Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Wojtyla, c.1967
Posted on 06/22/2014 2:42:07 PM PDT by NYer
A common criticism of the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual morality has to do with the largely unmarried clergy who are charged with preaching the message. The accepted wisdom is that celibate males have no business telling married couples how to live their lives: “What do they know about the subject?”
I remember a particularly egregious example. In 1974, Earl Butz, then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, ridiculed Pope Paul VI’s opposition to contraception, “He no playa the game, he no maka the rules.” He later apologized, but in reality he was only saying publicly what many, including many Catholics, were saying privately.
I’ve never understood this. Jesus, God Incarnate, was a celibate male. Why would any Christian assume that a man striving to emulate Christ in the flesh would have nothing to offer about the nature of love?
Christians agree that God is love. What they don’t agree on is what should be derived from this fact.
I’ve taught natural family planning for almost twenty years and I consider one of the most important elements of this instruction to be what is conveyed about the nature of love. I always hesitate to use an adjective such as “true” to describe a noun such as “love.” It seems inadvertently to give status to any falsehood parading as truth.
Love is what it is. Everything else is a pretender and should be described with its own noun. Love is not lust; love is not use; love is not convenience. Love is divine, with all that implies.
St. John Paul II’s pontificate emphasized church teaching about love and its incarnational aspects. From 1981 through 1984, he devoted a whole series of audiences to this subject, which he dubbed “The Theology of the Body.” These talks were later gathered into a book and became the basis of serious theological reflections
Although continence for the sake of the Kingdom was an important aspect of this teaching, the theology on marriage seemed to get the most focus when it was disseminated and discussed. Celibacy was initially given short shrift, which is unfortunate, because the fact of the matter is, if you don’t understand or appreciate continence for the sake of the Kingdom, you aren’t going to appreciate or understand the nature of the sacrament of marriage.
Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Wojtyla, c.1967
A keystone of St. JPII’s teaching in this matter is found in Gaudium et Spes:
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, “that all may be one. . . as we are one” (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. [24]
The essence of love is a willingness to give a sincere gift of self. We only love when we act like God. God the Son showed us what this means by giving such a complete gift of Self that He emptied Himself, as St. Paul tells us, going all the way to the cross.
Our life of love is a continuum that starts here on earth and is fulfilled in Heaven. The crucifixion was completed by the resurrection, when love conquered even death. Celibacy for the kingdom is the eschatological symbol of love and it has much to teach those of us who are married.
In a 1981 audience, reflecting on Christ’s words about the resurrection of the body found in Mt. 22:30, St. JPII wrote:
The reciprocal gift of oneself to God – a gift in which man will concentrate and express all the energies of his own personal and at the same time psychosomatic subjectivity – will be the response to God’s gift of himself by man, a gift which will become completely and definitively beatifying, as a response worthy of a personal subject to God’s gift of Himself, “virginity,” or rather the virginal state of the body, will be totally manifested as the eschatological fulfillment of the “nuptial” meaning of the body, as the specific sign and the authentic expression of all personal subjectivity. In this way, therefore, that eschatological situation in which “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” has its solid foundation in the future state of the personal subject, when, as a result of the vision of God “face to face,” there will be born in him a love of such depth and power of concentration on God Himself, as to completely absorb his whole psychosomatic subjectivity.
It is the mutual gift of self that is imaged in conjugal love. Without denigrating the noble vocation of marriage, it can rightly be said that the couple undertaking marriage can find no better guide to understanding the essential nature of the gift of self than the celibate priest who has emptied himself in imitation of Christ.
Let’s thank our priests for showing us this most radical example of self-gift.
Or rather they have nothing better to do.
Ya, that's funny...What's even funnier is that God says clergy are to have a wife...Obviously so they know how to deal with married couples...But who cares what God says, eh???
Yep, especially the one “they” just called in. Oh well! We know the truth.
And that would be a true statement...All Hawking can discuss is the 'theory' of black holes...Just as a never been married man can only discuss his 'theory' of marriage...
:)
And.....???
