind, among others. ...Medieval scholars attest that clerical concubinage was commonplace.

Further, as was previously noted; Adultery, casual sex with unmarried women and homosexual relationships were rampant...
rotten, wicked "fruit". Quit putrid.

Yes, there were those at the time, and along throughout history, within the church, who were aghast at such things. Luther was even one of them!

But the corruption was so widespread, so deeply embedded, he got a wee bit 'torqued off'.

You are blaming the wrong guy...

[RobbyS]

I said the pope was reaching back. As the example of John the Baptist and Our Lord himself tell us, indeed the lives of the prophets such as Jeremiah, the single life allows a life of total dedication that for a married person. As example, John Wesley was a poor husband and father simply because he was always away. not because of any personal moral failings. Even Luther suffered
a lost of reputation after he got married, and not only among his enemies.The lean prophet of the earliest portraits was replaced by the well-fleshed Burger. For him personally, he benefitted. because he had a great wife. Obviously he was not cut out to be a monk, so he should have followed his father’s advise and become a lawyer. ( The irony is that he might have become a German Thomas More who discerned he had no vocation to the clerical life.)

[wmfights]

I said the pope was reaching back.

Okay, so why doesn't the current pope reach back and change it? If married priests was no big deal at one time why not reach back to that time.

It's your church not mine, I don't have as dog in this fight. My life experience tells me that married pastors with children have a perspective that single pastors don't. As you have pointed out being celibate has not always been required by your church and I've never seen anything in Scripture that requires it.

[Notwithstanding]

Catholic sacramental ordination to the priesthood is apparently something you don’t favor or appreciate.

It has served the Church well in its current basic form for 2000 years.

The groups who have fashioned their own variant of priesthood have not done too well despite the constant reformulation of the role in order to fit contemporary fashions.

In an age when sexual activity is the false god responsible for so much physical, emotional, and spiritual damage, it is quite wonderful to have leaders who are de facto witnesses to the folly of that falsity. The clergy will never be without sin - and the sin of clergy will often be scandalous - but that is no reason to upend the tradition of a priesthood that imitates the chastity of Christ and so many of his disciples.

[Gamecock]

Thanks for that most enlightening post.

Naturally I clicked on 19 Presbyterian Ministers and here is what it said:

Not Found

The requested URL /CSA/presbyterianabuse.html was not found on this server.

---

Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat) Server at reformation.com Port 80

_________________________________

Thanks so much for clarifying that for all of us.

[Notwithstanding]

Oh, you can find the presbyterians among those listed here:

ALL Protestant denominations - 838 Ministers

[Petronski]

With a bit of effort--probably less effort than needed to create post 174--you could have gone to the home page and clicked "Presbyterian ministries" in the lefthand margin (the blue field).

[Notwithstanding]

YOu can also find it here:

http://reformation.com//CSA/Presbyterianabuse.html

[Notwithstanding]

Presbyterian Clergy Sexual Abuse

[ back to home page ]

MOUNT KISCO, NY. Parishioners at the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco yesterday were coming to grips with revelations that their former pastor was charged by the presbytery with sexually abusing eight boys. The eight charges, unveiled at the presbytery's regional meeting at Webb Horton Memorial Presbyterian Church in Middletown, outline abuse of boys under 18. Among the allegations are that Miller invited a child into the shower with him, that he had oral sex with a minor on numerous occasions over two years and that he made inappropriate sexual remarks and propositions. (THE JOURNAL NEWS, December 5, 2002)
Mount Kisco parishioners react to abuse charges

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HALN Reverend Young Key, 47 Gold Coast Presbyterian minister. Receives 8 year jail sentence after being found guilty in Brisbane District Court of rape, digital rape and indecent dealing with girl, aged 14, in 2000 at Nerang, south of Brisbane. Court hears Haln, who ran farm where visiting Korean Christians could work, seduced girl after offering to teach her English. (Queensland, Australia, 2002).

