My purpose is to find out how others would understand the phrase. For my own part, I will pick out every instance where the phrase occurs in the text above, and also related materials, and figure out what ‘married priests’ is all above in that episode of “60 Minutes”.
What do you think of my approach? I really need your views and contributions.
Here, the reference is to (future theoretical) priests who are married in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church. The theologian in question thinks this would be a good idea, and is advocating it. So does Sixty Minutes, and they are doing the same.
Here, “married priests” refers to men who were already married (often Anglicans) who received special approval to be ordained as Roman Catholic priests.
The phrase “double standard” here refers to Sixty Minutes setting up a straw man and knocking it down. The straw man is the implication that the Roman Catholic church always states that marriage is out of the question for all priests under all circumstances at all times, but have ignored this standard hypocritically. No attempt is made here to describe the real standard, or the circumstances of the married priests.
Here, “married priests” refers to unmarried priests who are violating their oath of celibacy.
It is also an unsupported allegation, with no percentages or examples given. Since the celibacy requirement is allegedly almost universally ignored, it should be a simple matter for Sixty Minutes or Mr. McBrien to give a half-dozen or so examples of priests who are flouting the rule of celibacy with the tacit approval of their bishops. Instead, we seem to have no more than the unsupported allegations of someone who thinks the celibacy rule is silly,
Restatement of the straw man, followed by unrelated arguments made by those with a vested interest in changing the policy.
Which would tend to argue against the idea that the bishops are tacitly accepting of married priests. Mr. Ganim’s statement is rather clear that, in his case, they did not.
Here, “married priests” refers to the hypothetical future married priests, who Biship Gallante thinks would be acceptable to the laity, if such a policy were ever instituted.
I think it is an unfortunate attempt to avoid answering questions on your part. I expect that you will either drop the thread (and start yet another) as soon as you are challenged on it, or post and re-post and re-re-post portions of it interspersed with chunks of high-falutin obfuscation. All badly coded and nearly unreadable.
I have started another thread, called “What exactly does ‘High-falutin obfuscation’ mean in the context of ‘married priests’?” and I invite all to join me in discussing this point at length.
So far you are the only one to have made observations of the ‘60 Minutes’ text. Thank you.
Shall we have more of us here, readers, post their observations, on that episode of ‘60 Minutes’?
Then I will try to find out where the trouble is with Brick accusing me of lying in that post of mine in the ‘Catholic and anal sex’ thread in reaction to the one of Kalhoun in the same thread.
If others here and any readers who chance upon this thread who would post their observations in the same manner as Shodan, but of course in their own understanding, that would be most helpful to me.
My idea in having a thread on ‘What is a lie’, and one on ‘Priests fornicating’, and this one on the ‘60 Minutes’ episode, is in order to have some system in our discussions.
When I have all the materials together from all the threads involved, then I will as I said try to trace the source of the trouble with Brick accusing me of lying.
Thanks again, Shodan. And I assure you that I am not trying to avoid answering…
Do you notice that I have made requests for clarifications of words and other matters, and I seem to not have received adequate responses to my questions.
Let us all be calm and patient. I have been accused of lying by Brick, and it is just fair that I be given the time and space here to explain myself in order to show that the accusation is not valid.
Susma Rio Sep
If the OP is an attempt to avoid a response in an earlier thread, could a newbie to the discussion request a link back to it?
Well, it’s kinda like Bill Bennett and gambling. Is there some principle on which the RCC’s priestly vow of celibacy is based, and if so, does allowing substantial numbers of married Anglican priests to convert, remain married, and remain priests suggest that the principle is less than inviolable?
If this had happened just a few times, that would be one thing. But a hundred married Catholic (nee Anglican) priests suggests that there’s not just a way around the RCC’s priestly celibacy standard, but that a serious path is being trampled along that route. I’d be interested to know how many married Anglican priests have applied (in whatever formal or informal sense applies here) to become Catholic priests when they convert, and have been turned down.
One aspect of this that I find interesting is that this seems to imply that the RCC recognizes Anglican priests as being priests in the eyes of the RCC before their conversion to Roman Catholicism. Otherwise, one would think a married former Anglican priest who converts to Catholicism would have exactly the same opportunity to join the Catholic priesthood as any other married Catholic layman would.
And that’s the other thing. If this many married former Anglican priests have been found worthy of some special dispensation into the Catholic priesthood, surely there’s at least one married always-Catholic layman whose claim to a priestly calling has been found worthy by the RCC, and has been ordained. (Logically, there should be thousands.) Does such a priest exist? I’m betting against it.
There is one little detail that everybody seems to be ignoring. Uniates (“Eastern Rite” groups under Rome) have a long tradition of married priests, and these priests are considered married in the “eyes of Rome”. These men do not require “special approval” to be ordained into the Priesthood. Their ordination is every bit as “valid” as far as Rome is concerned as for more typical Roman Catholic priests.
