Posted on 10/13/2019 5:17:17 PM PDT by ebb tide
VATICAN CITY, October 12, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman would not have understood the reasons behind the contemporary push for married priests.
Fr. Ignatius Harrison of Newman’s own Birmingham Oratory is the Actor, that is, the petitioner, for the Cause of the great English cardinal’s canonization. Newman, a leading English religious and literary figure in his lifetime, will be raised to the altars this Sunday.
Even before he became a Roman Catholic, the Anglican John Henry Newman was a firm proponent of clerical celibacy. Fr. Harrison indicated to LifeSiteNews that the beatus would be the same today.
“To be perfectly frank, I don’t think [Newman] would understand the reasons [for married priests],” Harrison said.
The Provost of the Birmingham Oratory observed that Newman had friends among married Anglican clergy and that he counted married men and women among his Catholic friends.
“But for Newman himself, the 100% commitment to serving Christ, which he saw as the essence of the priesthood: he didn’t understand how that would be compatible with having a family,” Harrison explained.
“I don’t mean for any moral reasons but, apart from anything else, the practical reasons,” he continued.
“For as St. Paul says, a married man is concerned with his wife and children―quite rightly―whereas the unmarried man can devote himself exclusively to the Lord.”
Meanwhile, Newman’s chaste celibacy was related to his total devotion to the Lord on an emotional and spiritual level.
Harrison told LifeSiteNews, “I think there was also...a strong spiritual component to his commitment to chastity in this sense: chastity wasn’t simply [about] something he couldn’t do, it was part of his personal love for his Savior, his personal love for Christ.”
“He wanted to live for the Lord alone, completely.”
Remarking that this might be an unpopular opinion, Harrison linked chaste priestly celibacy to the Eucharist.
“I would say that this is something that we have to learn and to remember nowadays: there is a deep connection between chastity and celibacy for the clergy and their relationship with the Blessed Sacrament.”
If the modern world remembers nothing else about Cardinal Newman, it remembers that when asked to drink a toast to the pope, he replied that he would drink “to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”
Harrison underscored that Newman made it clear subsequently that he didn’t see the doctrine of the Church and the conscience as contradicting each other. Indeed, the conscience is an important part of remaining in the truth of God.
“Conscience is a human faculty of judgement but it exists because our Maker has written His law on our hearts, and if our conscience is correctly formed―it has to be educated and formed―and nourished by the spiritual life―it provides a very certain and explicit link with the Almighty,” the Oratorian said.
Harrison said that we live in times when the objective difference between right and wrong is being obscured and that dogmatic truths are not simply what we make them.
“Truth and the spiritual life go together,” he said.
Newman was attracted to Catholicism because of ecclesiastical authority, but this was rooted in the truth of faith. Regarding the concept of collegiality, Harrison said that Newman would be interested in it, but not if it involved a democratic vote on truth.
“He would say ‘Collegiality depends on the primacy of faith being shared by everybody involved,’” Harrison explained. “It’s not one bishop, one vote, and let’s see who gets a majority. Collegiality is a work of the Spirit, based on the faith of each individual, but the faith of each individual must be in harmony and coherent.”
Harrison said that, regarding the influence of his theology, Newman’s time has come.
“It seems to me that God gives his people the saints they need when they need them in many cases, and I think Newman of one of those,” he said.
“Newman has been in the background, really, for the last 130 years, since he died, and I believe his time has come.”
Harrison’s three principal reasons for saying this are Newman’s teaching on the conscience being part of our spiritual life, his desire for a “well-informed and articulate laity”, and his discernment of “the true development of doctrine.”
“It I had to back one of those three above all the others, I suppose it would be that [the true development of doctrine] although they do go together,” the Oratory priest said.
Newman formulated criteria to discern “what is a true development and what is a novelty,” Harrison explained.
“A picture emerges quite clearly, and if Newman were in the Church Militant right now, he would insist on the coherence of whatever is being taught nowadays with the Church’s living tradition,” he concluded.
Ping
The Poop probably wouldn’t mind priests marrying.....one another.
