Posted on 02/19/2015 2:22:29 PM PST by NRx
Benedict is the real pope.
I must have not been clear.
The norm is that all clergy—whether married or unmarried—must be perpetually, perfectly continent.
The existence of exceptions does not imply that the issue is not doctrinal, and is MERELY disciplinary.
Thank you for your insight.
Yeah, I’m either still not understanding or still not agreeing with you.
Are you saying that unmarried clergy is not a disciplinary issue?
I’d like to see Church support for unmarried clergy as doctrinal and not disciplinary.
Would you make this a requirement for union with Eastern Orthodoxy?
In my mind unmarried clergy is a discipline and this is what the Catholic Church teaches. Therefore, I don’t think married clergy would be an issue. But, I am not sure how that would work because Traditional Catholic teaching says true unity happens in the Catholic Church and therefore all must become Catholic. It’s not about picking and choosing what is ok in each other’s denominations.
My earlier post is asking for support that the Catholic Church teaches that unmarried clergy is doctrine because I don’t think there is any such support.
Yes ... i didn’t quote him verbatim ... just pointing out the obvious before the “Francis is a liberal” crowd showed up. Correctly translated, he did indeed say “problem”.
I am guessing that there are at least a few of my co-religionists who would love to have Rome dogmatize this issue as it would pretty much resolve the problem of the Unia. In the blink of an eye I think you would send about 90% of Eastern Rite Catholics back to Orthodoxy.
The limitation of Holy Orders to celibates is, of course, a “disciplinary” matter. But like virtually all disciplines, it is directly and closely related to “doctrinal” issues.
The doctrinal basis for the discipline is the Church’s understanding of the Eucharist. And the discipline is not, at root, that clerics must be celibate, but that they must be CONTINENT.
And the requirement of CONTINENCE applies to married clerics as well as the unmarried.
Currently, the vast majority of Catholics, including clerics, believe that the cleric’s duty to be continent is a consequence of his being unmarried. I.e., the duty to be continent is simply a consequence of the fact that all unmarried men are required by the Sixth Commandment to be continent.
This is false. The duty of clerical continence is a direct consequence of proximity to the altar in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Thus, all deacons, priests, and bishops are bound by the duty of perpetual, perfect continence.
http://canonlawblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/canon-277-and-clerical-continence-in.html
http://canonlawblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.canonlaw.info/a_deacons.htm
Well, whatever “support” it has or doesn’t have among whoever, it has support in the Code of Canon Law.
ALL clerics (deacons, priests, bishops), married or unmarried, are bound to perfect, perpetual continence. (There are many married deacons, some married priests, and no married bishops.)
That is certainly true, in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. However it is not true in the Eastern Rites. Dogmatizing the issue would necessitate the suppression of the immemorial custom and discipline of the Christian East and coercing them into kowtowing, yet again, to the Latin Church. You might want to consider the legacy of your Bishop John Ireland who many Orthodox jokingly refer to as the founding father of the Orthodox Church in America.
And the requirement of CONTINENCE applies to married clerics as well as the unmarried.
Was this always Church teaching? Is there support for this in Catholic teaching before the Church decided on a predominantly unmarried clergy?
Also, are we to assume that those clergy that are/were married, are continent with their wives?
After reading this article, I could not figure out when this man became a priest, but in this picture his wife has a baby in her arms.
Of course, we can’t ever really know, but I find it hard to believe that this priest is continent. Then again, this could be yet another example of how the post-Vatican II church turns a blind eye to true Catholic teaching (assuming what you have stated is true teaching: continent married priests).
http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/08/05/im-a-catholic-priest-and-im-married/
w/e, n00b....
That’s exactly the issue: Since the restoration of the permanent diaconate in the 1960s, the existence of the canonical requirement of continence for ALL clerics, which has never been modified, and which was carried over into the new Code in 1982, has been universally ignored in practice, and almost universally ignored among canonists and theologians.
Dr. Edward Peters answers these questions.
The tradition goes back to the apostles.
The scenario that is believed by many--that most priests were married for many centuries, and celibacy was "imposed" by fiat--is a myth.
You are no doubt familiar with the way Protestant controversialists will quote a council or Pope reaffirming a dogma (e.g., transubstantiation) in the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, or even a later century, and confidently announce that the Church "invented" the dogma at that late date. The same error has been made time and again regarding clerical celibacy.
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