I apparently understand celibacy better than do many Catholic priests who either mistook their commitment, underestimated their urges, or overestimated their strength. I understand celibacy well enough to know that I have not been granted that particular gift.
Celibacy is a rare and admirable gift for the few that are granted it. But, that all clergy must be celibate is a fabrication of the Catholic church.
SnakeDoc
>> I apparently understand celibacy better than do many Catholic priests who either mistook their commitment, underestimated their urges, or overestimated their strength. I understand celibacy well enough to know that I have not been granted that particular gift.
Celibacy is a rare and admirable gift for the few that are granted it. But, that all clergy must be celibate is a fabrication of the Catholic church.
SnakeDoc <<
So let me ask you a Hypothetical Mr. SnakeDoc.
If you were going to be Catholic Priest, would you take a drug that would kill or reduce your sex drive to make it easier for you to keep your covenant with the church on celibacy. Or would really really cold showers be enough for you?
Just wondering what a guy’s take on this is.
Celibacy is not a gift! You apparently don’t know ANYTHING about celibacy!
Celibacy is not given TO YOU, you rather give it TO GOD, out of LOVE, total LOVE for Him.....JUST like you give your sexuality to your WIFE until you die. Priests MARRY the Church. Nuns MARRY Jesus Christ.
It’s hard - why would God want something easy from you like a knitted sweater? He wants the best from you! If you can’t give it, you must not love Him enough. You are to give that to him, in Chastity as well, until marriage, and then be chaste in marriage and in priesthood alike forever.
An unmarried father will hit on his daughter’s older girlfriends - so marriage keeps that from happening, hence the married father can better raise/counsel his daughter as he’s not trying to use her to get close to the girlfriends. Priestly celibacy does the same. But we are given free will by God, so He wont stop us from offending Him of we choose to reject Him.
Ask any priest worth a quarter of his ordination - chastity and celibacy is not the hardest part of the Cross he carries for Christ, it’s not the big deal that unmarried folks think it is, that short-term married folks think it is, that little faith people think it is.
As is Holy Orders.
And I believe the requirement for Protestants ministers is graduation from seminary - at most.