Married man becomes Maine's newest Catholic priest {Ecumenical}

WGME 13 ^ | 25 June 2012 | APNews Now

[Cronos]

Maine's newest Roman Catholic priest has a wife and four grown children.

Sixty-two-year-old David Affleck of York was ordained this month under a 1980 papal provision that allows former married Episcopal clergy to become priests in the Catholic church.

When ordained at Portland's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Affleck became only the third married man to join the Catholic priesthood in Maine since the 1980 papal provision. He is now the only married Catholic priest.

Church officials say only a handful of former married Episcopal clergy are ordained as Catholic priests in the U.S. each year.

Affleck tells the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/MjtWA5) he left the Episcopal church and joined the Catholic ranks about five years ago.

[libdestroyer]

Thanks Yudan. Very interesting.

[A.A. Cunningham]

The Church does not need to change. Christ, the Apostles and St. Paul taught and lived lives of celibacy. The question you should be posing is not why the Church employs the discipline of celibacy for its clergy and religious but why don’t the so called “Bible believers” do the same?

[A.A. Cunningham]

The Church's law(sic) regarding priestly celibacy is just that...

discipline

However, it is a law(sic)

discipline

everyone who is not married is required by Jesus Christ to be celibate(sic).

chaste not celibate

who must be celibate(sic).

chaste

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***He is now the only married Catholic priest.***

Is this new? I read over thirty years ago of married Episcopal priests who became Catholic priests.

[A.A. Cunningham]

I don't get it either

Understatement of the day.

[Salvation]

**It’s difficult for me to understand the general requirement that priests maintain *lifelong* celibacy.**

Nothing is difficult when one decided to dedicate his life ENTIRELY to God.

Sure there are bumps in the road just like a vocation to be married. But it’s not difficult once the decision is made.

[Salvation]

The seminaries are overflowing since they got cleaned up, so your argument about fewer and fewer men choosing the priesthood doesn’t hold water in my opinion.

[A.A. Cunningham]

It’s good enough for defecting Episcopalians but not for the rest?

You quite obviously do not know that these defecting Episcopalians must agree, prior to ordination, that if their spouse precedes them in death they must then adopt the discipline of celibacy for the remainder of their life.

Ending celebacy(sic) for the rest would attract a class of more sexually well-adjusted people into the Priesthood,

Like these paragons of virtue?

perhaps end the Church’s long Jerry Sandusky nightmare.

Sandusky is married. Michael Jackson was married, twice. Try again.

Did I just call the Holy Father a hypocrite there??

Where ignorance is bliss, tis' folly to be wise.

[libdestroyer]

“The Church does not need to change. Christ, the Apostles and St. Paul taught and lived lives of celibacy. The question you should be posing is not why the Church employs the discipline of celibacy for its clergy and religious but why don’t the so called “Bible believers” do the same?”

The Bible is clear on the point that celibacy is a good thing, but not a required thing. There’s nothing wrong with EITHER life choice. That’s my point.

But if RCC doctrine overrides the Bible...

[A.A. Cunningham]

Are you aware that priests were allowed to be married up until the 8th century when the "steadfast" church changed it's rules about it?

Nice try at revisionist history. Married men could be ordained but they were required to adopt the discipline of lex continentiae - total continence - with regard to a conjugal life with their spouse. Once ordained a single Priest has never been allowed to then marry. Suggest you brush up on Canons XXVII and XXXIII of the Council of Elvira, 295-302 AD, for starters.

Read the Bible, especially 1 Corinthians 7:2, 1 Corinthians 9:5 and 1 Timothy 3:1.

While you are reading the Bible, providing it isn't a heavily edited and abridged version of the original, pay close attention to Matthew 19:12, Matthew 19:27-30, Luke 18:28-32, 1 Corinthians 7:7-8 and 1 Corinthians 7:32-35.

Once you've done that and you have a desire not to come across as a fool opining on a topic you obviously know little about, read the following:

Although it's rather dry; which will probably turn you off, and you'll be unable to comprehend a lot of it, like Scripture, you should make an earnest attempt to engage in some much needed edification.

[StonyMan451]

You ask “Regarding the “hierarchical Church,” why is it that Eastern RCC allows for married Priests? I’m not being snarky... I’m really just curious :)”

Frankly, I don’t know. I certainly have no issue with it. I suspect it has a lot to do with their culture and different theological perspective, but I couldnt say with any degree of certainty.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Linguistic literalists like you treat Scripture like a smorgasbord, almost always failing to discern the literal from the figurative.

