BTW, anybody else catch Crossfire tonight? Richard McBrien was on debating optional celibacy with another priest from (I believe) the Catholic Information Service. McBrien actually had a Roman collar on also…whoda thunk? 
It is a point raised.
The last two times that friends of mine reported back on such conversations, my memory is that the pro-marriage group raised all the issues (tradition is not really as old as the church, not rigidly practiced in other Catholic Rites, not rigidly practiced among the Orthodox, current pressures of the world, success of rabbis and Protestant pastors, etc.). Then the bishops responded, "We see you here, agitating for change, but we don’t see your parishioners in here petitioning for change.
Tom~
are you suggesting that a petition from the parishioners would suffice to change the rules?
Have you run THAT past JP2? or even Ratzinger?
and, out of curiosity - have you EVER disagreed with Doctrine/Dogma?
I was taught that both celibacy and holy orders were vocations (although different ones). Interestingly, there are a small number of married RC priests in the UK - those who joined the RC church from the Anglican church (mostly during the first years of the allowance of Anglican women priests) who were already married.
I don’t know of any doctrine which inextricably links celibacy and holy orders, and it seems to me that insofar as they are vocations, you could be called to just one. The point about priests in certain religious orders requiring both is well made, but there are quite a number of RC priests who don’t belong to an order.
That said, the RC church appears to be slow to overturn accepted practice, something which I think often has good but sometimes not-so-good ramifications (i.e. it’s not a body which can often be accused of knee-jerk reactions - it might take 100 years to get an official pronouncement on areas such as miracle/pilgrimage sites).
Another issue with celibacy, for the Church bureaucracy, has to do with supporting and housing the priestly families (and being really committed Catholics, they’d probably be big families). For all the “wealth” of the RCC, it doesn’t generate that great a cash flow – so a serious reorientation of budgeting priorities would be in order. Massive multinational bureaucracies hate that.
No. Guin asked whether the issue of the married priests in non-Roman rites had been raised. I responded that it had, and related what the response had been.
I suppose I should have made a larger deal about the context, but I don’t associate with people who have direct contact with the Curia. When the (small group of U.S.) priests who are actively pushing to have the rule regarding celibacy modified have raised the issue with the (U.S.) bishops, those bishops have replied that they did not see anyone besides those priests making the same demands/requests. (And regardless what the number is of priests who would like to put aside the rule of celibacy, the number actively pursuing the change is relatively small.)
If all the lay Catholics in the world stood up on Easter Sunday and demanded a married clergy, no one currently in power would change their opinions. I related what was said. Why have you tried to take the issue further?
As to Doctrine/Dogma, no I have not disputed it. Why should I? I have noted (even on these boards) that I find the doctrines of the Assumption and of the Immaculate Conception to be irrelevant to my life, so I don’t worry about them. (If the RCC ever goes ahead with the oft-rumored attempt by some twits to name Mary “Co-Redemptrix,” I would surely object to that.)
However, you have made two unwarranted assumptions, here:
- That the rule of celibacy is Doctrine, it is not–it is discipline;
- That I am a supporter of mandatory celibacy–I am not.
I simply answered the question that was asked without launching into more editorial comment than my chosen words implied.
stories of Priests with live-in ‘housekeepers’, who were, in fact, if not in the eyes of the RCC, married?
I seem to recall such ‘open secrets’ from years ago.
Can anyone confirm?
Did the Bishop know? Care? Should the Bishop reported such a situation to (whoever) in Rome?
Yeah, this is more or less opinion. But it’s an interesting point to consider and debate, I think.
I submit that celibacy is an unnatural human behavior. Generally speaking, we aren’t meant to not have sex. (Although this argument never seemed to help me in high school.)
Does making celibacy a requirement for Catholic priests and nuns attract more people with abnormal (or abnormally developed) sexual proclivities, such as pedophilia? It’s a possible explanation for endemic problems in the Church such as this.
Further, it has been one of the stated goals of Catholicism (all religions, really) to uphold the sanctity of marriage. Wouldn’t the clergy, in living and displaying those ideals in communities, be a more positive and relevant force for people?
I know some people who have went to their pastor for counseling for marital problems and found it helpful. Seems to me talking to someone who also has that marital experience would be even more helpful.
I can’t think of any compelling argument for keeping church officials celibate. It implies that to be married is to be less capable of knowing or representing God.
That makes no sense to me.
One compelling resaon might be the differences in what a Catholic priest is expected to do, compared to what religions with married ministers expect of them. The three priests in my parish celebrate two or three Masses per day (more on Sundays and Holy Days) plus funerals and weddings, do marriage preparation and baptismal preparation,moderate all the parish organizations (including attending meetings), teach in the religious education program and the parish school,hear confessions, do some counseling, and handle the administrative work.Oh, and the office hours are from 9 am to 9pm, with two one hour meal breaks. Not a schedule very conducive to having a family. Another issue would be paying the priests enough to support a (probably) relatively large family, rather than having the three of them live together in a rectory and paying them a relatively small salary. I have known a few ministers whose congregations expected much of the above whose religion allowed them to be married. The big difference was that those men were part-time unpaid ministers, who also had full-time jobs. I would imagine either there were more than three of them, or more likely, their congregation was much smaller than my parish,which probably has at least 10,000 registered members.
