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To: Amendment10; NYer
The Catholic Church in the West (Latin Rite) has a celibate priesthood. In the 21 Churches of the East (Melkite, Maronite, Chaldean, Byzantine, etc.) married men are often ordained priests.

Roman Catholicism has married deacons. In fact, we have more married deacons in the US (14,000) than we have priests in religious orders like the Jesuits and the Franciscans (13,000).

If a man wanted to have the vows of Holy Orders AND the vows of matrimony, after he was married he could become an Eastern Rite priest or he could be an ordained deacon.

Or, o the other hand, he might have a vocation as a celibate Latin priest. Whatever his calling is (married or celibate, laity or clergy), it is a special gift from God.

It's all a matter of what his calling is from the Lord. St. Paul, who wrote that excellent description of what the qualifications of a bishop should be (in the Letter to Timothy) is also the one who also recommended celibacy:

"It is well for a man not to touch a woman.... I wish that all were [unmarried] as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another (1 Cor. 7:1,7).

That's good Scriptural advice, isn't it?

28 posted on 09/18/2013 5:55:06 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("The problem ain't what folks don't know. It's what they DO know, that ain't so!" - Will Rogers)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; Amendment10; Coleus

Excellent. Very well expressed! To compliment your treatise, I would like to point out that the Eastern Churches also have celibate priests. Our pastor initially intended to marry before becoming a priest. In the process of his discernment, he felt a strong calling to live a monastic life as a missionary. That led him to enter the Maronite Lebanese Missionary community and be ordained as a celibate priest. He now serves as pastor in a small Maronite parish in the US.


29 posted on 09/18/2013 6:05:59 PM PDT by NYer ( "Run from places of sin as from the plague."--St John Climacus)
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