Lovely article. Thanks for posting it.
I am a protestant, very happily married. That said, celibate Priests are superior in many way. For years, you had high-quality Catholic schools that could cheaply educate many people. This was because the priests had a vow of poverty, and that resulted in low overhead.
I doubt the Lord's command to "be fruitful and multiply" to His male/female creation and His establishment and blessing of marriage for the good of society precluded ones ability to have 100% commitment to serving Christ. The Apostles and their disciples whom God used to preach the gospel, disciple believers and set up local churches throughout the world were nearly ALL married men. That didn't seem to hurt the effort.
I don’t understand, if a man wants to serve God and marry why don’t they join one of the many religions where that is normal and accepted instead of demanding that the Catholic church change and the same goes for women who want to be ordained, plenty of places other than the Catholic church for that too.
I never did care about what you “doubt”.
I always thought sex was normal/natural. Y go against human nature?
DITTO!
How do you feel about rapists then?
bump
Interesting that ole John was against having a female wife when apparently he had no problem with a male wife...John admits that he had as strong a feeling for his significant other that a married couple have for each other...Maybe even moreso...It’s not all that common where a couple of spouses get buried in the same grave...Now that’s some level of love and dedication...
And that brings up a question...Was John guilty of the Catholic sin of a priest lusting after someone else, maybe even more so than God??? John bragged that he was his partner’s first and last...First and last what??? Isn’t it the idea that a Catholic priest will not love another person to that degree??? Seems that would conflict with a priest’s Catholic duty to put God and his congregation above all else...
The queer Catholic community looks to John Henry Newman as their homosexual mascot, so to speak...This sainthood thing will likely draw weaker and non Catholic homos closer to the Catholic church...Amazes me how quickly things are changing...
You apparently also doubt St Paul when he wrote in 1 Cor that the celibate state was superior to the married state.
You mean this:
In addition to NOT doubting what St. Paul wrote, I also study WHY he wrote it, WHO he wrote to, the TIMES they were living in, etc. A few key phrases stick out to me. Paul gives his own viewpoints/judgments on some things and specifically says he is NOT speaking as a command of the Lord. He talks about "this present crisis" - the persecution of Christians - and "the time is short" - their sense that the Lord's return was imminent. All factors that would be considered WRT believers marrying and having families. Don't forget that most of the Apostles were married and their wives and children traveled with them on their evangelical missions. Paul, in describing the different qualifications required of pastor/teachers/deacons, specifically said they were to be men who WERE married. Sounds like he may have matured in his thinking from when he wrote to the Corinthian church and then to Timothy (at least a decade later).
There is no denying that even in the Roman Catholic church, a celibate "priesthood" was not always the way - it was changed in the twelfth century. Did your own church doubt the message about the "superior state" of celibacy from St. Paul until over a thousand years after he died??? Perhaps they understood that serving the Lord and being 100% committed to Him can also be done by married men and women. This was my point.
That's just plain false. It was reiterated in the twelfth century, but was taught since Apostolic times. A detailed history of the topic exists here.
Paul, in describing the different qualifications required of pastor/teachers/deacons, specifically said they were to be men who WERE married.
No, he said they were to be "husbands of one wife". That's not a circumlocution for "married," it means that he was not interested in remarried widowers or those who had pagan wives whom they had divorced. There's a perfectly adequate Greek word for "married," if that was what he had meant.
Of course the assumption, in a church full of adult converts, was that candidates for the offices of elder or overseer would be married. That was not the ideal, as Paul himself proves in the passage you quoted:
The unmarried man is concerned about the work of the Lord, how he can please the Lord. But the married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, and his interests are divided. The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the work of the Lord, how she can be holy in both body and spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband.
He is here making a general comment, not one limited to a specific time or place, and not one conditioned on expecting the end of the world in the next couple of years.
Placemarker
I guess by using your logic, nobody should ever get married, cry, be joyful, buy anything or use anything? In Catholicism's striving to prove it is superior in the matter of celibacy to everyone else they totally miss the whole point! Do you know what the point is?
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