Posted on 12/14/2009 11:06:25 AM PST by the_conscience
Is there some wierd "Romanistic" interpretation of the concept that God at the end times will draw 144,000 people to him who have not had sex and who, for the duration of the end, won't have sex because they are in heaven singing a song nobody else can sing?
I don't think we are arguing that Priests should serve only for a short period of time early in their lives, and then head up to heaven.
Your history doesn’t seem to be in line with the history I just read on the Catholic church web site, which I presume is probably more in tune with the official views of the Church on the subject, although as I said previously I never really know which Catholic is expressing the true beliefs of the church.
Just be careful. The illuminati are reading your posts.
Only if you are arguing that a Priest should only serve until 33 years of age, and then be staked to a cross.
Seriously, there is a limit to "imitating" Christ.
In the first case, we have men who are permitted to marry and father children (all night long, and sometimes after breakfast if he plays his cards right) right up until they serve as altar priests, after which they are required to be chaste. However, he still keeps his wife and children, so that if he is ever relieved of altar-work, he may return to husband-work (all night long).
In the second case, men who serve as clergy are prohibited from ever marrying, and thus never have sexual relations with wives and never father children (in theory). However, a large number of pregnant nuns and sore-bottomed altar boys wish it was not so.
And whether or not you accept the interpretation that "Husband of one wife" really meant "Husband of no more than one wife", it is clear that Paul was saying leaders could be married. He certainly knew how to say "Celibate".
Of course Church leaders could be married at some point in their lives. St. Peter was married, and we claim him as leader of the Church.
Practically speaking the only men who were not married in the 1st century AD were teenagers, slaves, and eunuchs. The Church wanted mature adults with sound wisdom as its leaders, so St. Paul stated that the rule was to be a husband who had managed his household affairs well prior to ordination, but no men who had been married to more than one wife.
But why would Paul have prohibited a widower who remarried from being a leader in the Church?
Because such a person has shown that he is under the control of his sensual urges. Reading 1 Corinthians 7 should clear up St. Paul's thinking about remarriage and the reasons for doing it.
I can understand rejecting those who have been divorced (although it seems odd that the same Church which claims this passage means "no divorcee can be a Priest") also started with the practice of enforcing a "practical divorce" for men in order to be priests, if they had been married previously.
Those who have been divorced are not rejected, especially if they were not Catholic before their divorce. It is only those who marry more than once who are rejected as unsuitable.
The practical divorce is still available to husbands and wives today. If they mutually agree, they can both take vows of celibacy and live apart in a monastery and convent. The man could even be ordained.
“Lust has pervaded the conscience of everyone.”
mm: Everyone, eh? No exceptions
me: Everyone except Jesus.
mm: Sez who?
me: Jesus.
“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.”
mm: Wrong. Marriage is not a cure for lust.
me: The quote didn’t say anything about a “cure”.
mm: This article presents to case of Johann Apel which is simply anecdotal evidence. However, if this is the standard, then I can present numerous similar anecdotal cases of men and women who have remained chaste and pure in the celibate state and conversely, I can also present numerous cases of those who have married yet still indulged in the vices against which Luther rails. There’s a famous one in the news right now.
me: Anecdotal evidence is evidence nonetheless. Nowhere in the article does it suggest that a married clergy is a “fix” or a “cure”. Those are just strawmen errected by Romanists. It talks about the nature of man and creational ordinances that suggest the best pattern for human living. Do you think that Luther, who taught Total Depravity, would ever suggest that any creational ordinance is free of sin?
mm: You will test your neighbor’s bed if you are not upheld by God’s grace, irrespective of whether you are married or single.
me: Agreed. But if you introduce an unnatural situation to creational ordinances then you multiply the opportunity for sin.
mm: Who cares what Luther says? Who cares what the author of this piece says? Who cares what you say? I don’t.
me: Likewise, who cares what you say?
mm: We have centuries of heroic and saintly example to guide us. Not just talk but example.
me: Your previous statements about anecdotal evidence works against you.
Sir, I dare say you can’t go wrong looking on the Vatican website to determine official Church policy and history. Surely we can trust the guys running the Church to correctly put the official teachings of the Church to the public on a public website.
Try these vatican.va web documents out on this topic:
Yup.
The Roman Catholics see the body as evil, just like the ancient Greeks.
Comes out in their doctrine.
Reformed see man as image bearers. Catholics may say that, but it doesn't pan out with what they teach.
