[sinkspur]

But you keep telling us that our priests and bishops should live lives of ascetism.

Quibbling, sitetest.

Lots of families in my city live modestly, some ascetically, and they're not even clergy.

My suspicion has been, over the last ten years, that the underlying, unspoken reason for not looking at a married priesthood more seriously has been financial.

Look at the sexual abuse scandals. Bishops are acting like ogres toward suffering victims, all to save a buck or two in a civil suit.

You know as well as I do that there are some hierarchs who look at the checkbook balance before they get on their knees in the morning.

[B Knotts]

What about the idea that an unmarried man can more completely serve the Church and the people in his parish? There's something to be said for the fact that an unmarried priest can more completely dedicate himself.

[sitetest]

Dear sinkspur,

I'm not quibbling.

You seem to criticize Catholics for being cheap:

"Catholics are cheapskates; we're used to people who live in poverty serving us."

Since you use the first person plural, "we", I assume you're not talking about bishops, but rather us regular old Catholic folks, layfolks (if you mention that you are a deacon, I will accuse you of quibbling - I think I assume correctly when I assume that you identify more with us folks in the pews than the folks in the chanceries).

So, you seem critical of us ordinary Catholics for preferring that those who serve us live in poverty, or near to it (I don't know of anyone on the payroll of any church, or of any diocesan entity in the Archdiocese of Washington who lives in poverty - though many make very modest incomes).

But you seem to wish that priests and bishops live ascetically.

And, if married men could be ordained, is it your position that they AND their families be required to live ascetically? If not in actual poverty, only a step or two above it?

There appears to be a contradiction between two parts of your own vision of what the Church should be. I'm not quibbling about it. I'm trying to show you the contradiction, and ask you to address it, to reconcile it.


sitetest

[Hermann the Cherusker]

You know as well as I do that there are some hierarchs who look at the checkbook balance before they get on their knees in the morning.

I thought that was what they did while on their knees each morning!