Posted on 01/25/2005 5:56:05 AM PST by Catholic54321
Thank-you.
Priestly celibacy was poorly observed until Gregory the Great said, in the 11th century, that priests could not validly marry. And, mandatory celibacy has been more or less observed in the last thousand years.
On other threads in the past, some Catholics have said that it would be a good thing to force Catholics to do without the Mass for three out of four Sundays in order to shock them into ponying up enough priests to resolve the shortage.
Perhaps you agree with that strategy. I don't.
"What sacrifice did Adam offer? Understand that priesthood is meaningless before the Fall."
It was the sacrifice that Adam failed to offer that is probably more to the point!
However, his priesthood is not at all meaningless as it sets the precedent for ALL priesthood in Holy Scripture: PRIESTHOOD IS FATHERHOOD. Holy Scripture, at one level, is nothing more than the account of how priesthood is given, lost, and restored - down through the Patriarchs, Israel to Christ.
Noah, Shem (Melchizedek), Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were ALL priests and they were ALL married.
Christ is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek and Melchizedek himself was married, so how can there be a theological incompatibility between marriage and priesthood?
"from Leo the Great to John Paul II saw a deep contradiction between priesthood and marriage."
Well, JPII must be a hypocrite then because he appended his signature to the document which contained this statement at an Ecumenical Council:
"Indeed, it (celibacy) IS NOT DEMANDED BY THE VERY NATURE OF THE PRIESTHOOD as is apparent from the practice of the early Church(35) and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches. where, besides those who with all the bishops, by a gift of grace, choose to observe celibacy, there are also married priests of highest merit. This holy synod, while it commends ecclesiastical celibacy, in no way intends to alter that different discipline which legitimately flourishes in the Eastern Churches. It permanently exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage to persevere in their holy vocation so that they may fully and generously continue to expend themselves for the sake of the flock commended to them.(36)"
Presbyterium Ordinis n.16
For those of you who think Vat II was an infallible Ecumenical Council, then this should settle the question once and for all.
For those who have their doubts, then here is one more piece of amunition against the Council which JPII appears to be openly contradicting and therefore it is time he tore the whole thing up and admitted it isn't the source of all light and holiness that he pretends it is!
I'm not sure - half the time it all sounds Greek to me! ;)
Im sorry, but St. Gregory the Great died in 604. I think the Church should encourage young men into going into Holy Orders. Not force, but create better Catholic men who would pray and contemplate their vocation. I know my generation is one of needing improvement.
You might well be right, but the question has not been definitively answered.
There is good reason (i.e., the testimony of certain Church Fathers, the proceeding of certain Church Councils) to believe that celibacy has been regarded as of Apostolic origin. Married men have been ordained from the time of the Last Supper, but that is not the point. A body of evidence (which, I admit, is contradicted by other evidence) exists to suggest that married men were expected after their ordination to live as brother and sister with their wives. Stefan Heid (who is neither a Lefevbrist nor a sedevacantist) maintains as much in his recent study published by Ignatius Press.
This may well be as suspect as St. Epiphanius's insistence that the Lenten fast was of Apostolic origin. But that is neither here nor there. The point I am making is that, barring a pronouncement from the highest authority, we can neither dismiss nor insist upon one interpretation or the other.
I don't see how the Second Vatican Council's resurrection of the permanent diaconate is relevant to this discussion, since this Council's pastoral proceedings have no dogmatic force. (Neither, I admit, did the disciplinary canon of the Council of Nicea which enjoined perfect continence upon all who had taken Holy Orders.)
But the question has not been disposed of.
Here's a little secret. The Gaels were a lost tribe of Greeks, blown off course on a trip to Atlantis! I know, my mother told me and her grandmother told her and her hrandmother's best friend was Panagia!
"Im sorry, but St. Gregory the Great died in 604."
He meant Gregory VII - Hildebrand.
and one or the other the man is sleeping on the couch until the wedding.
Grass is green, oceans are blue and men get the couch. ;)
ahhh, I see.
Yes, one of the great frauds of the modern era is the equality of the sexes! After 27 years of marriage I can say that.
"But the question has not been disposed of."
See #119 & #125 above.
Benedict IV, Pius XI and Vatican II (Presbyterium Ordinis)all state that it is a discipline only and not a matter of doctrine.
Where Vatican II merely repeats the previous teaching of the Magisterium, I don't think we really have any grounds to question its veracity on those points!
The recent push to dogmatise celibacy is just another example of how this Pope and some of his sycophants will try and bend the words of Scripture itself to canonise his prudential judgements and personal opinions.
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