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To: LearsFool

I didn’t ignore nuthin’. See post 83. Paul is speaking to laypeople, recommending mutually agreed abstinence in order to pray.

Priests/bishops are professional prayers—their lives are given to it, which is EXACTLY why they don’t have families and children. Laypeople’s priesthood given in baptism can be expressed in the vocation to marriage and children, in which case their abstinence for prayer will be intermittent. Laypeople who do not marry will be abstinent all the time and their mission won’t be making and raising children but will be something else—business, teaching, whatever. Bishops and priests’ mission is to give themselves up in total sacrifice for the flock (Jn 10—see, it’s Scriptural, combined with Mt. 19 where Jesus pretty clearly says that he expects his apostles to be eunuchs, continent), so their abstinence is permanent once ordained, even if married (the only difference if they are married is that, having made a vow to their wives, they can’t unilaterally pledge permanent abstinence, so the wife has a veto).

All of these states in life are compatible with Paul’s advice about abstinence for prayer and “coming together again,” since he’s clearly speaking to people considering marriage. For himself, as an apostle, he makes pretty clear that abstinence/celibacy is preferred.


114 posted on 03/09/2010 5:53:38 PM PST by Houghton M.
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To: Houghton M.
Priests/bishops are professional prayers—their lives are given to it, which is EXACTLY why they don’t have families and children.

Again, God's command through the apostle Paul was that bishops be husbands and fathers. And as you remind us, Catholicism commands the exact opposite.

Thanks for making it crystal clear exactly where the Catholic Church stands viz. God's commands.
116 posted on 03/09/2010 6:06:39 PM PST by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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