Priests Do Not Have Experience to Prepare People for Marriage, Says Vatican Cardinal

The Irish Times ^ | 7/3/18 | Patsy McGarry

[marshmallow]

Pope Francis, ‘unnoticed, has gradually been putting women into positions of power’

Priests have no credibility when it comes to training people for marriage, according to the most senior Irish cleric in the Vatican.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, from Drimnagh in Dublin and prefect (head) of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life said “priests are not the best people to train others for marriage.

“They have no credibility; they have never lived the experience; they may know moral theology, dogmatic theology in theory, but to go from there to putting it into practice every day....they don’t have the experience.”

Clericalism is dead, the Cardinal behind the World Meeting of Families in Dublin next month also said, “not because we’ve done anything to kill it, but out of sheer numbers.” In Dallas, where he was Bishop from 2007 to 2016, “we have a million and a half Catholics and 75 priests, with a 45 to 50 per cent rate of (Mass) attendance.Those 75 priests are not going to be interested in organising marriage meetings,” he said.

“We have to worry about the 99 per cent, about the baptised, and not worry about the other things we have been obsessed with.” (Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese, with a population of 1.15 million Catholics, has 413 diocesan and religious priests).

[Mrs. Don-o]

I like the way you think.

Ever notice that the same people who see celibacy as a disease, see faithful monogamy and pregnancy that way as well?

Esteem for celibacy and marriage goes up or down in tandem. Those who highly esteem celibacy, highly esteem faithful, fruitful marriage as well.

Those who don't, don't.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Game, Set, Match.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"There's no way a man of any integrity would leave a wife behind and abandon her to fend for herself."

Nobody said anything about a man abandoning his wife to fend for herself.

Soldiers, like many (but not all) missionaries, left their wives and families for years at a time, and soldiering would have been a metaphor close at hand and quite well understood as being based on the ethic of sacrifice.

But they didn't abandon wives and children to "fend for themselves". They also had a splendid ethic of supportive kinship and an extensive, sharing community.

Matthew 19:29 KJV
And every one that hath forsaken houses, 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 inherit everlasting life. .

[Mrs. Don-o]

Typo: a whole line got deleted.

"That's why I don't pay much attention to opinions about the the Church, from ex-Catholics."

[Iscool]

The cardinal referenced is a fool.

Because of his views on Catholic marriage counselors???

[Mrs. Don-o]

Because of his expressed, utterly fool-like view that "Priests have no credibility when it comes to training people for marriage."

No one doubts that mature laypeople with good marriages can bring the gifts of their experience into the project. Catholic marriage enrichment programs are usually led by Catholic marrieds. But to say that "celibates have no credibility" is idiotic.

[goodnesswins]

LOL...yeah...what NOT to do...

[RoosterRedux]

I listened to a Bible commentator a few days ago discussing the various theories as to whether Paul was possibly a widower.

This theory hinged on the question of whether or not Paul was actually a member of the Sanhedrin or just studying to become a member (many folks believe that to be a member of the Sanhedrin, one had to be married).

Furthermore, I think all Jewish men in Paul's time were strongly encouraged to marry.

All that said, I don't think it matters particularly one way or another whether he was a confirmed bachelor or was once married and his wife died.

[DoodleBob]

Congratulations, FRiend!

Mrs DoodleBob and I continue to derive motivation from the our Lord, His Church and those silly celebates. To wit:

This is Luc Olivier Merson's "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" (1879). This hits me in several ways (about which I won't yammer on now) but it really highlights - for me - the essence of marriage.

There is Joseph...as one writer puts it, Joseph is asleep on the desert floor. One imagines his mental and physical exhaustion fleeing danger and trying to take his wife and baby across deserts. This is what we husbands are called to do...support our family without whining, without complaining about our need for a man-cave so we can have some "me" time....just DO YOUR JOB.

Mary is in a (somewhat) better position, cradling the Baby. This is HER JOB and she doesn't seem to be unhappy that Joesph couldn't find her a Serta. I doubt she's comfortable but I also doubt she'll nag Joseph about her lack of equal rights or get tatted up and establish a pro-abortion PAC in Egypt.

Finally, this is all being done FOR THE CHILD.

Aahhhh, but what could anyone learn from such an antiquated story like this?