I believe the RCC has never put the principle forth as inviolable, or they would not have allowed the 100+ to be ordained and married at the same time.
It would seem to depend on whether or not you find the following statement hypocritical:
“Priests shall be unmarried, except under special circumstances and with special permission.”
Even though this is not apparently connected with my concern, nonetheless, unless I am mistaken – please correct me then – here are some matters about married men being accepted to the Catholic clergy, namely in the Latin Rite of the Vatican Roman Catholic Church:
Married men may be admitted to the clergy on a special grant of the Vatican.
Upon incorporation in the clergy, they are not to use the conjugal privilege any more (I am almost sure about this, but please correct me otherwise; and believe me I am not lying in the sense of saying something I know to be in my heart and mind untrue – that’s what I learned in my theology courses in college, I mean abstinence from the conjugal privilege).
When such a married priest should become a widower he cannot marry again.
The rule is that by rare exceptions for very worthy reasons married men, for example Anglican priests converting to Roman Catholicism, can be accepted to the clergy; but unmarried men already in the clergy cannot married validly in a sacramental marriage of the Catholic Church.
Such married priests are not entitled to all the ministerial roles of the Catholic clergy, they seem to be limited to some kind of second class priestly citizenship.
Please, all of us here and others who chance upon this thread, go through the ‘60 Minutes’ program and offer your observations if possible in the same manner as Shodan’s.
There is no earthly reason you could not defend yourself in the orginal thread, the one in which you lied by saying that Church authorities CLOSED BOTH EYES to MARRIED PRIESTS:
I understand your reluctance to defend yourself in that last thread, since it appears to have been started in an effort to expand “married” to fornicating in an effort to save your claim. But who knows.
Now, of course, we have the current thread. You figure, correctly, that the more spread-out your claims are, the harder it will be to pin your lie down. That’s accurate.
You also figure that the more side discussions that arise, the harder it will be to pin your lie down. That’s also accurate.
But none of these tactics can save you from the fact that your original words aren’t going to go away:
Kalhoun asked if it was true, as his recollection of Sixty Minutes claimed, that many priests did get married and the church authorities simply turned a blind eye.
You replied that church authorities “closed both eyes” to all these situations. That was a lie. It will be a lie no matter how many threads you open in an attempt to deflect admission of your lie.
False. Unless you mean that they may not be ordained to the episcopate – that is, they may not be bishops. But as priests, their Orders are just as valid as any other priest’s, and they may perform any ministry that any other priest may perform.
How any of this is remotely relevant to the fact of your lie is beyond me.
I guess you didn’t read the rest of my post. To rephrase the last paragraph, isn’t it kinda surprising that special circumstances and permission seem to be found fairly readily in the case of married Anglican priests who convert, but apparently never in the case of devout married Western Rite (would that be the correct terminology, Dogface?) Roman Catholic laymen who feel a calling to the priesthood?
Dogface: do you have a link to more info about the Uniates? Are they regarded as Roman Catholics, or are they and the Roman Catholic Church that we all know and love, two essentially separate entities that both acknowledge the Pope’s authority?
And do the Uniates have any churches in the US? If so, I’m surprised they haven’t become a haven for US Catholics who oppose the priestly celibacy requirement.
I’m not sure that’s the correct question. The issue may be that the Anglican orders are either valid, or given a certain deference. In other words, the married Anglican priest starts out as a priest. The married Catholic layman does not.
I agree with you, though, to the extent that it is rather amazing that, given that it’s POSSIBLE for the Holy See to permit such an ordination, they have apparently never doen so – that not one case has been worthy enough to consider. On other other hand, I have no idea how many men have pressed the case, knowing it was all-but-impossible anyway.
They are not Roman Catholics. They are Eastern Rite Catholics. But they are just as much a part of the universal church as Roman Catholics. Their orders are valid; a Roman Catholic may receive communion from an Eastern church and vice-versa. But administratively, they are separate entities that both acknowledge the Pope’s primacy, just as you say.
Absolutely. Just in my area, there are three Eastern Rite churches within 20 miles.
But because the rite is so different (beautiful and moving, though!) I suspect many Roman Rite Catholics don’t feel at home or comfortable there.
Well, rites other than the Roman one in the US still generally have to follow the celibacy requirement. In the 1880s, when Eastern Rite Catholics started coming to the US in large numbers for the first time, the US bishops were concerned that if Eastern Rite priests in the US were allowed to marry, it would be confusing to the Catholics already there. So they declared that regardless of rite, priests in the US have to be celebate.
About the ‘false’ reactions from you, can you give some references. For my part, I would like to invite you to go to the Code of Canon Law where you might find something in my favor.
At any rate, thanks for your reactions.
And if my knowledge is wrong or incomplete in the present instance, I thank you for your enlightenment.
Please, can you now post your observations to the ‘60 Minutes’ episode?