Vatican Document Calls Celibacy Non-Negotiable

The San Diego Channel ^ | 6/28/03 | Associated Press

[Notwithstanding]

I guess you are not familiar with or else dispute the fact that vocations are way up in orthodox dioceses/seminaries/apostolates?

[narses]

The well is not going dry, the well drillers have stopped promoting Catholic Orthodoxy and have been digging in dry spots. Absent Catholic schools, where will you found vocations? Certainly not in the Godless government schools? The American hierarchs have, in many cases and many places, stopped subsidizing Catholic education. They have also, in many places, celebrated heterodoxy. Concelebration with heretics, "services" that are often mockeries of the True Mass, sometimes illicit, sometimes invalid. They create fertile ground for bitterness and anger, and they let the women run the Church.

[Notwithstanding]

No, in the USA.

Orthodox dioces in the USA - do you dispute that they have large vocations?

When you speak to your parishioners, do you bemoan the celibate priesthood and exhibit your disdain, or do you work to foster celibate vocations?

[ACAC]

It is never good to call someone else's religion a pseudo-religion.

[DallasMike]

Maybe, but I have seen many posts of his that reflect the bitterness to which I refer.

I've never seen that from him so I'll have to take your word on it. You may have gotten him on a bad day.

I'm an evangelical Protestant so there are several issues on which he and I disagree. However, he is one of the few Freeper Catholics who can hold his own intellectually. Most, well, let's just say that most are a little lacking in the history and logic departments.

BTW, I'm not anti-Catholic. I disagree deeply with some of the distinctives that I believe are very harmful (Marianism, Purgatory, the whole Papacy thing) but stand firm with them on many issues and have often attended Catholic mass. As one example, Catholics understood the evils of abortion long before most Prostestants did. We were latecomers to that game. We blew it and you guys got it right.

[sinkspur]

Perhaps you may wish to criticize the practice of ordaining married converts, rather than the discipline of celibacy.

Then I'd be criticizing the Pope yet again, because he approves this practice. And, Lord knows, you're already raggin' me about criticing the Pope.

any event, it seems that you are particularly jealous of thses convert ministers who are married.

Not at all. In fact, these men are pioneers in their ministries.

Fr. John Gremmels, pastor of St. Elizabeth Seton in Keller, Tex., left a cozy Episcopalian parish of 800 members to pastor the largest parish in the Fort Worth diocese, with 7500 members. He's assisted by a retired-in-place ex-New York Met opera singer who's been ordained for 20 years but can't be trusted with a parish, and two married deacons. This man is my idol, and he's ten years my junior.

I would think that the bishops who are living under the discipline themselves are not incapable of understanding the plusses and minuses of celibacy.

Many of them are, but the Pope won't let them discuss the minuses. They're muzzled.

Lets wait 100 more years to see if celibacy has anything to do with this "shortage". And whether the "shortage" is really a bad thing.

Just as I suspected. You're in diapers.

Me? I'll be dead in 40 years, so you tell me what happened.

[narses]

He is bright, well read and articulate. No question. Bitter he is also. Then so am I but for different reasons, so perhaps that's why I recognize the same in him.

[narses]

There is a married priest in Dallas and sock has more than once posted the reasons why that self same married priest disagrees with you and supports His Holiness. You ignore any and every fact that disagrees with your wants Deacon. That isn't reasoning, it is selfishness. And your bitter attacks on thos who disagree with you are becoming more ugly.

[CobaltBlue]

>>the Vatican has admitted that celibacy is not integral to the Latin Rite priesthood by allowing 200 married Protestant ministers to jump the fence and be ordained<<

The Catholic Church has far more aesthetically pleasing services, and far more intellectually satisfying doctrines, than any Protestant church I am aware of but when the rubber meets the road what really matters is Christ's teachings, and the Protestants do as good a job. The Catholics are better organized here on earth but I don't believe Catholicism is the only way to heaven.

