Posted on 09/18/2013 3:41:28 PM PDT by NYer
For the same reason that priests may not marry.
There seems to be much confusion over this topic. Priestly celibacy is a discipline. Were it to be lifted, married men could apply to become priests. Note the difference.
With regard to women's religious communities, certain communities offer married women the opportunity to participate as members of a "third" order. These women do not join the convent but serve in a different capacity.
WRONG! In some of the Eastern Churches, married men may apply to become priests. BIG difference. Once accepted, should their wife die, they may not remarry.
It addresses the title, “Will the Pope OK Married Priests?”
They already have. Oddly, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists seem to manage married clergy.
Sure, they get the occasional crank, but they recruit fewer pederasts.
because the nuns are lesbians...
ya...one of our Parish Priests is a married former Episcopalian.
Dear shadeaud, I’m glad you're not being sarcastic, because you are really confused! Everything you mentioned in that paragraph is untrue!
The Pope didn't say that "homos won't go to hell" --- that is, if they engage in the sin of sodomy and don't repent, they will (like any other unrepentant sinner.) He did say that if a man just has an unbidden attraction to other men (a homosexual temptation) he won't be "judged" a sinner if he does not give in to the temptation, and does not sin! Make sense?
He also didn't say that you don't have to believe in God. In that much misquoted letter which he sent to the atheist editor of La Reppublica, Pope Francis said "You [the atheist he was writing to] can be saved if you turn to Him with a sincere and contrite heart."
It's possible that part wasn't quoted in whatever garbled version of it you might have read. The secular press tends to cut out that kind of thing.
Third, neither the Pope nor any other knowledgeable person in the Church ever said that "priests will be allowed to get married." That is NOT possible. Once a priest has made a vow of celibacy, he is not an 'eligible bachelor'!
As this article points out, in some of the Eastern Catholic Churches (e.g. the Maronites and Melkites in Lebanon, the Chaldeans in Iraq, etc.) they already have the practice that married men can become priests. In that order: first marry, then be ordained as a priest. But not in the reverse order: priest, then marry. That ain't happening. Nor has, never will!
It aggravates me that the Pope is so much misquoted, and so misconstrued. It means people like myself have to go around correcting the record,
| "This is what he said!" |
| and |
| "This is what he didn't say!!" |
| all over the blogosphere. :`:`sigh:`:` Any questions? Tagline. |
That’s why priests can’t get married.
Roman Catholicism has married deacons. In fact, we have more married deacons in the US (14,000) than we have priests in religious orders like the Jesuits and the Franciscans (13,000).
If a man wanted to have the vows of Holy Orders AND the vows of matrimony, after he was married he could become an Eastern Rite priest or he could be an ordained deacon.
Or, o the other hand, he might have a vocation as a celibate Latin priest. Whatever his calling is (married or celibate, laity or clergy), it is a special gift from God.
It's all a matter of what his calling is from the Lord. St. Paul, who wrote that excellent description of what the qualifications of a bishop should be (in the Letter to Timothy) is also the one who also recommended celibacy:
"It is well for a man not to touch a woman.... I wish that all were [unmarried] as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another (1 Cor. 7:1,7).
That's good Scriptural advice, isn't it?
Excellent. Very well expressed! To compliment your treatise, I would like to point out that the Eastern Churches also have celibate priests. Our pastor initially intended to marry before becoming a priest. In the process of his discernment, he felt a strong calling to live a monastic life as a missionary. That led him to enter the Maronite Lebanese Missionary community and be ordained as a celibate priest. He now serves as pastor in a small Maronite parish in the US.
That quote always kind of puzzles me. Doesn't it mean the atheist isn't an atheist anymore? How else could one turn to Him in whom the atheist doesn't believe exists? I conclude that atheists who remain atheists probably won't be saved but those who do not might well be (in other words, same as what we have believed all along).
And these are the ones people know about.
I suppose a priest could be defrocked, marry, and then become a priest again.
Did Martin Luther do that?
WOW, thanks for setting us straight....the priests and bishops of the first 500 years of Christianity thank you for clearing this up!!!
priests , parish priests, live alone in a (usually) parish owned rectory...house..Nuns, on the other hand, usually live in communities with other nuns....hard to slip a husband in there!!!
The Scriptures say nothing about a priesthood in the Christian church.
wrong
it never fails to amaze me how asinine some people can be....pathetic
scripture also says nothing about a legitimate protestant organization within the Christian chuch either.
Not relevant to the point. There were no priests in the Christian church therefore nothing in Scripture about such a priesthood.
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.