Catholic priests demand the right to marry

SMH ^ | 26 January 2005 | Linda Morris

[annalex]

In fact, God gave us men a wife and the sexual desire followed. The priestly desire to offer sacrifice logically could come only after the Fall.

Welcome to FR.

[murphE]

You're quite right, after all the bible is the book of the Catholic Church, not the other way around.

[justinmartyr]

Go pass out your mimeos on a street corner. You're not going to find any buyers here.

[monkfan]

Actually, word around the agora is that penance is a real possibility. As to what kind of infraction would warrant such, I don't know, I haven't been curious enough to ask. Nor have I been naughty enough to find out the hard way. And I don't know what all is entailed. But I do know that those under penance are barred from communion for the duration. So it would have to be a rather weighty matter, comparatively speaking.

[sempertrad]

What qualifies someone who isn't married to give advice to soneone who is? Telling people how to be better parents when they themselves know nothing of the day to day struggles of rasing a kid?

What qualifies a doctor who has never had a brain tumor to give advice to his patient who does? How can a married secular "marriage counsellor" try and help mend a marriage in trouble, when his own marriage is full of happiness? Haven't you ever given good advice to a friend even though you'd never experienced his predicament?

Its study, personal experience and prayer. Priests are not men beamed in from outer space. They grew up in familes. They had parents who they observed and learned from. They have married siblings and friends who share their experiences. They realize they may not be able to completely relate to every problem they are asked to help with, but who can?

[sinkspur]

Clearly you're not appealing to the tradition of the Latin rite, but to rite-changers or other faiths?

Is this a point of dissent with the magisterium for you?

Celibacy is a discipline of the Latin Rite. It is not a dogma, or even a teaching. So, there is no "dissent with the magisterium" involved here.

[sinkspur]

Not only would it be a violation of Sacred Tradition to blot out a custom decreed for 2,000 years to be absolutely obligatory, but also one must recognize that clerical celibacy is to be seen not merely as of ecclesiastical institution, but part of what is more broadly known in Catholic moral theology as "divine positive law," initiated by Christ and His Apostles. That is, it is not merely disciplinary in nature.

Well, that's traditio.com's opinion. I've never seen any serious theologian claim that mandatory celibacy is part of divine positive law. If it were, there would be no "mitigations" possible.

[ArrogantBustard]

You're quite right, after all the bible is the book of the Catholic Church,

In fact, the whole concept of "Biblical Christianity" is preposterous. The Epistles were written to a Church already in existence, or to individual members thereof. They were written to Christians, whose faith could not possibly have been based on writings not yet written. Likewise the four Gospels ... the Gospel according to St. Luke and the Acts, like some of the Epistles, were addressed to an individual. The Apocalypse is comprehensible only in the context of an already existing (and sometimes thriving) Church.

[Kolokotronis]

You're right. I was focusing on the three Hail Marys stuff and forgot about this. I may have been naughty enough, I suspect, but I guess the confessors took pity on me. Actually, what happens is that the penitent is told to do something, or refrain from doing something more likely, and during some period of time, he or she might be barred from communion. An instance might be when a couple is living together without being married. The priest refuses them communion, tells them that they msut come to confession and one or the other is sleeping on the couch until the wedding; in the meantime, no communion.

[Tantumergo]

"In the short term, though, the number of diocesan priests will fall, as we have a big bulge of folks who are approaching retirement age (or who have even exceeded it, and have not yet retired)."

This "big bulge" you speak of seems to be a major factor which accentuates the crisis, and makes it appear worse than it really is.

There was a massive flood of men entering the seminary across the developed world following World War II and all our diocesan structures and numbers of parishes were built around these inflated numbers as though they were normal.

To some extent the decline in vocations is little more than a return to the trend prior to the war, although it is exacerbated in particularly corrupt dioceses.

[justinmartyr]

Probably not, but my point in posting the clip is that "serious theologians" (e.g., St. Jerome) have maintained that celibacy is of Apostolic origin.

Others, admittedly, have disputed this. But without a definitive pronouncement from a Council or the Holy See it is impossible to maintain -- as most participants in the debate nowadays do -- that the issue is merely one of discipline.

[Tantumergo]

"Wow. I didn't know that. Lay confessors."

There is precedent in the Roman rite (way, way, way back when!) for deacons hearing confessions and reconciling apostates to the Church.

There is a certain logic to it as the deacon is "the bishop's man" and as such participates in his ministry. When the deacon was given faculties by a bishop to exercise the Sacrament of Penance he was essentially reconciling the penitants to the local Church by acting as a "vicar" of the head of the local Church - i.e. the bishop.

P.S. I have no personal desire ever to be a confessor - coping with wayward deacons is bad enough as it is!!!

[sinkspur]

But without a definitive pronouncement from a Council or the Holy See it is impossible to maintain -- as most participants in the debate nowadays do -- that the issue is merely one of discipline.

Of course it's one of discipline. Immutable teachings cannot be changed, nor can exceptions be made to them. Both of those things have happened to the celibacy discipline.

In addition, as traditio itself points out, the Eastern Rites have "mitigated" the practice, something which is simply not possible with divine positive law.