Posted on 01/17/2020 7:55:19 AM PST by ebb tide
ROME, January 17, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Benedict XVI said he could not remain silent in his new book because he sees the voices of those who wish to abolish priestly celibacy as a “great danger” for the Church, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said.
In a recent interview with Corriere della Sera, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) added that while “some are putting pressure on Francis,” the “contribution” of Benedict’s new book with Cardinal Sarah is “a help to the Pope.”
The new volume, titled From the Depths of Our Hearts, “has a theological and ecclesiastical value greater than that of many other bishops and theologians,” Cardinal Müller said.
The cardinal’s comments were given to Corriere but were edited out of the printed edition for reasons of length. The cardinal, however, provided LifeSiteNews with the full text.
Elaborating on the “danger” Benedict sees, the cardinal pointed to forces within the Church that are ready to use the Amazon Synod to weaken the Catholic priesthood.
“The Synod discussed the possibility of ordaining married men, but the Amazonian bishops represent only a small part of the world episcopate,” the cardinal told Corriere. “The Catholic priesthood is at stake here. Some, as in Germany, are beginning to say: why not elsewhere? If you destroy a principle, then everything falls.”
This principle, he said, is the truth of the Catholic priesthood.
“We Catholics are not like Protestants who see the ministry only as a function in the Church. Priests for us are representatives of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd and High Priest,” he explained.
Cardinal Müller was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI and is the editor of Joseph Ratzinger’s opera omnia. In July 2017, Pope Francis replaced the 72-year-old German prelate with Spanish Jesuit theologian Luis Ladaria as prefect of the CDF.
In his interview with Corriere, Cardinal Müller made clear he has no concerns about the new book causing any “confusion between the magisteriums” of Francis and the Pope emeritus.
“We don’t have two popes, there is only one pope, Francis,” he said. “We say ‘pope emeritus’ as a form of courtesy,” but “in reality, Benedict XVI is a bishop emeritus.”
The cardinal said that those who see the new book by Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah as a “sort of interference” forget that while the Roman Pontiff is the “principle of unity in the Church … all bishops, even emeriti, participate as such in the Magisterium of the Church together have the responsibility for the depositum fidei.”
Pressed on two common issues posed by those who advocate a relaxing of celibacy in the Latin Rite — i.e. married priests in the Eastern Churches and the ordination of former Anglican clergy — Cardinal Müller stressed “they are exceptions, in the name of the superior value of the unity of the Church.” But he added: “it does not mean abolishing the principle.”
In 1980, Pope John Paul II authorized what is called the “Pastoral Provision,” enabling bishops to ordain former Anglican clergy as diocesan priests, once they received a dispensation from the Holy See regarding celibacy. In his 2009 apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum caetibus, Pope Benedict XVI authorized a similar provision within a new Anglican Ordinariate that he established with this document.
When asked how he explains the storm of controversy surrounding Benedict XVI’s new book with Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Müller pointed to rampant “opportunism.”
“When Ratzinger was Pope,” the cardinal observed, “many people came to visit him and they adored him. Now they don’t visit him, they don’t listen to him, they even manage to slow down the publication of his works in Italian.”
“The opportunists are always the greatest enemies of the credibility of the Church,” he said.
No more simplistic than your lumping heretic Catholics with orthodox Catholics.
Men like to fight. When for the second time in thirty years (in 1767 IIRC) the Scottish Parliament had folks trying to respect an establishment of religion out of the Westminster Confession of Faith this political move not only caused bitter fighting among Scottish Presbyterians in Scotland it caused some vigorous infighting in this side of the pond at times and places that actually informed the 1st Amendment but were otherwise theologically trivial as a reason to fight.
As for actual theological issues, there’s always a remnant.
For a long time before our day the price to pay in society in the West was for not seeming to be a Christian. The unbelievers moved in, some went on to become priests or pastors and hold positions of leadership because, to borrow from Burke Breathed’s portrayal of an old fat Elvis turned road construction worker: where else could you get paid to do little more than stand around eating donuts?
(Remember, back in the day lawyers had yet to reach any sort of critical mass where the more you had the more you needed just to talk with other lawyers)
Now in these last of the last days those led astray now have their own places (buildings and all) to believe some stuff that sounds Christian without being converted. They are no more proper to lay at the feet of actual believers than a Catholic seminary overrun by homosexuals should be laid at the feet of other actual believers.
But I’m not doing that.
So what’s your problem with priestly celibacy in the Latin Church, unless you want it come down to protestant levels?
Why aren’t you concerned about your own “churches”?
Yep.
Though in this context someone in the peanut gallery might be tempted to think the immediate context was not what we might call a parsonage, or the right to be supported.
Paul makes far more hay out of the fact that they aren’t taking money but are supporting themselves.