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TRENTON, NJ. - Two adult males who alleged they were sexually abused as teenagers by a former Presbyterian youth minister have no right to sue the local church and its hierarchy because of the state's charitable immunity law, an appeals court has ruled.

The men sued the national Presbyterian Church, the church'sSynod of the Northeast, the Presbytery of Elizabeth and the Presbyterian Church at Pluckemin claiming they had been repeatedly sexually abused by their Presbyterian youth minister, Jeffrey Cheseboro. A lower court dismissed the case against the church defendants saying that they were afforded charitable immunity under state law. The appellate panel concurred.

"People don't realize this but if you send your child to a church-affiliated nursery school and they are abused by the teacher the only cause of action you have is against the abuser itself. The church is immune," said John Thatcher, who represented the plaintiffs in the case.

The way the law works, Thatcher said, if you are a member of a church and slip and fall on the stairs, you have no right to sue the church because you are a beneficiary of the church's "charitable purposes." A stranger,or nonmember, however, can bring a case, the courts have found.

In 1995, lawmakers did amend the charitable liabilities law. They said that trustees, directors, officers, employees, agents, servants or volunteers of charitable organizations were not granted immunity if they committed an act of sexual assault and other crimes of a sexual nature, but the charitable institutions themselves were.

The appeals court also upheld a dismissal of the case against Cheseboro. The court found that the two-year statute of limitations, which in most sexual abuse cases begins once a child reaches adulthood, had expired. AP 4/5/99Youth Paster arrested
News Report

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DALLAS - Six women have accused a retired missionary of molesting them 30 years ago in Africa, shortly before Highland Park Presbyterian Church hired him as an associate pastor.

Similar allegations by others forced Rev. Bill Pruitt, 87, to quit his mission job in 1970, say two of the women and a former mission official. All the accusers are daughters of people who worked with Pruitt in Congo, then called the Belgian Congo.

An inquiry stemmed from a 1998 complaint filed by several women against Pruitt, who was then retired in Dallas. Pruitt, who died in 1999, denied the allegations. No criminal charges were ever filed. Church officials received credible information that the missionary molested children, but took no disciplinary action.

Another accuser said she hopes publicity will lead other victims to get help. She said she felt powerless to complain when abused in the late 1960s in Congo's capital of Kinshasa, at a boarding school for missionaries' children where Pruitt worked as a dormitory supervisor.

Her parents, she said, "were 500 miles away" at a rural mission post. "There was no telephone or radio connection."

Pritchard said she was aware of at least 6 victims beyond the women who have spoken to investigators. Some were abused at the school, as she and the second accuser were, she said, and others were targeted when Pruitt visited mission posts. Because children were separated from their parents, Pruitt was like a father or an uncle, who charmed them with everything from toys to tricks to hypnosis, she said.

Her father, John Pritchard, said two girls from other families accused Pruitt in the late 1960s. Mr. Pritchard, then chief administrator for US Presbyterians' mission work in Congo, said he ordered Pruitt never to be alone with girls again and to quit his mission work. Pruitt, he said, did not respond to the allegations, "but his wife did. She was very strong in denying that such a thing could happen."

Mr. Pritchard said his daughter told him only recently that she, too, had been molested. Mr. Pruitt enjoyed a reputation as "a very gentle and compassionate man... one of the most loved and admired missionaries we have," he said.

A retired pastor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his daughter was one of the two who complained in the late 1960s and is not part of the six coming forward now.

Pruitt was later hired by the Highland Park church, one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in Texas. Morning News 4/26/99

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ELDRIDGE Reverend Graeme Alfred, 58 VIC Presbyterian minister. Appears in Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with 28 child sex offences, including 17 counts of indecent assault and 9 of committing unlawful sexual intercourse, against 3 boys, aged 9 to 12, in 1981 at Presbyterian church and manse in northern VIC. Court hears assaults involved oral sex, talcum powder and showering with victims. (Victoria, Australia, 1998).

