New Vatican leader raises celibacy question

[merithyn]

Oh sure the actual Christ can have millions of wives but the people embodying him cannot have any?

Pretty much, yep.

[The Brain]

I imagine a lot of resistance to change comes from priests. People who are priests now signed up to join a priestly culture of unmarried men.

They're married to Christ.

No, that's the women. The men are the embodiment of Christ.

Sure they are.

[crazy canuck]

I think that women were allowed to be priests before the Nicene Council, but I'm not sure how they were forbidden during the Council. I'm not sure if it became dogma or no. I'm thinking that it did.

Where did the myth come from that the church was all woman friendly until the evil Nicene Council?  As far as I know nothing about women, and their role in the church, was even discussed in the Nicene council but I constantly hear how Constantine came in and did woman hating reforms and destroyed the hippy Christian Church.  I blame Dan Brown.

Agreed.  The Nicene Council gets a lot of hate for things that never happened there.

[dps]

That is wild because I thought even in that rite it was very rare and was reserved only for Orthodox Priests who joined the Catholic faith.

Well yes that is true.  BUt as you see this deal with the Eastern Rite is really obscure, very few people outside the Uniates seem to be aware of it at all.  Is this ever mentioned by the media when they address the married priests issue?  Hardly ever that I see.

Anglicans can opt-in, too. The funny thing is that I think they can because Anglicans allow women to be ordained, and so for those Anglicans who disagree with this, they can choose to be Catholic priests, even if they're already married.

My understanding it that it's true for anyone who is a priest of another faith, is already married, and then converts.  But I could be mistaken.  It's gonna be a very rare thing anyway--how often does a member of the clergy convert?  Very rarely, I'd say.

[Tamas]

It is now a private club of pedophiles with the occasional lost homosexual thrown in. Why would they want to lose what makes their club unique by letting heteros in? 

[merithyn]

My understanding it that it's true for anyone who is a priest of another faith, is already married, and then converts.  But I could be mistaken.  It's gonna be a very rare thing anyway--how often does a member of the clergy convert?  Very rarely, I'd say.

I think it was meant to be an "instance" thing, rather than ongoing. It was Pope John Paul II that allowed for it, in the 80s, due to the changes in allowing women to be ordained, homosexual marriages to be done, and some other "liberal" interpretations of the Bible going on with the Anglicans and the Episcapalians. On top of that, there were those wanting to become Catholic who were Eastern Orthodox.

I read somewhere that there are only something like 200 married priests in the world. I don't know what percentage that is of all of the priests out there, but it strikes me as very few.

[Valmy]

It is now a private club of pedophiles with the occasional lost homosexual thrown in. Why would they want to lose what makes their club unique by letting heteros in? 

[Malthus]

Well yes that is true.  BUt as you see this deal with the Eastern Rite is really obscure, very few people outside the Uniates seem to be aware of it at all.  Is this ever mentioned by the media when they address the married priests issue?  Hardly ever that I see.

Heh. First hit:


http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/11/20441159-debate-on-celibacy-for-catholic-priests-is-old-but-welcome-experts-say?lite

And George Weigel, who analyzes Vatican affairs for NBC News, notes that there has always been room for debate on the delicate issue of celibacy.

"That celibacy is disciplinary, not doctrinal, is obvious from the fact that there are married priests in the eastern Catholic Church, like the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church," Weigel said. And discussions about the issue of celibacy go on within the church "all the time," he said.

Pope Francis, who has been widely heralded for embracing a simpler lifestyle and dogma since he was elected to the papacy, spoke in a 2012 interview for the Spanish-language book "On the Heavens and the Earth" about his own experience of the celibate life.

"In Western Catholicism, some organizations are pushing for more discussion about the issue. For now, the discipline of celibacy stands firm. Some say, with a certain pragmatism, that we are losing manpower," then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio said in the interview, which was translated by the Catholic news site Aleteia.

"If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism were to review the issue of celibacy, I think it would do so for cultural reasons (as in the East), not so much as a universal option," he said at the time. "It is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change."

[Tamas]

Also, it is funny how it is a news and debate as if it matters.

[Malthus]

I know it is specific to the Ukranian rite and not to Catholics generally. I assume it was intended as some sort of compromise. I'm saying that, wthin this rite, my understanding is that if you want to be a married priest, the way to go about it is to marry first and then become a priest.

My point is that, if the Church allows some priests to be married, it cannot with a straight face state that it is an invariable religious rule that priest cannot be married. It cannot be that God commands that all priests not be married (except, you know, those guys. Because we made a deal with them). 

The church is infallible. It absolutely can do just that.

Nope, not what the Catholic experts are saying - they claim it is a matter of "discipline, not faith". "Infalibility" has a specialized meaning in Catholicism, it only applies to certain matters.

[Tamas]

So what do you guys think of the next Hobbit movie? I am not sure if the beard length of the dwarves was a doctrine, or something like a custom, that is free to be changed by the filmmakers.

[crazy canuck]

So what do you guys think of the next Hobbit movie? I am not sure if the beard length of the dwarves was a doctrine, or something like a custom, that is free to be changed by the filmmakers.

Hobbits are fantasy.  Not allowing priests to marry has consequences for real people. 

[Habbaku]

The church is infallible. It absolutely can do just that.

  No it isn't.

[merithyn]

The church is infallible. It absolutely can do just that.

  No it isn't.

I meant that as a joke.

[Tamas]

So what do you guys think of the next Hobbit movie? I am not sure if the beard length of the dwarves was a doctrine, or something like a custom, that is free to be changed by the filmmakers.

Hobbits are fantasy.  Not allowing priests to marry has consequences for real people.

Consequences for people who put their lives in the service of the Ancient Era`s Hobbit.