The point is that celibacy is a Biblicaly-based DISCIPLINE, and not a DOGMA.
It is subject to change, and not a requirement.
You will find married priests in the Roman Catholic Church, specifically from 2 sources. The first is that eastern churches permit married priests, but not married bishops. Additionally, former Episcopal/Anglican priests who have converted to Catholicism have been allowed to be re-ordained.
Yes, the door is open.
Sorry to take the wind out of your sails.
And that's another area where you religion fails...
Paul was not speaking to potential clergy...It was a proclamation to anyone who may be called to celibacy...To let them know that God calls some people (and obviously few) to that vocation...
Buy unlike the Catholic religion, these people would know that God called them to celibacy...
In the Catholic religion, one can go thru 3-4 years of philosophy education and then a few years of seminary before he has to make up his mind whether he can go with the rigors of celibacy...
After all those years in prep work to become a priest, it's likely one who questions his ability to become celibate is not going to throw away all that invested time but will go into the priesthood regardless of his celibacy convictions...
And, because of the anti-marriage position of your religion, it's an automatic magnet for sodomites...
It's not about the nature of love. It's about making a marriage work.
Experience is the issue.
It's easy to have all the answers until you've been there.
And what chapter and verse would that be found?
You are aware that celibacy is Bible-based, right?
Celibacy is neither dogmatic, nor universal. There are some (few) married priest, and it is possible that the discipline of celibacy may be changed.
So, quit parroting Oral Roberts or Jimmy Swaggart and do a little more research.
Mr R did not so much as elude to sex. YOU were the one who brought it up.
I doubt HE'S the one who has sex too much on his mind. I see quite a bit of projection going on in your post.
It's that mote and beam thing.
1 Timothy 3:1-5 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
I don’t ever go to the priest to fix my spouse, I go to the priest to fix myself. I have a good marriage. But all relationships require work. I think a priest can be a good objective listener. If I am living a good interior life, then my spouse benefits from that.
But the Church has made it a requirement.
A priest cannot marry.
So if it's really subject to change, then why is bringing up the issue such a sore spot for so many Catholics.
Shouldn’t you wait for me to discuss scripture before you post your “I don’t think” picture?
Or is it such a reflex that you cannot help yourself, like the Pope criticizing free markets?
Accepted by whom? Seriously, anyone that doesn't like the rules can start their own church, and many have. Whining about what any group does that you're not a member is kind of a waste of breath.
“All men, including priests, and all women, including nuns and sisters, know they are sinners.
What’s your point?”
What is yours? Do Catholics, half of them, have perfect spouses who are free from sin?
My argument was with the idea that someone who doesn’t marry in an attempt to serve God is not superior in qualification as a marriage counselor to someone who is married to an imperfect, sinful spouse. The specific sentence I pointed out was this one:
“Without denigrating the noble vocation of marriage, it can rightly be said that the couple undertaking marriage can find no better guide to understanding the essential nature of the gift of self than the celibate priest who has emptied himself in imitation of Christ.”
Really? Someone who is not married is superior in discussing marriage to a married counselor? And that superiority is based on the celibate man’s supposed knowledge of how to give himself to God (who, unlike our spouses, is perfect)?
Please re-read what I wrote. It is not a sore spot for Catholics. It is only sore when non-Catholic busybodies start making ridiculous claims, and waste time with foolish, ignorant arguments.
It is a bit akin to playing chess with a pigeon. The non-Catholic busybody struts around the board, soils it, then declares victory.
So, yeah, I get a little sore about these matters.
“The non-Catholic busybody struts around the board, soils it, then declares victory.”
The argument made by the writer is that by giving himself to God, the priest learns more about giving to someone else than a married man. And while I haven’t quoted scripture, metmom has: “Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife...”
While that verse does not necessarily REQUIRE an overseer to be married, it certainly rejects the idea that one CANNOT be married. In this case, the soiling pigeons are in agreement with the Creator, while the chess-playing Catholics post pictures of boxes of cereal - a rather unique approach to the game of chess!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.