Posted on 01/30/2011 2:01:52 PM PST by Alex Murphy
The London Catholic Herald blogger Anna Arco blogs the news that Pope Benedict XVI “called for the Church to investigate priestly celibacy”, in 1970 when he was a young priest.
She notes a German newspaper report that he signed a petition that suggested the Church re-examine the obligation of priestly celibacy.
The memorandum was drawn up in the face of a shortage of priests and other signatories included Karl Rahner and the future cardinals Karl Lehmann and Walter Kasper.
If there weren’t enough priests, the document said, then the “Church quite simply has a responsibility to take up certain modifications”.
The blog points out that the document’s release coincides with a renewed debate on priestly celibacy after prominent German politicians called for the Church to change the teaching on priestly celibacy in the face of a serious lack of priests.
Follow the money.
Protestant churches have no problem recognizing that they need to be paying their pastor enough to support a family, and most do.
That is not a good reason for a celibate priest.
God said that it was not good for man to be alone, so He created a helper suitable for him. If Adam needed it in perfection in the Garden, certainly fallen men need it as well.
1 Tim 3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
What we'll hear from the Roman Catholics is:
-Paul was a lunatic
and/or
-Tradition trumps the clear teaching of Scripture.
Well, of course he was! After all, he opposed the first pope to his face (Galatians 2:11)!
As Christ tells us...
For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him." -- Luke 34,38 "And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage...
Thus proving that even that "first pope" wasn't "infallible."
The first recorded words of Peter after his profession of Jesus being the Son of the Living God prove that.
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