Posted on 03/09/2010 12:13:22 PM PST by the invisib1e hand
Married or single priests from the early stages of Christianity practiced celibacy, according to a Vatican archaeologist.
During the first four centuries, married priests would renounce having intimate relationships with their wives, but they needed their the approval of their spouse.
Chastity - abstaining from sexual relations.
Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 2nd Edition 1979
This is why there is a vow of celibacy and a vow of chastity.
One could understand if you engaged to expand your knowledge or to ask probative questions, but opining on a topic on which you have no vested interest and with which you have no knowledge of the subject matter other than you gut feelings is lurking.
A screen name that champions an accomplishment of Mao, the greatest mass murder in history, doesn't paint you or your motives in the most Christian or benign light.
A celibate clergy exists in every country on the planet, including the US, through the presence of the Catholic Church.
The vow of celibacy applies only to Catholic clergy. There is a prohibition against fornication (all sexual contact between unmarried persons) applicable to all Catholics regardless of vocation.
I deliberately copied your exact tone.
You dish it but won’t take it when it’s directed back at you.
Next time think twice before addressing someone as “boy” and calling him brainwashed.
I figured you’d squawk when the tables were turned.
I gave you the exact breakdown of the ways the terms “chastity” and “chaste” are used theologically.
That Webster cites a popular and limited use, one that I pointed out is common but misleading, is fine. Webster attempts to be descriptive of how words are used.
If you consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Thomas Aquinas, the Church Fathers etc. you’ll find that “chaste marital sexual relations” has a long and distinguished history.
And, in case Mikey wonders, the vow of marriage includes a vow of chastity, that is of sexual faithfulness and not to abuse (be unchaste) within one’s marital sexual relations. The monk or nun vows poverty, chastity and obedience. His or her vow of chastity means a vow to be totally sexually abstinent and is predicated on a commitment not to marry (celibacy). Secular priests do not take the poverty vow but their chastity vow presumes celibacy.
Everyone is obligated to chastity. It just means something different if one is married rather than unmarried. If you look at the root word, castitas in Latin, it simply means pure, unpolluted.
If you are going to say that chaste applies only to the sexually abstinent, that chastity = abstinence, then you are saying that marital sex is polluting and cannot be pure.
But if castitas simply means purity, then it applies to abstinent purity if unmarried and to pure sexual relations if one is married, rather than impure sexual relations (selfish, manipulative, abusive sexual relations).
I'll take Webster's definition over your interpretation of Church dogma.
The vast majority of Americans, while Christian, are not Catholic.
While I am Catholic, I am also American and live in the popular and limited world, just as Jesus did, and I use the popular and limited definition of my mother tongue.
Definitions that are wide open to interpretation are, for all practical purposes, not definitions at all.
If I screwed up the headline, thx. If not, you ought to inform the source.
This is a G rated thread, pal.
Been there and done that. And who said anyone wanted married priests?
The Church is always right. Infallible, as a matter of fact, in matters of faith and morals.
Approximately one in three residents of the US and nearly half of all American Christians are Catholic making it the most populous denomination in the US. The next largest denomination, the Southern Baptists, has only one fourth as many members.
Houghton M. wrote:
“To simply say, ‘Hey God, thanks a bundle for dying on the Cross for me and forgiving my sins and ain’t we all happy and peachy and it warn’t no such Big Deal’ might ...”
Yes, it is so easy to run through, decapitate, and dance on the body of the straw man you chose to engage. It is so easy to ascribe to others the mindset you have been taught to assume that they have. It is so easy to assume that faith in the pure, unmerited mercy of God toward sinners will bring forth no fruits, that God does not know what He is talking about, that we must put Him to the test in order to satisfy our own demands.
Houghton M. also wrote:
“You’ll complain that what I outlined here is ‘works righteousness.’”
Well, I don’t know about him against whom you wrote, but I won’t complain. It is to be expected. But, yes, what you outlined is most certainly “works righteousness.” I don’t expect you to believe me. But maybe one day you will hear and understand (and I hope you do!) Jesus’ words: “Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others ...” (Luke 18:9)
Houghton M. also wrote:
“Well, go ahead. What you believe in is cheap grace.”
Cheap? Hardly. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 26:47) Manifestly, you have no idea what you are saying.
his brainwashed = my fool
“have you stopped beating your wife” = irrelevant Index of Forbidden Books” canard at the end.
I simply responded to his escalation to the personal level.
I’ll grant you the goats was unnecessary.
Now, don’t make it personal.
“Manifestly, you have no idea what you are saying.”
Now, don’t make it personal.
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