Your response misses the point (perhaps intentionally).
If you are not the master of your sexual and other urges, and are unable to abstain from them as virtue and prudence may require, then you are acting like a beast.
Saying this is not the same as saying that having sex makes you a beast. Not sure why you equated the two.
Jesus, whom we are called to imitate in all things, abstained from all sex. Imitating his total celibacy is certainly laudable. Insisting that a priest be willing to imitate that same total celibacy is not a bad thing.
Oh come on silly. Jesus married Mary Magdalene at the wedding feast at Cana, moved to France with her, and sired the Merovingian Dynasty and the Knights Templar. They spent their summers in Glastonbury with their uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, checking up on the 10 lost tribes of Israel on the British Isles and Scandanavia and Germany, and practicing goddess worship through ritual sex in the middle of the druidic Henges.
Don't tell me you didn't you read the Da Vinci Code so you could finally get your history straight and missed all of this?
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.
This was sarcasm, no?
Then you replied about my more serious questions: "Your response misses the point (perhaps intentionally)." This sounds like you are accusing me of sarcasm. I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand the concept more fully.
Then you say:"If you are not the master of your sexual and other urges, and are unable to abstain from them as virtue and prudence may require, then you are acting like a beast. Saying this is not the same as saying that having sex makes you a beast. Not sure why you equated the two."
Let me ask my questions in more simple terms:
If a man is happily married and has good and satisfying relations with his wife and if, due to this level of satisfaction, he is not bothered by imprudent sexual urges how is this man leading a less beastly life than a man who somehow manages to suppress strong sexual urges and abstains from ever having sex?
In other words, how is mastering strong sexual urges through suppression more honorable than bringing them to the marital bed?
I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand this teaching.
Also please supply chapter and verse for your assertion that we are by called by Jesus to imitate his total celibacy.
This was sarcasm, no?
Then you replied about my more serious questions: "Your response misses the point (perhaps intentionally)." This sounds like you are accusing me of sarcasm. I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand the concept more fully.
Then you say:"If you are not the master of your sexual and other urges, and are unable to abstain from them as virtue and prudence may require, then you are acting like a beast. Saying this is not the same as saying that having sex makes you a beast. Not sure why you equated the two."
Let me ask my questions in more simple terms:
If a man is happily married and has good and satisfying relations with his wife and if, due to this level of satisfaction, he is not bothered by imprudent sexual urges how is this man leading a less beastly life than a man who somehow manages to suppress strong sexual urges and abstains from ever having sex?
In other words, how is mastering strong sexual urges through suppression more honorable than bringing them to the marital bed?
I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand this teaching.
Also please supply chapter and verse for your assertion that we are by called by Jesus to imitate his total celibacy.