Cardinal: Married Catholic priests a possibility

[Razgovory]

Why am I not surprised.

Cause you used your Ouija board to predict the future?

[The Brain]

Same sex all the time is boring. Mix it up FFS.

[Camerus]

You can't, for example, claim to have a genuine religious requirement to kill people by quoting the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and by carefully explaining how this actually means you really should kill people.

Didn't some Christian dube do that very thing in relation to the notion of a just war ? 

Sure. Another example is Christians who murder abortion doctors.  "Pro-life" ... to the point of murder.

You know, the abortion-doctor murdering Christian line is used so often, I suddenly got curious how many people in the US were actually killed in anti-abortion violence.  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States), it's been a grand total of 8 people, 4 of whom were doctors, and only one of all 8 people was killed since the 1990's.    

Granted, there have been more cases of vandalism and assaults, but the actual numbers don't really seem to match the frequency with which this example/argument is advanced.

[Razgovory]

You can't, for example, claim to have a genuine religious requirement to kill people by quoting the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and by carefully explaining how this actually means you really should kill people.

Didn't some Christian dube do that very thing in relation to the notion of a just war ? 

Sure. Another example is Christians who murder abortion doctors.  "Pro-life" ... to the point of murder.

You know, the abortion-doctor murdering Christian line is used so often, I suddenly got curious how many people in the US were actually killed in anti-abortion violence.  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States), it's been a grand total of 8 people, 4 of whom were doctors, and only one of all 8 people was killed since the 1990's.    

Granted, there have been more cases of vandalism and assaults, but the actual numbers don't really seem to match the frequency with which this example/argument is advanced.

From your link 

there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion provider

That seems fairly bad.  Also there are 41 bombings in the US and Canada and 91 attempted bombings.  How many more crimes would be required to satisfy you?

[Eddie Teach]

Sounds like a week in Detroit.

[Sheilbh]

Catholic.com discusses this question, and I think demonstrates that there are religious reasons:

There's theological reasons, but it's a discipline of the Roman Rite - that could quite easily be reformed. It's not a doctrine or a dogma of the Catholic Church which is how you guys are treating it.

Yeah, so there are religious reasons, you just don't accept them as valid, which makes sense since you don't accept the Catholic religion as valid.

It's to model the life of a priest on Christ so they can more fully love the Church (the bride of Christ). But it's not an issue of religious doctrine. It's a tradition of the Roman Rite but that's it, as John Paul II put it it's 'not of the essence of the priesthood'.

O'Brien is hardly notorious for his anti-gay views outside of the Observer. He's pretty moderate in the context of the Church (even of the Church in Scotland).

[Camerus]

You can't, for example, claim to have a genuine religious requirement to kill people by quoting the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and by carefully explaining how this actually means you really should kill people.

Didn't some Christian dube do that very thing in relation to the notion of a just war ? 

Sure. Another example is Christians who murder abortion doctors.  "Pro-life" ... to the point of murder.

You know, the abortion-doctor murdering Christian line is used so often, I suddenly got curious how many people in the US were actually killed in anti-abortion violence.  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States), it's been a grand total of 8 people, 4 of whom were doctors, and only one of all 8 people was killed since the 1990's.    

Granted, there have been more cases of vandalism and assaults, but the actual numbers don't really seem to match the frequency with which this example/argument is advanced.

From your link 

there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion provider

That seems fairly bad.  Also there are 41 bombings in the US and Canada and 91 attempted bombings.  How many more crimes would be required to satisfy you?

Way to miss the point.

[Malthus]

You are taking the Paul statement for the laity not for the clergy.  It is assumed that the clergy is intended to be more "Christ-like", then the common laity.  You dismissed this for some odd reason, something about how they weren't all Jewish messiahs.

Paul says nothing about the clergy. Presumably, the clergy didn't even exist in its present form when Paul was writing. So how can Paul's statement be the religious basis for having unmarried clergy?

On its face, Paul's statement would apply to both laity and clergy.

Also, if you want to "imitate Christ" in such matters totally external to his ministry like his marital status, why not in other ways? Make priests get circumcised. Christ was. 

[Malthus]

You can't, for example, claim to have a genuine religious requirement to kill people by quoting the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and by carefully explaining how this actually means you really should kill people.

Didn't some Christian dube do that very thing in relation to the notion of a just war ? 

Sure. Another example is Christians who murder abortion doctors.  "Pro-life" ... to the point of murder.

You know, the abortion-doctor murdering Christian line is used so often, I suddenly got curious how many people in the US were actually killed in anti-abortion violence.  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States), it's been a grand total of 8 people, 4 of whom were doctors, and only one of all 8 people was killed since the 1990's.    

Granted, there have been more cases of vandalism and assaults, but the actual numbers don't really seem to match the frequency with which this example/argument is advanced.

