Married Catholic priests in the eastern rights have been approved by Rome for generations. Rome is refusing to allow the rest of its priests similar options. I think it would reduce the number of child molesters, and homosexual priests. The big idea of have celibacy is nonsense, especially in today sex obsessed Western societies.
The Roman priets were allowed to marry for the first 1000 or so years of the church's history. I would think it hard to support a ban that is that far removed from the original model of the church but then no one asked me.
Several of the priests from my hometown left the priesthood. They married and had children. They are good people and many regret their loss. To bad they cannot join the priesthood as this Episcopal fellow did and work for a better world. It is time to call on Rome to stop the foolish duplicity. Either you can be married or not.
>>>I think it would reduce the number of child molesters, and homosexual priests. The big idea of have celibacy is nonsense, especially in today sex obsessed Western societies.
You would be wrong. Married clergy have just as high of an abuse rate as do celibate clergy.
This makes no sense whatsoever. Priest are not forced to lives of celibacy, they know going into the priesthood that it is part of their vows. It is voluntary. If someone wishing to enter a vocation cannot take the vow of celibacy, let them enter some other vocation where it is not required.
So, in your opinion, because the West is obsessed with sex, the Church should give in to this? Anyway, there are plenty of heterosexual married men and women that are pedophiles. Just open the NY papers everyday and see how many so-called "teachers" in the public school system are caught on a regular basis. If someone is truly celibate they will not become pedophiles.
The real problem with the Church is that it was too lax in allowing homosexuals into the priesthood in the first place. Now they are reaping whay they have sown. But, I have faith and I know the Church will get through this crisis. It has gone through much worse in the past and came through.
One of the best priests I've ever known left the priesthood to marry. Great loss for the Church, I think.
Allowing priests to marry won't make one bit of difference in the molestation numbers because men who want to molest children or teenagers would do it even if they were married.
I think that celibacy is a gift in the Church precisely BECAUSE our society is so sex obsessed.
Uhhh...they are molesting people of the same sex. Marrying women won't help that.
On the other hand, if a priest finds out later in his career that he is called to marriage and not celibacy, he should be allowed to stay in the priesthood.
Again, it should be a minority, not the majority. As St. Paul said, celibate men tend to devote more time to the Lord than married men. Nevertheless, in certain issues, I can relate better to a married priest than to a celibate one. Having a married priest out of the 3 or 4 serving in my parish will be a blessing.
There are child molesters and homosexuals who are also married to women. Some cover their sexual crimes through the disguise of being married. It's not a matter of achieving orgasm that a homosexual or molester attacks human prey. Rather, it's the sinful vice of lust. This sin is no different in disobedience than rage, gluttony, sloth, vanity, envy, or greed.
Thus, a married man (or priest) who engages in lust has no protection from lust by merely being married. That man has lost his will to sin and it's the sin that binds him from being chaste in celibacy.
Furthermore, the mission of Holy Orders is so demanding a life that it takes an entire life's commitment to fulfill the daily vows of priesthood for men and being a nun for women. But I'm sure you know Catholic response to Holy Orders.
The discipline of celibacy was originally adopted as a response to a sex obsessed Western society - the Roman Empire.
Celibacy was a discipline which had zero appeal to the worldly attitudes of the ancient Mediterranean.
The difference today is that those who vowed celibacy in the 1st century on the whole lived it heroically, dynamically and unapologetically.
Only a minority of modern priestly celibates live up to their standard.
This kind of thinking makes zero sense.
If the priests who committed these horrible crimes had ever wanted to be normal, married men, they would be having affairs with adult women - not molesting teenage boys or visiting male prostitutes.
The reasons why these deviants are in the priesthood are (1) because molesters gravitate toward jobs that give them access to children and (2) in the 1950s Western seminaries began replacing the old novitiate programs with psychological screenings.
In other words, there are no longer any gatekeepers, thanks to the meddling of leftist "reformers".
If priests were molesting young women, your argument might have more force. But 90% of the abuse cases involve priests molesting boys --molestation by homosexuals. Additionally, the rate of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy is slightly lower than it is among other clergy.
The big idea of have celibacy is nonsense
1 Corinthians 7:8-9Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Matthew 19:12
"For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage [ Or have made themselves eunuchs] because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
Roman Catholic will ordane an already married priest from some other religions if they become Catholic and were married before doing so.
Its not umprecidented, and certainly not new. Not sure when the rule was created, but its been around for a LONG LONG TIME.
Catholic authorities will run the Catholic Church without the uninformed opinions of outsiders. If Western societies were obsessed with theft or murder, should we encourage thievery and murder among the clergy?
The only thing married priest will change is that we will then have divorced priests once their wives figure out how very little time they will have with their husbands, even less time for their children etc.
People need to talk to the married pastors in Protestant churches and get the real story....