So I found it. it was gynaika, woman, whether single, married or widowed. Examples:
Matthew 5:28
ὁ βλέπων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ
who looks at a woman with lust
Luke 4:26
Σιδωνίας πρὸς γυναῖκα χήραν
[in the land] of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
Luke 7:44 N-AFS GRK: πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα τῷ Σίμωνι
toward the woman, He said
Luke 7:44
ταύτην τὴν γυναῖκα εἰσῆλθόν σου
Seest thou this woman? I entered into
Revelation 2:20
ἀφεῖς τὴν γυναῖκα Ἰεζάβελ ἡ
you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel,
Revelation 12:13
ἐδίωξεν τὴν γυναῖκα ἥτις ἔτεκεν
he persecuted the woman, who
In the passage you cited, from Corinthians, it seems Paul is talking about a sister woman, which is to say, a fellow-believer:
1 Corinthians 9:5
ἐξουσίαν ἀδελφὴν - γυναῖκα περιάγειν &#u033;ς
a sister, a woman, as well as
The word used here before gynaika (woman) is ἀδελφὴν adelphēn (sister). It occurs 5 times in the NT, and in every case is translated "sister".
THough possibly a widower,, we know from Paul's own words that he was, at that time, not in the state wedlock, since he says "To the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am." (1 Cor. 7:8)
So Jerome (4th century translator and scholar) explains that Paul in 1 Cor. 9 is speaking of pious Jewish women who accompanied and ministered to their teachers, supplying daily practicalities, as the Gospels show women supplying Jesus and Apostles.
Luke 8:3
Joanna the wife of Herod’s household manager Chuza, Susanna, and many others. These women were ministering to them out of their own means.
Matthew 27:55
And many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to minister to Him.
If you look at the context, Paul is not talking about suitability for marriage, He is talking about not wanting to burden the Corinthians with providing for a female assistant for him, or an entourage of assistants, since he himself clearly affirmed that he was single.
Um ... Peter was as a scriptural fact married (had a mother in law). There is no reason to spiritualized their meaning in this specific text to be anything other than a wife or someone who is a relation. In Peter’s case literally his wife. And a parsonage (or whatever you want to call the pay received) didn’t include providing women ... they weren’t pagans.
From what I understand even some pagan (and Jewish of course) societies would have generally frowned on unescorted women accompanying a man unless they were related (sister, mother, aunt, etc), wards, children, elderly, or slaves.
There had been no sexual revolution and Jews considered it a spiritual duty to beget children.
When Christ speaks of divorce, extremely limiting it compared to the more licentious rabbis (though not all rabbis), he follows that up because of the disciple’s bewilderment with a word about “eunuchs”, but concerning what we would call celibacy He give no indication that that is being advanced as a norm, only to some. Arguably a few.
BTW ... I would nominally consider ending celibacy to be a reform ... but NOT with this guy!
With him and all this Lavender Mafia plus women priest stuff in the background I doubt this is about reform. More sexual revolution 2.0
Or, put another way, if only Nixon could have gone to China ... this guy is no proverbial Nixon to do this.
Nobody doubts that Peter was at one time married, maybe Paul too, and probably other Apostles as well. They may have been widowers. However it happened, this only adds weight to the sacrifice they made when they sacrificed everything --- including home and family life --- to serve as Jesus' Apostles.
Peter asserts this identically in all three synoptic Gospels:
Peter said, "Lo, have left everything to follow You."
Matthew 19:27
Mark 10:29
Luke 18L28
...and in all three Gospels, Jesus specifies that He knows just what was sacrificed:
Luke 18:29
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times more in this age--- and in the age to come, eternal life.”
Matthew 19:29
"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for the sake of My name will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life."
Mark 10:29
"Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the gospel..."
....you see, they have sacrificed a normal home and a normal family life.
Clearly, they cannot simply abandon their dependents: Jesus condemns those who utilize a religious excuse ("It is Korban") not to care for their aging parents, and Paul tells Timothy (1 Tim 5:8) that a man who neglects to provide for his own kin, especially those in his own household, is worse than an infidel.
Therefore, it is to be expected that those who would follow in Jesus' footsteps as His Apostles must be those who have either never taken on the responsibilities of a family of their own ("eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven") or those -- widowers, perhaps --- who have provided for their grown children and other relations sufficiently that they may now "leave everything" and follow Him.
This fits in snugly with what St. Paul said in 1 Cor 7 about abstaining from marriage: This is not for everyone. This is for those who are called to do so, who in having no dependents are freer to focus on serving the Lord (v. 25-40.)
Since we understand priests to be men especially conformed to Jesus Christ --- Who was a virgin --- giving up having a wife and an ordinary family life --- as Peter said he and the others did --- points to a pattern of Christ-like sacrifice in this way and in all ways.
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