Huh? My point does not depend on the frequecy with which such murders occurs.  I'm not claiming this is some flaw inherent in Christianity, as opposed to any other doctrine.

[derspiess]

You can't, for example, claim to have a genuine religious requirement to kill people by quoting the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and by carefully explaining how this actually means you really should kill people.

Didn't some Christian dube do that very thing in relation to the notion of a just war ? 

Sure. Another example is Christians who murder abortion doctors.  "Pro-life" ... to the point of murder.

You know, the abortion-doctor murdering Christian line is used so often, I suddenly got curious how many people in the US were actually killed in anti-abortion violence.  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States), it's been a grand total of 8 people, 4 of whom were doctors, and only one of all 8 people was killed since the 1990's.    

Granted, there have been more cases of vandalism and assaults, but the actual numbers don't really seem to match the frequency with which this example/argument is advanced.

Yeah, it only needs to happen once for Languishites to relentlessly drive it into the ground.

[Sheilbh]

Paul says nothing about the clergy. Presumably, the clergy didn't even exist in its present form when Paul was writing. So how can Paul's statement be the religious basis for having unmarried clergy?

Benedict's theology on it has been about Matthew and the Old Testament, not Paul. There's various arguments for it from the Bible. What is key of course is that it isn't an essential Catholic belief, it isn't an essential part of the priesthood and it's not an unchanging doctrine.

It's like the liturgy. Of course it has symbolic religious meanings and theological reasonings for them, but it is one of those aspects of the Church which is subject to reform.

[Malthus]

Paul says nothing about the clergy. Presumably, the clergy didn't even exist in its present form when Paul was writing. So how can Paul's statement be the religious basis for having unmarried clergy?

Benedict's theology on it has been about Matthew and the Old Testament, not Paul. There's various arguments for it from the Bible. What is key of course is that it isn't an essential Catholic belief, it isn't an essential part of the priesthood and it's not an unchanging doctrine.

It's like the liturgy. Of course it has symbolic religious meanings and theological reasonings for them, but it is one of those aspects of the Church which is subject to reform.

I'm citing Paul because that's the cite claimed by the Catholic source upthread to justify it.

I'd be amazed if there was any reasonable support for it in the OT - the drafters of the OT never had any use for male celebacy, never as far as I know even considered it. 

[Sheilbh]

That Catholic source is rather more literal-minded than the Vatican. The interpretation of the OT isn't looking for examples or clear directives but like analysing poetry. The bit he's cited a few times is God divvying up the world for the tribes and the Levites are left the tabernacle and the offerings, 'God himself' is their inheritance.
Benedict:

The true foundation of the priest's life, the ground of his existence, the ground of his life, is God himself. The Church in this Old Testament interpretation of the priestly life – an interpretation that also emerges repeatedly in Psalm 119 [118] – has rightly seen in the following of the Apostles, in communion with Jesus himself, as the explanation of what the priestly mission means. The priest can and must also say today, with the Levite: 'Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis mei'. God himself is my portion of land, the external and internal foundation of my existence. This theocentricity of the priestly existence is truly necessary in our entirely function –oriented world in which everything is based on calculable and ascertainable performance. The priest must truly know God from within and thus bring him to men and women: this is the prime service that contemporary humanity needs. If this centrality of God in a priest's life is lost, little by little the zeal in his actions is lost. In an excess of external things the centre that gives meaning to all things and leads them back to unity is missing. There, the foundation of life, the "earth" upon which all this can stand and prosper, is missing.

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah, it only needs to happen once for Languishites to relentlessly drive it into the ground.

Save it, Operation Rescue.

[Malthus]

That Catholic source is rather more literal-minded than the Vatican. The interpretation of the OT isn't looking for examples or clear directives but like analysing poetry. The bit he's cited a few times is God divvying up the world for the tribes and the Levites are left the tabernacle and the offerings, 'God himself' is their inheritance.
Benedict:

The true foundation of the priest's life, the ground of his existence, the ground of his life, is God himself. The Church in this Old Testament interpretation of the priestly life – an interpretation that also emerges repeatedly in Psalm 119 [118] – has rightly seen in the following of the Apostles, in communion with Jesus himself, as the explanation of what the priestly mission means. The priest can and must also say today, with the Levite: 'Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis mei'. God himself is my portion of land, the external and internal foundation of my existence. This theocentricity of the priestly existence is truly necessary in our entirely function –oriented world in which everything is based on calculable and ascertainable performance. The priest must truly know God from within and thus bring him to men and women: this is the prime service that contemporary humanity needs. If this centrality of God in a priest's life is lost, little by little the zeal in his actions is lost. In an excess of external things the centre that gives meaning to all things and leads them back to unity is missing. There, the foundation of life, the "earth" upon which all this can stand and prosper, is missing.

How does this lead to the conclusion priests can't be married? Levites certainly were married, for one.