Posted on 11/12/2017 7:23:18 PM PST by ebb tide
“But now I shall tell you God’s will in this matter……
Know this too: that if some pope concedes to priests a license to contract carnal marriage, God will condemn him to a sentence as great, in a spiritual way, as that which the law justly inflicts in a corporeal way on a man who has transgressed so gravely that he must have his eyes gouged out, his tongue and lips, nose and ears cut off, his hands and feet amputated, all his body’s blood spilled out to grow completely cold, and finally, his whole bloodless corpse cast out to be devoured by dogs and other wild beasts. Similar things would truly happen in a spiritual way to that pope who were to go against the aforementioned preordinance and will of God and concede to priests such a license to contract marriage.
For that same pope would be totally deprived by God of his spiritual sight and hearing, and of his spiritual words and deeds. All his spiritual wisdom would grow completely cold; and finally, after his death, his soul would be cast out to be tortured eternally in hell so that there it might become the food of demons everlastingly and without end. Yes, even if Saint Gregory the Pope had made this statute, in the aforesaid sentence he would never have obtained mercy from God if he had not humbly revoked his statute before his death.”
(Excerpt) Read more at trcthoughts.com ...
I think it has already happened.
Stopped reading right there.
Regards,
As I understand it, Eastern Catholic churches do allow married priests, but under THREE conditions:
One: That a man be already married BEFORE studying and being ordained.
Two: That if his marriage is annulled while a priest, he is forbidden to remarry,.
Three: The highest a married man can go is to be a priest. Any higher, he is to be unmarried.
It is CURRENT law in the Catholic Church that all clerics observe perfect, perpetual continence. This includes those who are permitted to be ordained even though married. I.e., it includes deacons, and those who have been ordained priests after converting from another ecclesial body.
Please permit me to ask for some clarification.
Please explain what exactly this means. Does "perpetual continence" for a married cleric mean no sex at all with his legal spouse or does it mean no sexual contact with said wife for a certain time prior to conducting Mass or does it simply mean the married man must be sexually pure and faithful to his wife and not commit adultery and he may have sexual contact with his wife?
If even deacons are included in this "perpetual continence" and not just priests, then are deacons also mandated to be celibate and remain unmarried?
Thank you.
A few ‘snippets’...
The Church was a thousand years old before it definitively took a stand in favor of celibacy in the twelfth century at the Second Lateran Council held in 1139, when a rule was approved forbidding priests to marry. In 1563, the Council of Trent reaffirmed the tradition of celibacy.
SO - celibacy became ‘mandated after around 1139. HOWEVER...it wasn’t all that ‘easy’.... I will post an interesting paragraph from 18th Century Historian David Hume (from Volume 1 of his History of England):
After the canons, which established the celibacy of the clergy, were, by the zealous endeavours of archbishop Anselm, more rigorously executed in England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally[427] and avowedly, into the use of concubinage; and the court of Rome, which had no interest in prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to it. The custom was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of Swisserland, before the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but, to avoid scandal, enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy; and it was usual every where for priests to apply to the ordinary, and obtain from him a formal liberty for this indulgence. The bishop commonly took care to prevent the practice from degenerating into licentiousness: He confined the priest to the use of one woman, required him to be constant to her bed, obliged him to provide for her subsistance and that of her children; and, though the offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed illegitimate, this commerce was really a kind of inferior marriage, such as is still practised in Germany among the nobles; and may be regarded by the candid, as an appeal from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical institutions, to the more virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.
LET THAT SINK IN....one of the reasons the Church wanted celibacy because they didn’t want a priest’s estate to be passed to wife and children. Everything had to stay within the church....so - they mandated celibacy, even if they didn’t actually ‘enforce’ celibacy!
“Celibate” means unmarried.
“Continent” means not engaging in any sexual activity.
“Perpetual” means everlasting and uninterrupted.
In the Western Church, all clerics are bound to celibacy, with some exceptions (deacons, and some converts from other ecclesial bodies). All clerics are bound to perfect and perpetual continence.
All clerics promise celibacy at the time they are ordained a deacon. No cleric may contract a marriage after promising celibacy.
This should answer your questions. No cleric in the Western Church licitly engages in any sexual activity at any time.
Well, no, actually it doesn't answer my question totally. You previously stated:
And now you state:
So, deacons are an exception regarding "no sexual activity" ever...yes or no? The reason I ask is I know of Catholic deacons who are married and have children.
Deacons who are married when they promise celibacy remain married. Their promise of celibacy means they can never contract a NEW marriage. (That is, if the deacon’s wife dies.) They are, however, because they are clerics, bound to practice continence.
The deacons you know who are having sexual relations are violating the law. I guarantee you they are totally unaware of this fact.
This is one example of the lawlessness and chaos in the Church in the past 50-some years.
Notice that I said that there are exceptions to clerical celibacy. There are no exceptions to clerical continence.
This misrepresents the reality. Celibacy, or more precisely continence, was the practice in the Latin church from the earliest years. The Second Lateran Council did not establish a new practice but merely restated, and called for it to more rigorously enforced, a practice that was already well established. The exceptions that existed at the time should not be seen as denying that celibacy had been the universal rule in the Latin church for centuries.
Substantially correct. A man must marry before ordination to the diaconate, not necessarily before entering seminary. A cleric cannot remarry, even if his wife should die. And Eastern bishops are chosen from among monks, who are always celibate. An ordinary diocesan priest isn’t eligible, unless he was ordained as a celibate, or widowed, etc.
Was this thread posted because of talks about allowing mature men in Brazil who are married to become priests?
BTW: If you ask any priest or deacon about what I said, he will tell you I’m crazy.
Since the restoration of the permanent diaconate fifty-some years ago, the law on clerical continence has not been altered. It has quite literally and simply been ignored.
Google or Bing: edward peters clerical continence
Any of them??? Why is that?
My stuff was a ‘cut and paste’...and I posted the actual source on how the Catholic Church was ‘dealing’ with the idea of celibacy ....(by tolerating and ignoring priests having ‘concubines’). I posted the source to that.
You made a statement ....please provide a good credible source/reference for your statement.
Because almost no one in the Church realizes that the law on clerical continence (which applies to all clerics, married or celibate) has never changed. Virtually everyone has assumed, since the restoration of the permanent diaconate around 1965, that married deacons are not bound to continence. They are simply wrong. Read what Dr. Edward Peters has written on the subject.
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