Posted on 01/03/2002 3:41:25 AM PST by dtom
Forced? As far as I know, the Catholic Church does not draft men into the priesthood - it is voluntary and everyone knows what is required.
If St. Peter himself was married along with a number of other disciples, I fail to see the theological basis for not allowing priests to marry.
On a brighter note, my wife and I had the pleasure of entertaining one of our priests and female religious last night for dinner. In the course of table talk, Father Anderson was explaining to Sister that he was being transferred to the Chicago Archdiocese within a week, and that he woule really miss the RCIA class.
Seems there's a couple in RCIA which Father has given to our resident seminarian for sponsorship. They were atheist/agnostic, until she gave birth to their child. Seems the pregnancy was particularly trying, and she coded three times. The doctors, however, pulled her through, and now the family is all hunky-dory. This experience gave them both a kick in the pants. Call it divine inspiration, intervention, or a happy coincidence, but it seems they heard 'the call' to reform, as it were. And they just happened to be in, you guessed it, a Catholic hospital.
So they're getting special treatment, since no one they know is RC, neither of them is, or was, RC and none of their immediate family is RC. But they're gonna be, come Easter...
I look forward to meeting them.
Here he somehow connects the sexual abuse of children with the lack of a marital sex life. Sorry. Any cop can tell you there is no such connection. Heck, the Dallas Cowboys had a player who molested a little girl while he was married to Joey Heatherton - one of the hottest TV babes of the go-go era.
1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.
2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.
5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
6 I say this as a concession, not as a command.
7 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.
One of Dr. Glazov's many lies.
A source please? Any source?
Celibacy is not a dogmatic *mandate* of Catholicism. It is a *disciplinary practice* which can change. The Orthodox have always had a tradition of married priests, which goes back to the very beginnings of Christianity itself. In many Protestant denominations, a man *must* be married before he is called by the church's board of elders to be a minister.
Regarding pedophilia, there are two major kinds of pedophilia. There is the kind which is committed by married men against little girls. This type of pedophilia is NOT the most common. The other type, MORE common, is committed by *unmarried* men against boys. A subset of this group preys on boys that are older, i.e. teenagers. A largely-married priesthood combined with better screening for homosexual pedophilia would reduce the numbers of these men in the Catholic priesthood.
Western Catholics need to face the fact that the numbers of men going into the priesthood are very, very small, even when you include "conservative" orders like the Legionaries of Christ, Opus Dei, and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. In my opinion, not only should the priesthood be opened to men who are married, but married permanent deacons should be considered for ordination as priests if they want it. Also, those men who left the priesthood over marriage should be invited to return and their marriages regularized (as long as they're not married to a divorced person w/o an annulment.) This would provide a large jump in the number of active priests in the West.
1. How widespread is pedophilia among priests? Commentators have suggested between 5 and 10 percent. That figure has been presented by various "experts" and widely used by the media. However, true pedophilia--sexual contact between an adult and pre-pubescent child--is extremely rare in the priesthood. The best estimate is "0.3 percent of the whole body of clergy." (p 82) The most extensive study which considered 2,252 priests over a thirty year period found only one case of pedophilia. It involved a priest-uncle with two six-year-old nieces. The number of pederasts or ephebophiles (priests involved, usually homosexually, with an adolescent minor) was much larger, but still less than two percent. Jenkins traces how those figures were blown up and presented without nuance in the media.This argument is frequently made by liberals ithing the Church who want to turn the Catholic Church in the direction of the most liberally politically active and all inclusive “churches” of today. As with most of their arguments, facts and logic are entirely optional.3. Does the celibacy requirement increase the likelihood that a priest will be a sex offender? Jenkins details how the media accounts of clergy sex abuse emphasized not only "cover up" but the celibacy factor. The view presented repeatedly was that the type of formation around this unrealistic requirement contributed to the supposed widespread sex abuse among priests. However, the difficulty with the argument is that there is no proof the problem is greater among priests than Protestant ministers—or even other service professionals, like teachers or physicians. It is worth noting that while the case involving former priest James Porter received massive media attention, the equally scandalous case of Protestant minister Tony Leyva got only limited coverage.
The difference in coverage and the emphasis on the celibacy requirement cannot wholly be blamed on anti-Catholic bias in the secular media. In fact, as Jenkins documents, much of the fuel came from division within the Catholic Church. Those advocating married clergy and women priests jumped on this crisis to promote their cause. On the other side conservatives pointed out that most of the cases went back to the 60's, a time when the Church began to absorb the general laxness in sexual morality. Also since most of the cases involved homosexual activity, they questioned the wisdom of ordaining men with a gay orientation. However, as Jenkins shows, the conservatives had little success in promoting their view. The crisis was inevitably seen as a failure of a bankrupt all male hierarchy, repressive seminary formation, moral rigidity, anti-woman bias and other bete noires of liberal Catholics.
Back before every bishop had to report to the pope in Rome, a priest was allowed to be married. After Gregory VII, as part of a general effort to consolidate and control the Catholic franchise, the clergy was informed that they were to give up their wives. If you didn't agree, your wife was abducted and sold into slavery.I heard that Luther liked raping small kids and sacrificing virgins to the “god” Baal on his altar, and that he only left the Catholic Church when the local Bishop found out and stopped him.
patent
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