Mar Nasrallah Peter Cardinal Sfeir
Patriarch of Antioch and all the East
Posted on 12/20/2006 6:23:43 AM PST by NYer
Mar Nasrallah Peter Cardinal Sfeir
Patriarch of Antioch and all the East
How funny. It must be hard to hear from the married guys you have to abstain from marriage and all that goes with it while they run home to their familes. On the otherhand, I would hope that the priests get the same pay regardless of status in marriage. Getting married should not guarantee a payraise (yes I am married).
And if Jesus Christ wanted people to have cars, he would have had one himself.
*************
By whom? Other than that, good article.
Aren't priests in the model of Arron?
After you get married, the celebacy part pretty much takes care of itself.
No.
Priests are in the model of Christ - the New covenant.
Where in Scripture does it say people who speak the Word to others should be celibate?
Oh look, a practice that an institution has had for hundreds of years makes sense.
Why does anyone doubt this? No one is saying that marriage is bad, or that it is morally wrong for priests to be married, all the Church is saying is that this way works best. This is the best way for these men to be the fathers they were called to be and the best way for them to act in persona Christi. That's all.
And they have had more than enough time to determine which way works best.
1 Cor 7:25-38 "Now in regard to virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.
So this is what I think best because of the present distress: that it is a good thing for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife. If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries; but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that.
I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away.
I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction. If anyone thinks he is behaving improperly toward his virgin, and if a critical moment has come and so it has to be, let him do as he wishes. He is committing no sin; let them get married. The one who stands firm in his resolve, however, who is not under compulsion but has power over his own will, and has made up his mind to keep his virgin, will be doing well. So then, the one who marries his virgin does well; the one who does not marry her will do better."
Indeed, those are good verses describing most singleness as being either acceptable or good.
But for ministering the Word, there is no support to suggest marriage is wrong.
Now, understand, I have never been married. That said, I don't go around thinking I'm better than all the married people here, although it sounds like I'm getting some support for starting to think that way.
Hbr 7:11 ¶ If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need [was there] that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
Hbr 7:12 For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Hbr/Hbr007.html#11
II. PRIESTHOOD
Whatever opinion they adopt with regard to the historical value of all the traditions concerning Aaron's life, all scholars, whether Catholics or independent critics, admit that in Aaron's High Priesthood the sacred writer intended to describe a model, the prototype, so to say, of the Jewish High Priest. God, on Mount Sinai, instituting a worship, did also institute an order of priests. According to the patriarchal customs, the first born son in every family used to perform the functions connected with God's worship. It might have been expected, consequently, that Ruben's family would be chosen by God for the ministry of the new altar. According to the biblical narrative, it was Aaron, however, who was the object of Yahweh's choice. To what jealousies this gave rise later, has been indicated above. The office of the Aaronites was at first merely to take care of the lamp that should ever burn before the veil of the tabernacle (Exodus 27:21). A more formal calling soon followed (xxviii, 1). Aaron and his sons, distinguished from the common people by their sacred functions, were likewise to receive holy vestments suitable to their office. When the moment had come, when the tabernacle, and all its appurtenances, and whatever was required for Yahweh's worship were ready Moses, priest and mediator (Galatians 3:19), offered the different sacrifices and performed the many ceremonies of the consecration of the new priests, according to the divine instructions (Exodus 29), and repeated these rites for seven days, during which Aaron and his sons were entirely separated from the rest of the people. When, on the eighth day, the High Priest had inaugurated his office of sacrificer by killing the victims, he blessed the people, very likely according to the prescriptions of Num., vi, 24-26, and, with Moses, entered into the tabernacle so as to take possession thereof. As they "came forth and blessed the people. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the multitude: And behold a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust, and the fat that was upon the altar: which when the multitude saw, they praised the Lord, falling on their faces" (Leviticus 9:23, 24). So was the institution of the Aaronic priesthood inaugurated and solemnly ratified by God.
According to Wellhausen's just remarks, Aaron's position in the Law with regard to the rest of the priestly order is not merely superior, but unique. His sons and the Levites act under his superintendence (Numbers 3:4), he alone is the one fully qualified priest; he alone bears the Urim and Thummin and the Ephod -- he alone is allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, there to offer incense (Leviticus 23:27) once a year on the great Day of Atonement. In virtue of his spiritual dignity as the head of the priesthood he is likewise the supreme judge and head of the theocracy (Numbers 27:21 - Deuteronomy 17). He alone is the answerable mediator between the whole nation and God, for this cause he bears the names of the Twelve Tribes written on his breast and shoulders; his trespasses involve the whole people in guilt, and are atoned for as those of the whole people, while the princes, when their sin offerings are compared with his, appear as mere private persons (Leviticus 4:3, 13, 22; 9:7; 16:6). His death makes an epoch; it is when the High Priest, not the King, dies, that the fugitive slayer obtains his amnesty (Numbers 35:28). At his investiture he receives the chrism like a king and is called accordingly the anointed priest, he is adorned with a diadem and tiara like a king (Exodus 28), and like a king, too, he wears the purple, except when he goes into the Holy of Holies (Leviticus 16:4).
Aaron, first High Priest of the Old Law, is most naturally a figure of Jesus Christ, first and sole Sovereign Priest of the New Dispensation. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews was the first to set off the features of this parallel, indicating especially two points of comparison. First, the calling of both High Priests: "Neither doth any man take the honour to himself, but he that is called by God as Aaron was. So Christ also did not glorify himself, that he might be made a high priest, but he that said unto him: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Hebrews 5:4-5). In the second place, the efficacy and duration of both the one and the other priesthood. Aaron's priesthood is from this viewpoint inferior to that of Jesus Christ. If indeed, the former had been able to perfect men and communicate to them the justice that pleases God, another would have been useless. Hence its inefficacy called for a new one, and Jesus' priesthood has forever taken the place of that of Aaron (Hebrews 7:11-12)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01003a.htm
Couldn't Catholic priests get married until approximately 1055 ad ?
Only in certain ecclesiastical provinces and dioceses. The Spanish Church banned married clergy in the 4th century, for example.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.