Actually he does provide some evidence when he talked about how during the Middle Ages many families would ship their children off to the monastery or nunery because they could not afford to feed them irrespective of their God-given inclinations towards marriage.
Deductively, since that's no longer a cause, those who volunatarily enter the priesthood or become a nun are more likely not to have an inclination to hetrosexual marriage and among those who have no inclination towards hetrosexual marriage will be many with homosexual urges.
Actually, we have men who WERE married at ordination, but then pledged themselves to absolute celibacy in accordance with the Canons of the Church. Pope St. Siricius wrote of St. Paul's legislation: "He (Paul) was not speaking of a man who might persist in the desire to beget children; he was speaking about continence which they had to observe in future."
However, he still keeps his wife and children, so that if he is ever relieved of altar-work, he may return to husband-work
Actually he didn't. The legislation of the Church is very clear that Priests, once ordained, could no longer live with their wives. The Council of Nicae absolutely forbid Priests from living with any woman other than their mother, sister, aunt or similar relative entirely above suspicion.
This also Pope St. Leo in the 5th century: "The law of continence is the same for the ministers of the altar, for the bishops and for the priests; when they were (still) lay people or lectors, they could freely take a wife and beget children. But once they have reached the ranks mentioned above, what had been permitted is no longer so."
In the second case, men who serve as clergy are prohibited from ever marrying, and thus never have sexual relations with wives and never father children (in theory).
Or rather, in the second case of Lateran I, what the Church did was to simply reiterate the former law. Because in the 14th century, we find Pope John XXII making a new law that no married person could be ordained a priest unless there was full knowledge of the celibacy law by both parties, and where this was not the case, the cleric was laicized and to return to this wife.
It was actually not until 1917 that prior marriage was made a formal impediment to ordination that only the Vatican could make a dispensation from.
Another false statement about Catholics or the Catholic Church from Gamecock.
Stunner!
Awfully thin gruel.
The reference mentioned is actually a reference to 1 Tim. 3:1-6 (fairly obvious given the context), which is the entire passage being discussed.
Also, since Paul was authoritatively teaching the rules for ordination of bishops, it is a stretch to posit that he did so at this historical point in the Church without himself having the authority to ordain a bishop. Of course today a woman who is a canon lawyer can quote scripture or canon law authoritatively without having the power to ordain, but in the context of that community and this message, Paul was speaking about an authority that he exercised.
You have reduced the decision to seek ordination as an exercise in career selection - as if the call is only recieved by those who don’t get aroused by women or who get aroused only by men.
Your logic would describe tithing as the gift of one who isn’t inclined to use money or who has no use for money, and thus no gift at all.
First, your question is an anachronism and we just don’t know how Luther would have reacted.
Second, the issue of women clergy is a different issue and, at best, only tangentially related but the theological issues are of a different kind than clerical celibacy.
Finally, most conservative Protestants reject homosexual clergy while at the same time holding to the old arguments against a celibate clergy. Again, a different issue with different theological principles. Theology should drive pragmatism not the other way around.
Celibacy was always the preferred state in life, even for the laity. The first “nuns” were widows who brought their property to the Church. Even married bishops were supposed to be celibate after election. This was a vein of Jewish religious observance unlike that of the Rabbis.
However, The mandated celibacy of the priest was a reaction to the corruption of the Dark Ages, when the monks provided a moral and intellectual contrast to the “secular” laity. The main aim, of course, was to insure that abbots and bishops remained celibate as they are in the Eastern Churches to this very day. That was because in the west, the nobility were the chief landowners, and the principle of monarchy was weak. The principle of celibacy made it harder for a noble to be elected as abbot or bishop, gain control of the lands, and pass it on to his issue.
This was a big deal since the lands of the Church were 10% or more of the whole and which the Church used to fund the social services its provided for the people, and this wealth was a tempting target for greedy nobles. It was a wealth that depended not just on alms but also the production of monastic estates , which regularly produced surpluses. Monasteries were run more efficiently than other estates, even the rich places scorned by St. Bernard and other reformers.
Further gross debasements of all things Catholic can be expected from certain quarters into the indefinite future.
My statement was not as dogmatic as you characterize it. Nevertheless, a higher proportion of people without those inclinations will be inclined toward ordination and those who are inclined towards ordination but equally inclined towards marriage are left out of their calling.
Among men. Clearly articulated in the article.
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