Yeah but now they’re gonna need houses and salaries to support wives and kids.
gay marriage
We can talk about Priestly celibacy or lack thereof.
And didn’t Phillip have daughters mentioned?
I’m with Bricker. I don’t see the big deal. AIUI it’s always been just a tradition that Catholic priests could not marry. Just as in Judaism, wearing yarmulkes is just a tradition. There are many other things that are canon law and cannot be changed. Just as in Judaism, the dietary laws for example cannot be changed.
As others as posted : “can be discussed” is meaningless.
I think it shows progress. I don’t think that statement would have been warmly accepted 50 or 60 years ago.
In my parents day a Jewish friend of my fathers was overwhelmed that my father, a Catholic, would be willing to be seen in the company of Jews much less attend his wedding and bring a gift! Apparently it just wasn’t done.
My Parents are still pissed that the Catholic schools stopped teaching Latin and that the mass is no longer in Latin.
It’s no great leap forward, but this if the RCC we’re talking about, it doesn’t exactly turn on a dime.
It’s not progress- the only difference between now and 60 years ago is that in those days the question would never have been asked. It would have been a change if the Archbishop had said “will be discussed”
No seems that, that’s 99% of it, and the other 1% is found to be irrelevant as soon as one starts examining it closely.
I think very highly of Pope Francis based on what he has done so far, but I don’t really see this particular issue as a big deal either.
I guess the biggest reason that I don’t see why I should care about priest celibacy is because it is an entirely voluntary choice. The choice to become a celibate priest is a very intentional decision. Often there is a long period of “discernment” that goes into deciding you want to become a priest or nun. I actually personally know several people who spent a period of time seriously exploring the option of becoming a priest or nun before ultimately deciding it wasn’t for them. In one case, I know of a lady who actually spent some time living at a convent because she thought she was going to become a nun before she finally decided it wasn’t right for her.
Well, Protestant congregations have been doing it forever. As have Jewish congregations.
There might be some psychological obstacles to overcome. A Protestant congregation knows that they need a minister. They search for one. They advertise, put the word out, interview candidates, etc. And they know they will have to pay the person they hire. That’s how it works.
Catholics are used to being given a priest. They have next to no say in who that priest will be. They put money in the collection plate on Sunday, but they have little experience in actually figuring out what a priest’s salary would have to be, or of having to search for a priest and choose one, and offer a competitive compensation package.
And I remember a survey done recently that showed that Catholic priests received the lowest compensation of any clerics in the US. Catholics would have to change that. We’re used to getting our priests on the cheap, and that wouldn’t fly anymore if we had to offer enough compensation to support a family.
Some,maybe most do. But I’ve known ministers/rabbis who held regular jobs because the minister/rabbi job was either part-time or unpaid. There are currently priests who don’t minister to a parish full-time and have paying jobs (just as many nuns now have paying jobs) and a married priesthood may end p turning in that direction.
Small nitpick; neither any Orthodox or Eastern Rite church in communion with Rome allows priests to marry. They allow married men to ordained as deacons & priests; if they don’t already have a wife by the time there ordained that’s it. Even widowers can’t remarry (though they can be promoted to bishop). Same deal with Anglican priests to covert to Catholicism; married ones can keep their wives & single priests stay that way. That setup up is about as much reform as the RCC is going to get.
IIRC Anglican/Episcopalian parishes get assigned priests much the same way as Catholic ones, albeit with greater laity involvement. There would be a lot of financial issues to sort out though.
But we could probably afford it, if we weren’t paying out so much in damages to abused altar boys. Presumably those might occur less often.
The life of a Catholic priest in the US anyway, is fairly cushy. They might not get big personal paychecks, but the housing, food, cars, medical, job security and retirement etc. is all top notch.
As for married priests, that could just be an optimistic attempt and cutting down on the pedo stuff, since married priests presumably get action at home. They may be disappointed though. No cite, but I read about other churches and their rabbis, ministers, etc. being scandalized by pedophilia too.
That doesn’t need to change with marriage of priests. Their salaries come from the diocese; the salary of married priests would still come from the diocese; married priests would be assigned by the diocese.
I am not sure what you mean in saying the dietary laws cannot be changed. For example, there is a biblical admonition, you must not cook a kid in its mother’s milk. Okay that might seem like a cruelty. To go from there to, you have to wait four hours after you have consumed any dairy product before eating meat (mammal bird meat) is quite a long stretch and the next rabbi that comes along might interpret it differently. I once invited an Orthodox Jew for dinner. He knew our dishes weren’t kosher and we didn’t have separate milk and meat dishware. He mumbled something about dishwashers and modern metal cookware. Fine. Another one I know simply will not eat in my house. His interpretations are obviously different. The dietary laws are, like anything else, subject to interpretation.
That’s more or less the case with one of the priests at the church I usually attend. He was a Protestant minister (forget which denomination) who became a Catholic priest. A married Catholic priest. Don’t know if they have any children.
(He’s very nice, but I like the other priest’s sermons better–he almost always quotes a song.)
I’m all for allowing priests to marry. The clergy of so many other faiths are allowed to, even encouraged to. Why not these?
The why of it is open to question. Some sages say it is because that would be cruelty. Some sages say that milk represents life while meat represents death, and mixing them is bad. Still others say that adherents of some god or another (I forget which one) literally did boil a kid goat in the milk of its mother as a ritual.
However, the general consensus among sages is this- The why does not matter. G-d commanded it. We obey.
The interpretation of any Jewish law is open to debate. Some sages say you must wait an hour after eating meat to consume dairy products. Some say four hours. Others say six.
One Jewish group, the Karaites, hold that only the literal written word of the Torah is binding. They say you can mix cow milk and beef all you want, that the ban only applies to goat milk and goat meat.
My point is that the laws may be open to interpretation, but that they remain binding laws. No sane rabbi will say that you can make and worship idols. No sane rabbi will say that a pig is kosher.
Sane rabbis could, and have, argued over whether Jews need to wear yarmulkes. Because covering the head is a tradition, not a law.
I did not realize that American Idol is in violation of Jewish law.