I have Martin Luther's 95 Theses here next to me on my desk, my husband is hopeful, but if I were to switch I'd try Episcopalianism first. But then, maybe it's just because the Episcopalians have prettier windows and higher toned music. In other words, it's the temporal, not the spiritual.

[Aliska]

That's why I would pray for a new well with pure water. I couldn't find it anywhere; even the sacraments are often administered improperly, therefore polluted.

A good start would be reconsecrating all those churches where abominations took place according to canon law.

Getting rid of those abusive priests is top priority, but I don't see any of these other problems being addressed in a way that will ever restore my confidence in those who run the church.

Incidentally, one of the best, kindest, most sensible priests I enountered was a late vocation widower. Well I took a couple points off for him because there was this old lady dying in the nursing home who cried all the time and he banned her from mass. I thought to myself more people ought to be crying at mass.

[wideminded]

Well, it's not true now that priests could molest young boys and remain in the priesthood, but it was obviously quite common over the last thirty years for them, in fact, to get new parishes, which meant fertile new ground for their perversions.

One thing has always been true, however: Mess with a woman, and you were shown the door, with your laicization papers flying through the Vatican like Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car at Daytona.

And no bishop, ever, has tried to retain the services of a priest who fell into the arms of a woman.

Please elaborate on the possible reasons for this double standard.

[sinkspur]

Orthodox dioces in the USA - do you dispute that they have large vocations?

Some have large numbers in seminaries. That's meaningless. How many of those guys will be ordained?

[B Knotts]

Suffice to say, people have differing opinions on this; I recently heard a bishop state otherwise.

[sinkspur]

When you speak to your parishioners, do you bemoan the celibate priesthood and exhibit your disdain, or do you work to foster celibate vocations?

I never talk about celibacy, to anybody, in my work. I've had two men ask me about the priesthood, and I've referred them to the pastor.

I have, however, recruited three men to the permanent diaconate program.

Does that count in your pantheon of virtue?

[Aliska]

I've been ticked off at the Church for years for not letting me be an altar girl.

For real? We've had altar girls for a long time. I was furious when that disobedience was going on, but then I did a 180 about women in the church. Altar servers aren't really necessary anyway.

[CobaltBlue]

>>they let the women run the Church<<

At the most basic level, women do run everything. Maybe nobody ever told you this.

Men are in charge, but women run everything.

[narses]

Opinions are just that, facts are not arguable. Study the history. While clerical celibacy was the general rule in the Roman (Western) Church since the 4th Century, Gregory the Great codified it as part of the great Clunaic revitalization of the Church. Clerical marriage, simony and secular investure were all inter-related issues. Property issues and nepotism, especially in the investure controversies made his reforms critical. It was the (forgive the phrase) "Seperation of Church and State" issue of the day. The Church HAD to break free of secular powers, nepotism and feudalism. St. Gregory was God's tool. Thank God.

[patton]

Thought long and hard about this - family or priesthood?

Came down on the side of family.

And I am descended from a bishop....way back when priests married.

(Also decendent from St. Margaret & St. David, if it matters.)

[savagesusie]

Mel Gibson's movie will cause mass conversions and an end to the priest shortage...(can we keep our fingers crossed???) Regardless, something has got to change.

[sinkspur]

There is a married priest in Dallas and sock has more than once posted the reasons why that self same married priest disagrees with you and supports His Holiness.

Actually, it's B-Chan, over in Arlington, whose pastor is Fr.Allen Hawkins.

Yes, Fr. Hawkins has expressed his support for celibacy, but he's never said he regrets being married, nor has he denigrated a married priesthood, that I know of.

There are a lot of CEOs who would favor mandatory celibacy for their positions, if the truth be told.

And your bitter attacks on thos who disagree with you are becoming more ugly.

Bitter? The only oil in the water here tonight has come from you and Notwithstanding, who have jumped on me for questioning celibacy, but that's all you've done.

Where have I been "ugly"?

Stop being such a church lady, narses, and discuss celibacy. Ad hominems are the last refuge of somebody who's lost the argument.