My own personal favorite idea to solve the shortage of priests and eliminate lifetime celibacy is the “Priests Corps” ( I believe I read about it in one of Fr. Andrew Greeley’s books. Priests would be active,celibate priests for some period of time (maybe ten years). They would then become inactive and be permitted to marry without being laicized, and so would still be able to act as priests on an as -avaiable basis.
Doreen
beagledave wrote:
Duties, schmuties. Look at all the perks they get in return! They get 8-sided hit dice, they can wear any armor and carry any shield, they can turn undead, and they can cast spells!
Oh, sure, they can’t use edged weapons and are forbidden from using poison unless they’re of evil alignment, but hey, you can’t have everything.
I have no opinion as to whether priests should marry, but wouldn’t it sound weird to hear:
“…and this is Sister Mary Evangeline Olson, and her husband Bob. She’s pregnant with their second.”
Catholic priests were allowed to marry, long ago.
Should they be given the option to have sex and/or marry again? I say yes.
First of all, it is sick to expect a “human” being not to do what comes naturally.
Second, why would the church not want their own, who they look to for an example, to procreate? If priests and nuns are such wonderful beings of god wouldn’t you want them to bring more people like that into this world!?
How can they talk and council people about marriage and sex when they have never themselves experienced it? As far as I know most other religions allow their rabbi’s, minister’s, pastor’s, etc., to marry and it doesn’t seem to create problems.
I’m putting myself out here, but I think it is about “control”. The church controls every aspect of their lives. When you venture into the Vatican you see that power. Although I must admit that the Vatican is a speechless sight, it has so much gold, jewels, and money in it that they could feed a few third world countries. They control it and where does it go? It goes nowhere, it stays in a palace for people to look at, but never fully experiencing the good it can acomplish…somewhat like a priest.
Just to be pedantic: as noted earlier, nuns ain’t never going to get married. Period.
Women may, at some point, be accepted for ordination to the priesthood (at which point the celibacy rules in effect at that point would apply to them), but women who join together with other women in religious communities of women (i.e., nuns or sisters) are not going to have husbands any more than brothers/monks/friars are going to have wives.
It is possible that an organization could arise in which married couples formed communities of families in a religious movement, but they would probably not last long–no religious community with kids of which I have heard has ever survived even 100 years.
I agree totally with your assesment. As I agree that as in other religions there are no problems when it comes to letting ministers etc. marry. It sounds very RIGHT and normal to begin with.
I don’t believe in church doctrines that were made by clergy, only by the Bible or koran or whatever the case may be.
There are a lot of “Things to sustain from” that Catholics are supposed to do on certain holidays. You look it up in the bible and walla’ it isn’t in there is it? Because it was a man made church rule that’s bogus.
You mean to tell me that the worlds most graciuos humanitarian will sin if he or she eats meat on Friday? What kind of nonsense is that? For all the work they do for the good will be overlooked because he or she eats a steak on Friday?
Please excuse me for getting off the subject a bit but I’m a Catholic and I believe there are a great deal of Preists that are overlooked in todays headlines. I must say though they ought to marry if they changed the doctrine which right now looks like never!
IF you are special and holy and divine YOU SHOULD procreate, like Scarlett13 said you would breed awsome children and they would have a great religous upringing.
For those who think Clergy marriage would END Pedophilia your dead wrong. Remember it’s not the woman he has a tendency for, it’s Children. Think?
I just find this sort of amusing: all of your mainstream religions expect their adherents to refrain from doing what comes naturally in some form or fashion: at the bare minimum we are expected to refrain from the natural tendency to lash out violently when we are angry or thwarted.
First, celibacy is not “an unnatural state” any more than homosexuality is – celibacy is a choice made by some people not to engage in sex, often but not always due to a reduced sex drive, due to those people’s views of what is moral and/or what they feel called to do that precludes them from a normal sex life.
Either that, or the 25% of the American population under the age of 14 is predominantly engaging in something unnatural, and we need to get them out there having sex with each other before their pysches are somehow damaged!! :rolleyes:
Cepter, you have a valid point with regard to the pedophile, but you’re missing the point about clerical marriage. If you eliminate from the pool of potential priests all those who do not feel called to abstain from marriage, you have shrunk the pool of potential priests by a large proportion, but left the minority of pedophiles essentially intact, turning them into a much greater proportion of the potential priests.
Tom~, how about the Secular Franciscan Order? The other Tertiaries (including those in the Episcopal and protestant churches)? The various confraternities under religious vows that call for chastity rather than celibacy? To be sure, it’s rare for these groups to live in community in the traditional monastic sense, though it’s not unheard of (cf. Little Gidding).
I freely confess that I was excluding the Third Order in my post. That was not to dismiss their commitment, but to avoid the confusion about whether they lived in community. Little Gidding survived only 20 years in its first incarnation (admittedly, Cromwell’s Puritans ensured that it would not wither away by the simple act of destroying it). The second incarnation is roughly fifty years old and may, indeed, prove me wrong in another half century.
For the moment, I’ll stand by my assertion that no religious community with families has survived 100 years–with my initial disclaimer “*of which I have heard *.”
I am making no claim that the Third Order is not a serious organization with members deeply committed to their faith. (Each of my Franciscan uncles provided chaplain services to them at one time or another.) I remain doubtful that a religious community with families can survive for more than three or four generations. (If property is held in common, I do not believe that they can survive two generations.)