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LOS ANGELES - Ronald Reagan's former pastor returned to active ministry two years after he was disciplined for sexual misconduct with 5 women. Presbyterian minister Rev. Donn Moomaw,66, accepted an interim position in a San Diego church after the presbytery had determined he had fulfilled all the requirements, including signs of full repentence. (7/27/97)

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NAME SUPPRESSED, age 70 VIC Presbyterian training farm superintendent. Appears in Melbourne Magistrates Court on child sex charges, including committing unlawful sexual intercourse and indecent assault, against 3 boys, aged under 16, between 1954 and 1961 while head of Dhurringile Training Farm near Tatura, north of Melbourne. Court hears offences occurred in dining room of Presbyterian Church-run home, in showers, in one boy's bed and in car. (A MacLean; HS 960228; APP 960515) (Victoria, Australia, 1996).

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CHURCH SUED FOR NEGLIGENCE. One of several girls who said Alva minister Rev. Robert Bruce Brigden molested her is suing the First Presbyterian Church for failing to check his background before hiring him. Allegations of sexual crimes were made at his former position in Kansas. Charges allege that he molested Alva church girls, ages 4 to 14. The church posted his bond. (Tulsa Tribune)

Alva, OK. MOLESTING MINISTER STABBED TO DEATH BY INMATES. Robert Bruce Brigden, former pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Alva, was stabbed to death by 2 fellow inmates of the Oklahoma State Reformatory while serving a 40-year prison sentence. He was convicted of rape by instrument, lewd molestation, and fondling of 11 girls, aged 4 to 14. (Dallas Morning News 6/14/94)
Former Minister Fatally Stabbed in Prison Cell

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LOWE Robert Arthur Selby, 57 Melbourne Sunday school teacher and Presbyterian church elder. Receives life jail sentence in Melbourne Supreme Court after being convicted of kidnapping and choking to death girl, aged 6, whose decomposed body was found in 1991 near Rosebud, south of Melbourne. Court hears Lowe, who attended Rowville Presbyterian Church, killed "for sexual purposes". Report says Lowe on two occasions waved Bible at courtroom, swearing he "never saw girl". Earlier, in 1984, Lowe was charged with exposing himself to schoolgirls at Glen Waverley shopping centre, Melbourne; in 1991, he was warned for indecent exposure at Croydon, Melbourne. In 1997, report lists Lowe as one of VIC's top 4 sex fiends. (Victoria, Australia, 1994).

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JURY ACQUITS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. A Louisville jury of 6 men & 6 women found in favor of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in a $5 million sexual-harassment suit brought by Janet Gellhaus. The employee claimed her superior Nagy Tawfik sexually harassed her, pressuring her into a sexual relationship by threatening to fire her. Church attorney Michael Valenti, apparently conceded the relationship when he said after the acquittal (shades of the U.S. Senate): "The lesson should be you need to immediately tell people about it, you need to immediately investigate your rights, you need to use some common sense & say 'no'." Source: _Presbyterian Outlook_ 9/7/92.

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PRESBYTERIAN REFORM URGED. The Presbyterian General Assembly, meeting in Baltimore in June, voted 446-78 to recommend abolishing the statute of limitations for reporting sexual misconduct by clergy. The church, citing critical proportions, has a 3-year time limit for reporting sexual misconduct by church officials. The vote must be ratified by 2/3 of the church's 171 regional presbyteries. It also voted 491-26 to establish a policy on sexual misconduct, advising local churches to set up "sexual misconduct response teams" & notify secular authorities "when appropriate". The adopted policy said there is evidence that "10-23 percent of clergy nationwide have engaged in sexualized behavior or sexual contact with parishioners, clients, employees, etc., within a professional relationship". Source: AP 6/12/92.

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NUDE MINISTER CONVICTED. Rev. Bruce Rentz, found guilty of indecent exposure after a state trooper saw him jogging naked and chased him to his home, has resigned as minister from Greenbush Presbyterian Church. He was ordered to perform community service, pay a $50 fine, and get counseling. Source: _Union News_ 5/14/92.