[Amendment10]

"He may have been widowed."

Thanks for the insight.

But are you saying that regardless if a spouse dies and the surviving spouse is free to remarry, the original in-laws are still in-laws? Although I’d still regard former in-laws as part of the family, I’ll have to think about that one.

Regarding the subject of this thread, it remains that 1 Timothy 3:4-5 shows that Paul had pointed out that if a man cannot manage his own family, then how can he be expected to take care of God’s church?

[Wonder Warthog]

"We don’t know that Paul was never married.

But we do know that Peter WAS.

[Wonder Warthog]

"He may have been widowed. It is implicit the disciples left their former lives to follow him and then bring the Good News the nations."

There is evidence that Peter's wife was with him in Rome, and was martyred there before Peter.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Wonderful painting, and an interpretation with insight.

I went to google images to see other examples of this artist's work. Impressive.

I remember hearing Philip Lawler, husband of blogger Leila Lawler w/ 7 children and 13 grandchildren, giving a talk about St. Joseph as model husband. The part I best remember, is where he noted that St. Joseph, though fully and firmly the head of the household, was married to a woman who he knew was greater than he was, spiritually, and had a son who was God.

He noted that Joseph was a patriarch, but there are different kinds of patriarchies, there are different kinds of heads. "Head" doesn't mean "everything."

OK, for cabbages, the head is about all that matters. (The audience laughed.) But consider the river: the man is the head, the woman is the mouth? (The audience laughed more.) Then he said, consider the pin. The man is the head, the woman is the point.

Hm. Yeah.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Hello Wonder Warthog,

Regardless of Peter’s marital status - the point is: i trust his advice on marriage. He need not be married to advise and counsel couples who want to honor the LORD with their lives together. I would trust him, I would trust John the Baptist, and I trust celibate women of God as well.

Celibates are not technically single, they are married to God. Which we all will be in eternity. So they just get the ball rolling early. And earthly spouses are ultimately supposed to help each other prepare the other for that final union with God in eternity.

[metmom]

Surveys of Protestant clergy find that a majority of them report that their profession results in difficulties in their family life. I suppose that’s the sort of thing they could mention in premarital counseling - “There is likely to be constant tension between your work commitments and your family.” - but so could a Catholic priest or any random schmo off the street who reads a newspaper or watches TV.

Protestant clergy would not have half the difficulty they now have if their congregation stepped up to the plate and worked together as a church should instead of expecting the pastor to do it all.

I understand that many professions have similar issues. Doctors, for example, who are often on call at all kinds of weird times.

[metmom]

The way celibacy and virginity is exalted and lauded sends the clear message that sex is wrong and bad.

There was a thread some years back about a Catholic couple who decided to live a celibate marriage, and there were many who thought that was just grand, just like the whole business about Mary’s alleged perpetual virginity.

And in a related article, about women consecrating themselves to perpetual virginity, someone posted a comment about her then being kept *pure* as if if she had married and not had sex, she would have been impure.

The sex is bad thinking is an underlying message in many ways in Catholicism.

[RoosterRedux]

Yep.

[Tax-chick]

On the other hand, denigration of virginity as a choice could give the idea that a woman has no value unless she’s being used for genital gratification by a man.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"The way celibacy and virginity is exalted and lauded sends the clear message that sex is wrong and bad."

There was no such message.

It's remarkable how you've managed to block out everything about sacramentality -- which you presumably just read in #118, which you are ostensibly responding to ---in order to write such an oblivious, blinkered statement.

"And in a related article, about women consecrating themselves to perpetual virginity, someone posted a comment about her then being kept *pure* as if if she had married and not had sex, she would have been impure."

You added your own conclusion. It's apparent that you reach these conclusions by ignoring what people actually say, and then responding to what you yourself have unrecognizably "reinterpreted" their message to be.

It's much like your reproach for a man who would "leave a wife behind and abandon her to fend for herself" ---

Except, nobody had said that: it was your own assumption. You just put it out there, and then you react as if somebody (other than yourself) were proposing such a thing.

(((Shakes head.)))

Good Lord, I'm being Cathy Newman'ed.

[Tax-chick]

Yes, the issue of work/life balance is one of which any alert person, regardless of his or her marital status, is aware.