Do The Faithful Realize The Problems With Optional Celibacy?

The Wanderer ^ | August 28 2003 | Fr. Joseph F. Wilson

[Salvation]

**Do The Faithful Realize The Problems With Optional Celibacy?**

Short answer -- YES!

[Salvation]

**The priesthood is not a profession. It cannot be lived as a profession. It is a state of life.**

And it is a choice. Just like a couple must constantly work making a marriage work. A marriage is a way of life that is always a work in progress and always a choice!

[Loyalist]

PING.

I've noticed an inverse relationship between support for married priests among the laity and their willingness to increase their donations to pay for it.

[thoughtomator]

Even a Jew can figure this one out. Why can't so many Christians?

[RobbyS]

Most Catholics don't have a clue about the major differences between a Protestant minister and a priest. For one thing: a minister is just a layman with a special function.

[ultima ratio]

The bishops "have a bond with the people"? I don't think so. The bond, if it exists, is with the clergy--and sometimes only with those who are only in their own clique. Nor will ending the rule of celibacy end the crisis. It is a crisis of faith. No men, married nor celibate, can give to others what they don't have to give. The truth is, the rules for spiritual formation must change. Faith must be quickened in the seminaries first--which means a top-down housecleaning. I don't see this happening. It's still business-as-usual.

[saradippity]

So you are saying that people who support married priests are willing to support it? Please answerr because I am not sure what you meant and would not want to insult anyone by giving my own observation unless I was sure i understood yours. Thankyou.

[ultima ratio]

sometimes only with those who are only in their own clique=sometimes only with those in their own clique.

[fortunecookie]

Do The Faithful Realize The Problems With Optional Celibacy?

And how many are truly faithful anymore? Faithful to the Magisterium and the Pope and the Catechism? The faithful do realize the problems. Those who profess faith, but are often most faithful only to their own whims, they are another story. Voice of the Faithful, a perfect example.

[Salvation]

Good question!

[thoughtomator]

Sadly, the answer is that none of those people are Christians, although they may think they are and call themselves such. Now the results of two generations of institutional failure of churches of all demoninations to teach understanding rather than dogma are apparent. "By their fruits..."

[RobbyS]

Uh, they don't teach dogma. That's the main problem. So few people know the history/intellectual basis/authority of what is done.

[Loyalist]

Most people who want married priests have never compared their salaries to those of priests. Nor do they know what percentage of their donations go towards those salaries.

If they did, they'd realize where the money to pay for the support of priests' families would have to come from.

And we all know what a stingy lot Catholics unfortunately are.

[NYer]

The priesthood is not a profession. It cannot be lived as a profession. It is a state of life. You don’t compare the priesthood to a profession such as law or medicine; you compare it to a state of life, like holy Matrimony.

Profoundly stated!

(Fr. Wilson is an associate pastor at St. Luke’s Parish in Whitestone, N.Y.)

I taught computer classes (grades 1 through 8) at St. Luke's for 3 years!! There were still 2 teaching nuns there at that time. One of them taught 1st grade. I WILL NEVER FORGET one of the first fire drills I experienced, after being assigned to their school. (My employer was retained by the school to set up a computer lab and provide an instructor ... me.) There was no advance warning; the alarm went off and the other teachers knew the routine. They filed their classes outside, across the street and into the school's parking lot. My classroom was empty, so I simply observed from my window.

Across the street, I could see that the teachers had organized their students into neat and tidy lines. While scanning this scene of well behaved children in school uniforms, I caught sight of the First Grade nun reprimanding a little scofflaw. As I watched, she proceded to grab his tie and physically lift him up off the ground. I gasped! The boy, undaunted, returned to his place in the line; he never tried those antics again. Can you imagine the ramifications if a public school teacher were to do that today? Lol! I later learned from several of the parents that they specifically asked the school principal to place their child in sister's class. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this aged nun is still teaching and 'correcting' misbehavior in her students.

[A.A. Cunningham]

We need to be reminded that there are still people — even priests, pastors of souls — so incurably dense that they cannot see a profound spiritual crisis here, and think that rearranging the deck chairs, shuffling canons about will solve the problem.

Bravo Zulu Father Wilson.

[The_Reader_David]

The Latin church must keep its own council regarding celibacy in its Latin rite. I would point out that the dire circumstance the author envisions of a priest needing to follow his wife's job does not happen in the Orthodox Church (nor I presume in the Eastern rites of the Latin church): The wife of a candidate for ordination must accept formally her husband's obedience to his bishop before the candidate is accepted for ordination. Being a presbytera (or matushka or khouria) is a ministry as well, even though it is the husband who receives ordination.

It would be helpful in your discussions if both sides were really familiar with how the married priesthood in the East actually works in practice.

[TexConfederate1861]

The Eastern Orthodox Church has had the "optional" setup from the beginning, and having a wife and family doesn't cause a problem as far as I have seen. In the Diocese I was chrismated in, the priest was just as dedicated as the most single Catholic priest I have ever seen. He didn't have "business" hours, and he was available 24/7......

I truly believe that married clergy would reduce the sexual turmoil that some Roman Catholic clergy face....

What is it St. Paul said about it being better to "marry than to burn"?.......

[rogator]

"The bishops "have a bond with the people"?"

It's awfully hard for me to have a bond with someone who has paid hush money to lovers of pervert clerics and also ignored, even fostered the abuse of the liturgy as well as the destruction of our Catholic traditions.

[TexConfederate1861]

Well...here in Texas, many are firm believers in corporal punishment, but from the way you described that "incident", that IS NOTHING BUT CHILD ABUSE!

If anyone, nun or otherwise lifted my son off the ground by his TIE?! (think STRANGULATION HERE!) I would not leave much for the authorities to mop up, if I got there first!

Spanking a child is one thing, but that my friend is ABUSE.
Plain and simple!