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PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER GETS 40 YEARS. Rev. Robert Bruce Brigden was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting young girls in his congregation, convicted on 8 counts of lewd molestation & 1 count of rape by instrumentation involving a girl, 7. Bridgen, 57, was accused of molesting 11 girls, aged 4 to 14, during the 4 years he was at the Alva church. His congregation put the church up as bond, insisting he was innocent. He was placed in protected custody. Brigden blamed his arrest on a girl, 4, whose parents were the first to take the children's allegations seriously. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Brigden wrote his wife about the 4-year-old, whom he described as "4 going on 400 years old", saying she invited him to spend the night in her bed, & was mad that he declined. Source: _Tulsa Tribune_ 8/92, _Tulsa World_ 9/3/92, _Daily Oklahoman_ 6/14/92.

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PRESBYTERY REMOVES PASTOR. The Pittsburgh Presbytery removed the associate pastor of the prominent East Liberty Presbyterian Church on charges of sexual misconduct. Rev. Howard Eybers, 43, is accused by 3 women of making sexual overtures. Source: _Pittsburgh Post- Gazette_ 3/7/92.

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TASKER Donald Gilbert, 61 Melbourne trainee Presbyterian minister and school teacher. Receives 6 year jail sentence in Melbourne County Court after being convicted on 29 child sex charges, including 12 counts of indecent assault, 5 of attempting indecent assault, 7 of gross indecency with aggravating circumstances and 5 of committing unlawful sexual intercourse with aggravating circumstances, against 4 boys, aged 5 to 11, between 1986 and 1991 at Melbourne home and suburban swimming pool. Court hears Tasker, of Croydon, abused his victims after volunteering to become surrogate parent with Melbourne community welfare agency. (Victoria, Australia, 1992).

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A federal sting operation to find child pornographers/molesters yielded 6 arrests in Philadelphia, including Presbyterian minister JOHN MCVAY, 53. He allegedly solicited sex with 2 girls ages 9 and 12. He was charged with criminal solicitation to commit involuntary deviant sexual intercourse. He also sent a 15 year old girl obscene material and a letter soliciting sex. (Intelligencer-Record, 3/10/89)

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Woman sues Presbyterian church for negligence: The Tulsa Tribune reported that one of several girls who said a Presbyterian minister molested her is suing the church for failing to check his background before hiring him. Allegations of sexual crimes were made at his former position in Kansas. Charges allege that he molested the church girls, ages 4 to 14. The church posted his bond.

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[Gamecock]

OK, so 838 ministers. Got it. That’s tragic. I hope they spend life in prison.

But our point has always been the institutional involvement by Rome Inc.

FWIW I recently heard 30,000 Roman Catholic Priests are implicated.

[RobbyS]

For the simple reason there is no need to do so. The only purpose would be to appease the protestant and unbelievers hostility to a celibate priesthood. Furthermore, we do have married priests in other rites, but understand that these priests marry before ordination. Nor may they marry again if they are widowed. This has always been the case. But just think about it: an unmarried cadre of people is an invaluable asset to any organization. Priests, monks and friars and nuns who take vows of poverty and obedience has been the main reason for the spread of the Catholic faith over two thousand years. Beyond that it has freed many talented men and women of lower class from the shackles of drudgery and given them a great mission. Theresa of Avila was very candid about one reason why she chose the religious life. For a woman of her class, the choices were early marriage, many children and probably an early death. She and her father early on realized how great her talents were and what an opportunity
the religious life gave her. But also early on, she felt the need to spread the Gospel, and unlike many other nuns who went into the convent to scape an unsure life, she felt a great calling. So we have a woman of high intelligence and great organizing skills who was able to break out of the restrictions of a patriarchal society and rise in terms of influence and reputation to a level above any bishop in Spain. One one famous occasion, a bishop who greeted her knelt on the ground before her and asked for her blessing. St. Francis of Assisi had the same effect on people, except Teresa, I think, was not as odd as Francis. Read her works and one finds a kind of sanity that is rare among great men/women.