"And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." Matthew 3:9

"Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Matthew 19:19

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26

"Who said: Ye men, brethren, and fathers, hear. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charan." Acts 7:2

"And when he had given him leave, Paul standing on the stairs, beckoned with his hand to the people. And a great silence being made, he spoke unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying: MEN, brethren, and fathers, hear ye the account which I now give unto you." Acts 21:40-22:1

"Therefore is it of faith, that according to grace the promise might be firm to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (As it is written: I have made thee a father of many nations,) before God, whom he believed, who quickeneth the dead; and calleth those things that are not, as those that are." Romans 4:16-17

"I write not these things to confound you; but I admonish you as my dearest children. For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you." 1 Corinthians 4:14-15

"As you know in what manner, entreating and comforting you, (as a father doth his children,)" 1 Thessalonians 2:11

"To Timothy, his beloved son in faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and from Christ Jesus our Lord." 1 Timothy 1:2

"To Titus my beloved son, according to the common faith, grace and peace from God the Father, and from Christ Jesus our Savior." Titus 1:4

"I beseech thee for my son, whom I have begotten in my bands, Onesimus," Philemon 1:10

"Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with His sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons. Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live?" Hebrews 12:7-9

"I write unto you, fathers, because you have known Him, who is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one." 1 John 2:13

Here are two more which you conveniently ignore as well:

"Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." 2 Peter 1:20-21

"And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction." 2 Peter 3:15-16

[Religion Moderator]

Here are two more which you conveniently ignore as well:

This Religion Forum thread is labeled "ecumenical" meaning NO antagonism is tolerable. Also, reading minds is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Celibacy is a higher calling in the emulation of the life of Christ and His instruction to give up everything to serve God.

""

There’s nothing wrong with EITHER life choice.

Indeed, make a choice but you want to have your cake and eat it to. The Apostles gave up everything to follow Christ, just as Scripture teaches. Who are you willing to shortchange, God or your spouse and family?

But if RCC doctrine overrides the Bible...

You're obtuse. Celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrine. The discipline of celibacy for the clergy is highly praised by Christ and St. Paul in Scripture. It's very apparent that your own personal doctrine is the one that overrides Scripture.

[A.A. Cunningham]

St. Peter was married at one time, his wife is never mentioned in Scripture. You've quite obviously never read Clement of Alexandria's The Stromata and what St. Peter had to say about marriage.

Here's a few passages from Scripture that you most likely have never read or if you have you conveniently choose to ignore.

"Who said to them: All men take not this word, but they to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it." Matthew 19:11-12

"Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee: what therefore shall we have? And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting. And many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first." Matthew 19:27-30

"Then Peter said: Behold, we have left all things, and have followed Thee. Who said to them: Amen, I say to you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, Who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." Luke 18:28-30

"For I would that all men were even as myself: but every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried, and to the widows: It is good for them if they so continue, even as I." 1 Corinthians 7:7-8

"But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she that is married thinketh on the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your profit: not to cast a snare upon you; but for that which is decent, and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord, without impediment." 1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Why is the RCC shutting out so many men who are interested in serving the Lord through Priesthood?

Number one, no man has a right to be ordained to the Priesthood:

"You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you." John 15:16

Married men have many ways in which they may serve the Church. You seem to have a very poor grasp of what the life of a Priest entails.

[libdestroyer]

The scripture you gave me refers to literal fathers. My issue is calling someone a “Holy Father.” I could use the “smorgasbord” argument to those in the RCC too. Maybe it’s best not to attack me on those grounds.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Pointing out a fact is not "making it personal".

Why do you continually act as an apologist for those who pick and choose what Scripture actually says as opposed to what they conveniently pick and choose it says?

but do not make it personal.

Don't allow people to lie and claim that the Church ignores Scripture when it is quite clear that She does not and do not chastise those of us who defend the truth.

[libdestroyer]

Number one, no man has a right to be ordained to the Priesthood: "You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you." John 15:16

---

First of all, that verse is regarding divine election/irresistible grace (which the RCC doesn't believe in) not priesthood. Also, the Bible makes it clear that all Christans are priests. All are saints. "You too are living stones, built as an edifice of spirit, into a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (I Peter 2:5) "You, however, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people he claims for his own to proclaim the glorious works of the One who called you from darkness into his marvelous light" (I Peter 2:9) We are able to ALL serve as priests under Christ (the High Priest in the order of Melchizedek). Because of His sacrifice we no longer need a mediator. We need no "ordained" man to forgive our sins as they have already been forgiven.

[StonyMan451]

From Dictionary.com: chaste

chaste   /tʃeɪst/ Show Spelled[cheyst]adjective, chast·er, chast·est.  
1. refraining from sexual intercourse that is regarded as contrary to morality or religion; virtuous. 

From Dictionary.com: cel·i·ba·cy   /ˈsɛləbəsi/ [sel-uh-buh-see] noun

1. abstention from sexual relations. 

All people, especially Christians, are called to chastity. Within the married state, sexual intercourse is chaste. Outside marriage, all people are called to celibacy.

[StonyMan451]

Celibacy for priests in the Latin rite is, in fact, a law. It is promulgated in the Code of Canon Law. See Canon 277 § 1: Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity.

So it is both a law and a discipline.

And Barry Soetoro is, in fact a Kenyan communist! ;-)