Posted on 12/02/2018 12:32:01 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
Pope Francis has been quoted in a soon-to-be published book as saying that having gays in the clergy “is something that worries me” and remarking that some societies are considering homosexuality a “fashionable” lifestyle.
... Separately, the Italian news agency ANSA quoted Francis in the book as commenting on a clergyman who had told him that having gays in Catholic religious housing “isn’t so grave” because it’s “only an expression of affection.”
That reasoning “is in error,” Francis said. “In consecrated life and priestly life, there is no place for this kind of affection.”
He said candidates with “neuroses or strong unbalances” should not be accepted “to the priesthood nor to (other forms of) consecrated life.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Pope Francis should then clean out the priesthood of all the queer priests. That is the only solution. Being softhearted and trying to understand does not work with homosexuals. They will continue to do what they want.
I don’t know if you’re Catholic, or how much exposure you’ve had to Catholic culture and practice. So please don’t be offended if my remarks come across as condescending. I don’t mean them to be. I’m also writing for the benefit of others who may come across this thread who may not know anything about this stuff. If you already do, then great.
In the Catholic Church, the priesthood and marriage have never been understood to be mutually exclusive. There were married priests for centuries, and celibacy was not imposed as the universal norm for priests until sometime after the year 1000. And even after that, the eastern rites of the Catholic Church have always had married priests. I’m not talking about the Orthodox Church. I’m talking about those rites of the Catholic Church in union with the Pope. That’s why even Latin-rite (western) priests can, by exception, be married.
Whether or not celibacy should or should not be generally required of priests in the Latin (western) rite, and the theological and practical reasons for and against it, is not my point. That’s a separate discussion. The point is that nothing about the priesthood is intrinsically incompatible with marriage.
Monasticism and religious orders, however, are different. The whole point of them is to dedicate oneself exclusively and explicitly to the service of the Lord, without the distractions inherent in married life. So it makes no sense for them to be married. Marriage requires the spouses to live a common life together, for mutual support, and to raise children together, should they be blessed with them. Monasticism, on the other hand, requires the monks to live together as brothers, and to live an intense life of common prayer and mutual support.
Nuns can be thought of as simply the female version of male monks and friars, except that they can’t be priests.
But the point is that both male and female members of religious orders (e.g., monks, friars, nuns, etc.) have a specific vocation that simply does not, and by its very nature, cannot include marriage.
All people are called to be holy. But they take different paths to that holiness. The path of marriage is the one most people are called to. The path of priesthood can, at least in principle, include marriage. But the path of belonging to a religious order cannot include marriage.
Now, the astute observer will likely point to the fact that the “third orders” are open to married people. That is true. Third Order Franciscans, for example, live the same Franciscan spirit as the first order Franciscans (friars) andd the Second Order Franciscans (the Poor Clares). But it is a modified rule of life, suitable for those living in the world, and they are not nuns and friars, at least not in the same sense as the terms are commonly used. The vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience cannot be lived in the same manner as they would be lived by monks, friars, and nuns.
Being a monk or a nun simply requires, by its very nature, that the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience be lived in a way that excludes even the possibility of marriage and children.
If he’s worried, who am I to judge?
Maybe he’s trying to appeal to the lost, so they can hear the truth. Maybe.
hes only worried cause everyone found out.
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