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To: wideawake
Oh, I guess that silly rule that priests can't marry is just my imagination.
96 posted on 04/01/2002 7:48:15 PM PST by rwfromkansas
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To: rwfromkansas
Hi, rw, I realize you're just a young kid - but one of the best intellectual lessons you can learn at this early stage is to approach something with logic, instead of prejudices.

A few facts for you:

(1) There are many married priests in the Catholic Church. There is a requirement, if you want to become a Catholic priest of the Latin Rite, of taking a vow of celibacy. No such requirement exists for (a) being a Catholic, (b) being a clergyman, (c) being a priest of any of the eleven non-Latin rites. Therefore to say that the Pope teaches that marriage is forbidden is ridiculous. I'm a Catholic in good standing and I'm also married. If the Pope forbids marriage, then my personal situation is impossible. But, of course, he does not.

(2) One should never twist Holy Scripture from its context. St. Paul is condemning certain groups which teach that marriage is forbidden - like the Essenes and Gnostic sects which St. Titus would confront in his work of evangelization. These groups taught that marriage was an evil thing which God despised. St. Paul correctly condemned this ridiculous attitude and so does his successor in the apostolic office, John Paul II.

(3) Just as Christ did and just as Christ's current vicar John Paul II does, St. Paul lived a life of celibacy and encouraged others to do so. St. Paul obviously could not be condemning a form of Christian witness that he himself practiced and enjoined others to practice.

(4) Becoming a Catholic priest of the Latin Rite is a freely chosen career. No one is compelled to be a priest of the Latin Rite, and therefore marriage is forbidden to no one. Every priest of the Latin Rite has made a conscious decision to follow St. Paul's admonition to "be even as I am", i.e. a celibate.

101 posted on 04/02/2002 4:42:05 AM PST by wideawake
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