Posted on 01/04/2005 2:34:33 PM PST by churchillbuff
This would be a MAJOR MSM story.
Not because the priest is married, but because he left the ECUSA order and he is taking 60 parishoners with him. This is a PUBLIC act, I would suggest that each of those 60 represents much more in private acts.
Eastern Rite Priests, if they are ordained in North America are technically not allowed to be married at the time of their ordination. This is the result of a Papal decree dating from the early 20th or late 19th century.
This rule has been broken a couple of times in the past few years by Eastern Rite Bishops, but it is still in place.
Unless I'm mistaken, the decree was issued at the request of the U.S. Bishops, through the premier diocese of Baltimore. If the pope would revoke the decree, it would go a long way to resolving the problem. JMO.
At a small parish in Maine the priest left because he wanted to get married. His replacement?, a married episcopal priest! What an insult to the priest who left. I know several men, who would become priests tomorrow, if the church would allow it.
Jesus is God, so it doesn't apply to him.
St. Paul was one of the greatest ascetic saints of all time. Unfortunately, men like him are hard to come by in the modernist Church.
is the news here that the Episcopal Church allowed a homosexual into clergy or that the Catholic Church ordained a married man as a priest. Just don't get it.
Great anecdote! But.........psst......Cardinal Spellman died in 1967!
Jesus was as truly a man as he was truly God Almighty, and He told us that we should take up our cross and follow Him, even admonishing the Apostles to be as perfect as His heavenly Father.
Celibacy as an imitation of Christ is hardly "unnatural" -it is supernatural.
Thanks..it was a typo..see my #29....I've already been called on it...
It is true historically that there have always been at least some gays in the priesthood. But they knew that if they acted upon their temptation and were found out that they would be expelled. So, they were kept to a minimum, and under control.
That is not the case now, where by even the most conservative estimates, at least 50% of priests are gay. This is a contrived situation, which has occurred due to recruiting of gays by gays, and seminary systems which make it very difficult for one to practice celeibacy, much less to be straight, as the predominantly gay faculties either screen out strait candidates, or make their lives a living hell.
That reality is well documented. And it is a primary reason for the drying up of vaocations to the priesthood. That and the example of liberal, effeminate priests whose lives and manner show no holiness or spirit of scrifice and prayer.
So the young men who might be inclined to become priests are effectively discouraged by the bad examples before them. Some of them manage to persue their vocation through traditional orders or monasticism. But most simply give up.
The permenant diaconate is not a replacement for the priesthood - it is not a model for the priesthood, nor a rallying point fo those who wish to eliminate clerical celibacy.
So, despite your perssonal agenda to promote the abandonment of mandatory clerical celibacy, it remains a very important element to the preisthood.
The case of this Anglican convert is an exception, which the church allows - under an extraordninary circumstance.
You obviously want a married priesthood, as it suits your agenda. It ius something which you consistantly root for, in thread after thread.
Council of Trent:
"If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; and that the contrary is no thing else than to condemn marriage; and, that all who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even though they have made a vow thereof, may contract marriage; let him be anathema: seeing that God refuses not that gift to those who ask for it rightly, neither does He suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able."
You are living in an alternate universe.
"He was like us in all things but sin".
Are you saying Jesus was subject to the lusts of the flesh --that he was sizing up Martha and Mary-- but he restrained himself?
Uhhh...they are molesting people of the same sex. Marrying women won't help that.
No, of course not. Telling a homopedophile that he's now free to marry an adult woman, achieves nothing. However, IN THE LONG RUN, it is conceivable that allowing married priests would allow many sexually normal individuals to be recruited for the priesthood, who now would never consider it solely because a vow of celibacy is out of the question for them.
The Orthodox have always allowed priests to marry, and have had no sodomy scandals that I know of. On the other hand, Anglicans also allow priests to marry, and they seem to be overrun with homosexuals. So marriage isn't necessarily a cure-all. But it might help.
Are you saying Jesus was subject to the lusts of the flesh --that he was sizing up Martha and Mary-- but he restrained himself?
Yes. He was tempted in ALL POINTS as we are - including that one -- yet remained without sin. I doubt that he conciously "sized them up" but as a physically normal man, he MUST have experienced sexual attraction at some point. But, since he remained unmarried (and was on a mission that precluded marriage), there was never a right context for him to act on those desires.
"You would be wrong. Married clergy have just as high of an abuse rate as do celibate clergy."
You're probably right - only problem is that most of our clergy are neither married nor celibate. I think you'll find that the abuse rate among married clergy is significantly less than that among homosexual clergy.
"A married convert from the Episcopal or Lutheran Church can be a priest, but not a married man who's been a lifelong Catholic."
And not a married man who converted to Catholicism before he became a Protestant minister either!
It is quite stupid rule-bending by the Vatican really. They should either stick to the celibate-only priesthood, or they should make it optional. They should never have allowed this silly scenario where the rules don't apply for one particular brand of convert.
In some respects cradle Catholics have become second-class citizens in the Catholic Church.
"I'd be in favor of making 30 the minimum age for ordination, or even 35, if the Church is going to continue to insist on mandatory celibacy."
That would be very sensible - the facets of a man's character have come out by that age, and if he has any serious problems they would probably be easier to pick up.
"It may also be a factor as to why no Catholic prelate ever betrayed his entire country's church to the Communists in exchange for a pension."
They might not have betrayed it to communists, but all bar one of the English prelates betrayed their Church to Henry VIII for the sake of a pension.
Interestingly, though, St. John Fisher was the only one who did not betray his Church, and, as it happens, he was also the only English bishop who did not have a concubine!
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