[rface]

I am a Christian - but not a Roman Catholic, but I am wondering what the divide is regarding married Priests.... and how solid the arguments against Priests and marriage hold.....or visa versa.

respectfully asking for your opinion.....

[NYer]

I am a Christian - but not a Roman Catholic, but I am wondering what the divide is regarding married Priests.... and how solid the arguments against Priests and marriage hold.....or visa versa.

The Catholic Church allows for married priests but with restrictions. The tradition in the Western or Latin-Rite Church has been for priests as well as bishops to take vows of celibacy, a rule that has been firmly in place since the early Middle Ages. Even today, though, exceptions are made. For example, there are married Latin-Rite priests who are converts from Lutheranism and Episcopalianism. In the Eastern Catholic Churches, the ratio of married to celibate priests is about half.

[Cronos]

Will just add this to NYer's post --> celibacy is a discipline not a dogma of faith. By that we mean that it is a practise that has been followed for sensible reasons, but that does not mean that we cannot have married priests -- and we DO have them amongst the Eastern Catholic Churches. It is not a dogma of faith like the Trinity, something that cannot be compromised

Yet these Eastern Churches Catholic or Orthodox also restrict bishops to unmarried men or monks. The reasoning for bishops to be unmarried is simple -- to prevent corruption to which we humans are liable. For lay priests it was the same reason for the celibacy rule in the largely rural Western Patriarchate.

I personally think that celibate priests have merit and purpose as religious, but I believe that we should have more visibility for Eastern Catholic Churchs so that if a married man truly has the vocation, he may join the priesthood as a Syro-Malabar (say) priest. I know I'm getting something wrong in that statement though -- NYer, is that possible?