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A married man may be ordained. This is not only NOT, as the Catholic Church sees it, a theological impossibility, this is the reality of the Church doctrine and practice from Day One.

An unmarried priest, once ordained, may not subsequently marry and function as a priest. (A matter of timing: ONCE ordained, he is not to marry). If he wants to get married, it's possible he could be laicized, and then could marry but would not have faculties (permission) to function as a priest.

The Church has not the power or authority to invent Sacraments (they were instituted by Christ), but the Church may regulate by whom or when or where or in what order they may be received. This is one of the ways the Church exercises her authority, given by Christ, of "binding and loosing." Read your Bible. Who "binds and looses" in YOUR demurely unnamed denomination, by the way?

The Catholic Church comprises 22 churches in communion with the Pope. Their doctrines and sacraments are the same; their ceremonials (rites), customs, and disciplines may be different.

Therefore, it is wrong-headed to speak about "Roman" Catholic "doctrine," when in fact doctrine is something the whole Catholic Church has in common. A requirement that only celibates may be ordained is not a "doctrine" of the "Catholic" Church. It has been a "discipline" (one of those binding-and-loosing things) in the Western part of the Church for over 2,000 years, but even in the West it is not an exceptionless norm.

As for St. Peter, we know he had a mother-in-law. The text does not mention a wife on the premises, who, if living, would reasonably have been mentioned in connection of her concern or care for her own mother. So it's a fair guess Peter was a widower. I don't know: do you?

Of course "disciples" were married. Yikes! If they were not, the Church could have died out after one generation! God has highly honored Matrimony by making it a Sacrament, an effective and outward sign of a spiritual reality, at many levels and most sublimely as a "Magnum Mysterium" of the unity of Christ and the Church (cf Ephesians).

Interestingly, sexual intercourse is a constitutive element of a Sacrament (Matrimony) but celibacy is not a constitutive element of any Sacrament (not even Holy Orders.) Something to think about, y'know?

If a marriage was invalid, then God had not "joined them together." Because what God has joined together, no power on earth can dissolve. So there was something decisively wrong with invalid marriages from the git-go: force, or fraud, or some canonical delict or ineligibility of some kind. God does not join together null (invalid) marriages.

As for various sins and scandals, they are sins and scandals. Those responsible for them will have to answer for it to a just God Who does not tolerate sin at all: they are moral defects in these sinners, not defects in the doctrine of His Church.

Now again I implore you: as regards Catholic doctrine, ask, don't tell.

I go back to my Apricot Semifreddo. It is a metaphor, I hope, for my approach to life: all the taste, half the fat!! :o)

Have a good Saturday, and I'll send you the recipe if you want.

A married man may be ordained.

On this we agree as we see this in the NT.

This is not only NOT, as the Catholic Church sees it, a theological impossibility, this is the reality of the Church doctrine and practice from Day One.

Maybe from day one, but it began to change in the 300s.

An unmarried priest, once ordained, may not subsequently marry and function as a priest. (A matter of timing: ONCE ordained, he is not to marry). If he wants to get married, it's possible he could be laicized, and then could marry but would not have faculties (permission) to function as a priest.

Of which there was no prohibition on this in the NT. This would be a change promulgated by Rome.....in other words...something not taught in the NT.

The church of change in other words.

The Catholic Church comprises 22 churches in communion with the Pope. Their doctrines and sacraments are the same; their ceremonials (rites), customs, and disciplines may be different.

You're telling me ya'll have made up with the Eastern Orthodox who don't recognize your pope?? BTW...that's a bit of a difference.

Therefore, it is wrong-headed to speak about "Roman" Catholic "doctrine," when in fact doctrine is something the whole Catholic Church has in common. A requirement that only celibates may be ordained is not a "doctrine" of the "Catholic" Church. It has been a "discipline" (one of those binding-and-loosing things) in the Western part of the Church for over 2,000 years, but even in the West it is not an exceptionless norm.

You're trying to hide behind words...doctrine, discipline to deflect the RCC has made a change to the requirements of the priesthood not found in the NT. You've had too many popes and councils that say otherwise.

As for St. Peter, we know he had a mother-in-law. The text does not mention a wife on the premises, who, if living, would reasonably have been mentioned in connection of her concern or care for her own mother. So it's a fair guess Peter was a widower. I don't know: do you?

I don't know and it really doesn't matter. The point of that passage was to note it was Jesus who did the healing.

If a marriage was invalid, then God had not "joined them together." Because what God has joined together, no power on earth can dissolve. So there was something decisively wrong with invalid marriages from the git-go: force, or fraud, or some canonical delict or ineligibility of some kind. God does not join together null (invalid) marriages.

Here we go again with the Clintonian parsing....the popes split up the marriages. Plain and simple. Urban II was a real loser.

As for various sins and scandals, they are sins and scandals. Those responsible for them will have to answer for it to a just God Who does not tolerate sin at all: they are moral defects in these sinners, not defects in the doctrine of His Church. Yet no one lifted a finger to oppose these actions. Why? They believed the pope had the "authority" to make that decision.

Or perhaps they were scared to oppose the pope for various reasons. The RCC does have a bad history of, shall we say, "disciplining" those who disagree with Rome.

Now again I implore you: as regards Catholic doctrine, ask, don't tell.

All I'm doing is providing Roman Catholic history from Roman Catholic sources to illustrate the point....the Roman Catholic church does indeed invent doctrines and has done so over time that are not in accord with the NT.

Hence the claim of Apostolic Succession and the claim of "Sacred Tradition" cannot be supported by Roman Catholic history.

Now again I implore you: as regards Catholic doctrine, ask, don't tell.

Ok; I'll ask.

Is this still in force; word for word?

"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."

--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)