Catholic priests urge Church to reconsider celibacy rules

Australian Broadcasting Co. ^ | January 26, 2005 | Nick Grimm

[CouncilofTrent]

Are you calling me a heretic?

[CouncilofTrent]

Never Mind.! Im getting real tired. Im turning in.

[what's up]

Of course the Catholics are going to regard their guy as the "real" thing. My point is that others regarded someone else as the real thing.

I'm going for real now.

[CouncilofTrent]

ohhhh.....youre talking of lay people?

[Torie]

A thought just occurred to me regarding this issue. What would happen to a married priest if the married priest's wife is caught practicing illicit contraception with his knowledge? What happens if the priest otherwise has a family with 12 kids? How will that work on 35K per year? My sense of it is that the Catholic rules about contraception are largely or almost universally ignored by the flock with tacit support of their priests. That would a bit more difficult vis a vis priests however.

The thought occurs to me that allowing married priests would put pressure for a revision of Church doctrine about contraception. In a way, the two go together like bacon and eggs.

[The Iguana]

No, I meant Marcion - sorry if I gave you that impression.

[Antoninus]

The Greek Orthodox church has had married priests since before the schism (1061 AD I believe) I don't see the permitting a Married man from becoming a priest as a danger to the catholic church.

Priestly celibacy is a discipline of the Latin Church and a laudable one, if you ask me. The Latin Church is in a period of crisis of discipline and crises are resolved, not by a further eroding of discipline, but by a reinvigoration of the discipline. We've had 50 years of change in the Latin Church and it's hard to argue that the effects haven't been disastrous. More change, more relaxation of ancient disciplines is not the answer to this problem.

[razorbak]

Mar 1:30 Now Simon's [Peter's] mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.

1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
1Ti 4:2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,
1Ti 4:3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

[bobjam]

I doubt Jesus was urging celibacy upon his disciples. That quote comes at the end of a general discussion on marriage and divorce. Jesus repeats the Genesis command that a man should leave his parents and be joined to wife, and that the two shall become one flesh (this is the only passage in all Scripture repeated by Moses, Jesus and Paul).

In the passage you quoted, the teaching Jesus said many cannot accept is the one He just gave: any man who divorces his wife for a reason other than infidelity and then marries another committs adultery. In the ancient world, it was common for a man to toss his wife out on the street and marry someone else. The disciples seem to be saying that so as to avoid committing adultery, just avoid getting married. Jesus responds that if they avoid getting married, then they should try to make themselves eunuchs. In another words, fidelity when married, celibacy when not married.

[gbcdoj]

The 16th cetury Reformers had never heard of the doctrine;

They had, actually. Trent decided to refrain from a definition, but infallibility of the Pope was already widely held in the Church and a subject of controversy with the Reformers.

[netmilsmom]

>> What in the world are you talking about?<<

I am talking about the fact that when a thread is posted with the words "Mary", "Priest", or "Pope" in the title, people think it is fair game to come in and "discuss" what they think is wrong with the Catholic Church.
We don't care what you think.
If any one of you went to Sjackson, Salem or Alouette's threads and "discussed" what is wrong with the Jewish traditions, you would be labeled Anti-Semitic.
Here you are having a "discussion" and we are tired of it.
Our threads turn into someone else's opinion about what is wrong with being Catholic. Ho-Hum. You are not the first and surely not the last.