Posted on 03/27/2002 8:02:13 AM PST by LarryLied
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:36 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
1Ti 4:2
by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron ,
1Ti 4:3
men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
I hate to be picky, but Orthodox priests are not "permitted to marry". The Orthodox ordain married men. Once ordained, however, an Orthodox priest is no more permitted to remarry, if his wife should die, than a Catholic priest is.
The same is true of Eastern Catholics in their home territories. They don't "permit priests to marry," but they do ordain married men.
Incidentally, according to classical Orthodox practice, married priests are required to abstain from marital relations before they conduct the Divine Liturgy. (I'm not sure how long before ... sundown on the preceding night?)
However, the Orthodox typically celebrate the Divine Liturgy only once a week (except for important feast days). Western Catholicism developed the custom of daily Mass, which would mean that a married Western Catholic priest who followed the traditional disciplines of the faith would have to live continently with his wife anyway.
men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
The reference was to Gnostic teachers in Paul's time who forbade marriage (for everyone) and taught bizarre doctrines concerning food, including one involving salvation by eating large quantities of cucumbers. (I'm not kidding.)
Catholics forbid no one to marry. A priest can marry, but he's forbidden to act as a priest afterwards. (Paul himself counseled celibacy as a superior way in 1 Cor, but I don't see you quoting that. Why?) As for abstaining from foods, there's not the slightest shred of evidence that Paul was talking about anything like Friday abstinence.
The Didache, which was written either in the Apostolic age or within 50 or so years after St. John's death (scholars aren't sure), directly and flatly commands Christians to "fast on Wednesdays and Fridays". If anything, you ought to be taking us to task for relaxing that discipline, not ripping Scripture out of context to condemn our flimsy evisceration of ancient Christian practice.
Now go settle down with a nice book by Dave Hunt or Tim LaHaye and leave us to settle our own problems.
But the Spirit explicitly says that in LATER TIMES some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
1Ti 4:2
by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron ,
1Ti 4:3
men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
No offense taken; my fault for not being clear:
What I should have said is that the huge media attention given at this particular time for something that quite obviously has gone on for a long time could well be intended to stimulate a governmental response.
It would certainly appear to be motivated by an "anti-religious" attitude.
If this has indeed been "going on for a long time" and the Catholic church has done nothing to combat it, then perhaps the Catholic church is deserving in everything it gets... Let's not forget about the innocent kids that have had their lives destroyed by these animals. And, yes, I realize that "the Church" is not directly responsible for these crimes, but can they really be seperated? Just my opinion.
You stop at "...the Roman Catholic Church.." and its seminaries??? Haven't homosexuals infiltrated the media, the government, the courts, the mainline Protestant seminaries and churches; the universities, the schools, the colleges, also?
Its saints --- it's historic defenders , have NEVER given up their efforts to root the Arminian influence out of the universal (catholic) church:
Acts 2:17 ... And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.
He's talking about contemporary events of his time.
Hebrews 1:1ff ... God ... has in these last days spoken to us by His Son
1 Pt 1:20 ... [Jesus] indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
1 John 2:18 ... Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
We've been in the "last days" and the "last hour" ever since the resurrection. That's what the Bible says.
You really don't understand the situation, or you would not comment as you do. Nuns running the chanceries and semenaries are the major reason for the mess we have today.
We need less of it, not more.
SD
Will and Ariel Durant, in their eleven volume history of western European history state that, in the Middle Ages the Pope decreed that priests should be celibate.
One of the reasons given was that priests, bishops, archbishops, etc, were collecting unto themselves a lot of real estate and riches. These Churchmen passed this wealth on to their offspring as was the custom, thus denying it to the Catholic Church.
The Church wanted to control the production of wealth, thus the Pope stated that priests should be celibate and thus the Church would assume control of the means producing wealth.
I'm a Protestant. The above is not an anti-Catholic rant. It is a statement of what some historians have stated concerning the idea of priestly celibacy. If what the Durants say is true, it seems to me that if the Pope says something is so, then he can also say that it is "un-so".
Is the Pope or the Church afraid to say "we've made a mistake"?
OK, in the past I've had Jews call me an antisemite (not true) so now I guess Catholics will call me antiCatholic (also not true).
I've said what appears to me to be truth, like it or not.
But our society doesn't deserve it . Better to just clean out the rot and support the church while that is done. Even non Catholics who have serious doctrinal disputes with the church are better off if the Holy See remains strong. It is the largest and one of the few international institutions which is standing up to the UN, liberal NGOs such as the Ford Foundation, George Soros, Maurice Strong and other socialist groups and individuals who are hostile to the idea of a nation state and seek international control over countries and individuals.
Father Andrew Greely says that Berry has uncovered "an incredible mass of corruption...the greatest scandal in the history of religion in America and perhaps the most serious crisis Catholicism has faced since the Reformation." Greely also says that his reporting is "accurate and restrained, indeed if anything almost too conservative."
Berry won the 1986 Catholic Press Association Award for his coverage of clerical sex abuse. He documents many things that people have been saying here:
1. Over 400 Catholic priests in North America were caught molesting children between 1984 and 1992.
2. The typical molester abuses scores to hundreds of children.
3. The Church has paid out over $400 million in settlements, and the total is expected to reach $1 billion before they are done.
4. The Church tried to cover it all up.
5. The press has underreported it. The New York Times refused his stories, saying, "We want to do a child abuse story but not in the context of the Catholic Church." Subsequent refusals came from The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Mother Jones.
Surely the fact that 1 billion has been given in settlements over the years is proof that the church has been aware of the problem.
But who will be doing the cleaning? Those that have swept this under the carpet for god knows how long? Those who have authorized, as some claim, over 1 billion over the years as settlements?
Will Durant is very far from balanced in his view of the Church. The real origin of priestly celibacy is far more complex and nuanced (and *older*) than he admits. As a counterbalance, I'm told that a good book is Christian Conchini, SJ's Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy. (I haven't read it.)
What you say is true, that celibacy is a discipline that could be ended by papal edict. However, there are many good reasons for keeping it.
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