Vatican’s No. 2 Says Celibacy Not ‘Untouchable,’

Started by jimmy olsen, April 28, 2010, 01:38:36 AM

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DGuller

Quote from: Martinus on April 28, 2010, 07:44:29 AM
Quote from: The Brain on April 28, 2010, 02:05:48 AM
QuoteCelibacy is not "untouchable"

Just like little children!

I wanted to say the same when I saw the thread title!
So did I.  :(

alfred russel

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 28, 2010, 12:40:23 PM

The Church has been around for almost 2000 years; it has had to be open to change and will need to be in the future to survive.

The strict enforcement of celibacy and marriage bans was the product of a particular social environment, not some irrevocable and inevitable dogmatic truth.  In a feudal era where status was inherited, the Church needed to have some mechanism to keep control over its property and to maintain authority over its people.  That era has long past and the Church now faces a radically altered social reality that requires a different approach.

I don't disagree as far as the health of the Catholic Church is concerned.

I'm just pointing out that the clergy of the Catholic Church makes the rules, and what most of the clergy has in common is that it has taken the vow of celibacy and is living the lifestyle of a priest under those rules. For the policy to change, elderly members of the clergy like the pope need to put in place changes that makes the mode of life they have lived obsolete and end a defining mark of priestly culture for the past 1,000 years. For a conservative like Pope Benedict, you are putting the future of the church into the hands of a future clergy that is likely going to be much more socially progressive.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

There's a fine line between salvation and drinking poison in the jungle.

I'm embarrassed. I've been making the mistake of associating with you. It won't happen again. :)
-garbon, February 23, 2014

Malthus

Quote from: alfred russel on April 28, 2010, 10:39:09 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 28, 2010, 10:03:24 AM
Quote from: Alatriste on April 28, 2010, 02:07:28 AM
It would be quite revolutionary

Not at all - for much of Late Antiquity it was quite common for priests to be ordained later in life after they had a family.  The expectation and ideal was that marital relations would cease but that was not always enforced strictly.

It wouldn't be unprecedented, but it would be a tremendous change--if you think of the three vows of celibacy, obediance, and poverty that many priests make--once you remove chastity it becomes hard to make the other two (you can't tell a potential father he needs to stay in poverty, and must follow the directions which may move him to a dangerous place or job). There is also probably something to the idea that the Catholic Church is less open to change than mainstream protestant sects because its clergy is has to make much more extreme lifestyle changes due to celibacy and thus keeps out more secular individuals--ending celibacy could open the floodgates to change.

Even today, there are non-celibate Catholic priests; for example, Ukranian Catholic priests can have wives, as long as they marry 'em before they become priests. My wife's family's Catholic church has a priest who is married, and is presumably not celibate.   

Priestly celibacy is only required for the Latin Rite within the Catholic Church. They are the majority, but certainly not all, of the Church; it isn't a doctine of faith binding on Catholics per se. 
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

alfred russel

Quote from: Malthus on April 28, 2010, 02:13:54 PM

Even today, there are non-celibate Catholic priests; for example, Ukranian Catholic priests can have wives, as long as they marry 'em before they become priests. My wife's family's Catholic church has a priest who is married, and is presumably not celibate.   

Priestly celibacy is only required for the Latin Rite within the Catholic Church. They are the majority, but certainly not all, of the Church; it isn't a doctine of faith binding on Catholics per se.

I realize this, and while doctrinally it may not be a huge change, for priestly culture that is currently celibate it would be a tsunami and would have a huge impact on the type of people entering the priesthood.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

There's a fine line between salvation and drinking poison in the jungle.

I'm embarrassed. I've been making the mistake of associating with you. It won't happen again. :)
-garbon, February 23, 2014

Razgovory

I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

grumbler

Quote from: alfred russel on April 28, 2010, 02:19:52 PM
I realize this, and while doctrinally it may not be a huge change, for priestly culture that is currently celibate it would be a tsunami and would have a huge impact on the type of people entering the priesthood.
Possible, but not likely, as the priestly culture today is not completely celibate, and the introduction of non-celibate priests appears to have created no problems at all.  I would argue that a bigger impact than the loss of celibate culture would be the re-introduction of parish priests - the catholic clergy would no longer be moving from church to church to cover all of the parishes which the shortage of priests will not permit to have a permanently assigned priest.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

viper37

Quote from: Malthus on April 28, 2010, 02:13:54 PM
Priestly celibacy is only required for the Latin Rite within the Catholic Church. They are the majority, but certainly not all, of the Church; it isn't a doctine of faith binding on Catholics per se. 
no, they have the same rules in the Latin Rite.  But it's not advertized.
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garbon

Quote from: Grallon on April 28, 2010, 07:11:05 AM
Took you long enough.  However you're getting old for the endless hot sex that is our prerogative. 

Only if he was seeking to have sex with a child. I think you would be hard pressed to tell individuals 35+ in SF that they were getting old for endless hot sex.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Malthus

Quote from: viper37 on April 28, 2010, 02:50:02 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 28, 2010, 02:13:54 PM
Priestly celibacy is only required for the Latin Rite within the Catholic Church. They are the majority, but certainly not all, of the Church; it isn't a doctine of faith binding on Catholics per se. 
no, they have the same rules in the Latin Rite.  But it's not advertized.

I never knew that. Only married Catholic priests I know are Ukranian. But then, I don't know many priests.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

garbon

"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Rex Francorum

To rent

dps

Quote from: alfred russel on April 28, 2010, 10:39:09 AM

It wouldn't be unprecedented, but it would be a tremendous change--if you think of the three vows of celibacy, obediance, and poverty that many priests make--once you remove chastity it becomes hard to make the other two (you can't tell a potential father he needs to stay in poverty, and must follow the directions which may move him to a dangerous place or job).

I can see the problem with forciing a man with a family to take a vow of property, but not so much the vow of obediance.  Soldiers take a vow to obey orders, and those orders can definately take them to dangerous places, yet that doesn't stop married men from joining the Army.

Quote from: Alatriste
Empty seminaries have been deeply troubling Rome for a long time too.

If the Catholic Church were to do away with clerical celebacy, I think it would have more to do with this than with the molestation scandal.

Capetan Mihali

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dps

Quote from: alfred russel on April 28, 2010, 12:56:08 PM
For a conservative like Pope Benedict, you are putting the future of the church into the hands of a future clergy that is likely going to be much more socially progressive.

Is there any actual evidence that a non-celibate clergy would, in fact, likely be more socially progressive?  That would be my gut instinct, but OTOH, the Southern Baptist clergy isn't celibate, but isn't exactly socially progressive either.