Posted on 10/28/2019 8:21:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Many years ago, a married Protestant minister told me he also led Mass for local Catholics. He said there were no Catholic priests serving that area. Maybe I misunderstood what he said... ?
People used to father 10-12 children all the time back in the day. Putting in 12 hour days in mills, factories and coal mines. My grandparents both came from such families. Again, things for them worked out okay.
You might have misheard. Possibly he was an ex-Protestant minister who had subsequently been ordained a Catholic Priest.
The question of whether priest can marry is a question of practice, not doctrine. One the other hand, the question of women being ordained deacons is, as I understand it, a question of doctrine.
I agree it used to work out -— for some -—in your grandparents’ era. But “back in the day” (and I mean way back, 50’s-60’s AD) St. Paul said it tended to tear a man apart, trying to be all-out working for the Church and yet keeping his wife and family cared-for and content.
The Catholic Church should allow married priests. Nothing about ministerial duties mandated to be celibate is Biblical.
St. Paul said Deacons should be husbands, and he said d it’s better to marry than burn with lust.
They should allow married priests.
The flipside of that is, as my father used to observe, that in Protestant denominations where the pastors may marry the church ends up gaining a HUGE amount of free labor from the pastor’s wife.
I have friends whose kids are ministers and this is undeniably true.
The Catholic Church does allow married priests, in the Eastern rite, Oriental rite etc.
Protestant clergy who are already married can also come into the priesthood under certain conditions.
It’s simply the tradition of the Latin Rite to be celibate and is looked upon as an honor to Jesus Christ.
Done deal.
If there is married priests,the rule have to be like that for the Eastern Rites.
All that is done is going back to the Biblical roots.
Even Christ a bride. The Church.
Correction: Even Christ has a bride. The Church.
Yet the first Pope, St. Peter had a wife,remember Jesus healed his MIL.
Plus the Latin Rite has already has married clergy called permanent deacons.
Then answered Peter and said unto him,"Behold, we have forsaken all
and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?
And Jesus said unto them...
Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, sisters,
or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lands,
for my name's sake,
shall receive an hundredfold,
and shall inherit everlasting life."
`
It seems the Apostles had all forsaken ("we have forsaken") the ordinary rights and joys and obligations of marriage and family life, and were willing to sacrifice everything in order to follow Jesus.
It was an eschatological sign: that they were living sacrificially, not for the ordinary satisfactions of this life, but for the everlasting life to come.
“No man can serve two masters.”
True.
And if a woman is allowed in the priest’s house it will be no time at all until you see women behind the pulpit, women handling the Host, a feminized pope...Oh, wait.
Well we will know for certain if the first Pope was either married or a widower when after we go home.
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