Priests to be allowed to marry after 2019 synod? Women priests after that?

[lauermar]

My mind boggles at how casual is this attitude toward having a shortage of celibate dedicated priests in the Catholic faith. You'd rather water down the faith by filling it with a bunch of married weekend dads running after kids soccer games in between saying mass on Sunday. Any novelty that other churches are doing is something the Catholic church ought to try, right?  .

And you throw repeatedly throw out straw man arguments like Donatism which have no application to the availability of celibate vocations, which is the topic here.

Keep it up. You'll wake up one day and find yourself in a church that calls itself Catholic but is Protestant.

[Geremia]

[The Vatican II, Conciliar] church...calls itself Catholic but is Protestant.

[abc123]

My mind boggles at how casual is this attitude toward having a shortage of celibate dedicated priests in the Catholic faith. You'd rather water down the faith by filling it with a bunch of married weekend dads running after kids soccer games in between saying mass on Sunday. Any novelty that other churches are doing is something the Catholic church ought to try, right?  .

First off having married clergy is not a novelty as has been pointed out several times in this thread.

Second a look at the lives of married Byzantine Catholic priests in Eastern European countries shows yours to be a gross mischaracterization of how they live their vocations. They are not part time priests as you seem to imply.

[aquinas138]

My mind boggles at how casual is this attitude toward having a shortage of celibate dedicated priests in the Catholic faith. You'd rather water down the faith by filling it with a bunch of married weekend dads running after kids soccer games in between saying mass on Sunday. Any novelty that other churches are doing is something the Catholic church ought to try, right?

A baseless slander against married priests, of which I am confident you know none.

And you throw repeatedly throw out straw man arguments like Donatism which have no application to the availability of celibate vocations, which is the topic here.

Donatism is hardly a straw man when you say that a priest not living his celibate vocation cannot say a valid Mass. That's pretty textbook Donatism.

Keep it up. You'll wake up one day and find yourself in a church that calls itself Catholic but is Protestant.

We already have it, and it didn't take married priests to get there.

[Gardener]

We are not the East. If the Latin church allowed rare exception for married priests it was with good reason! Let the East adopt the more rigorous standard of the Latin.  They probably won't. So let their leadership answer to God about that one day. That's their business.

A married man cannot keep continent to say mass 7 days a week. It would be incompatible with the ends of marriage. Since we don't need 7 men to say mass, then having daily mass available for propiation of the multitude of sins against God here is a good and necessary thing. Let the East answer to God for requiring 7 men for a sacrament so it imposes a burden against offering it more frequently.

Married men are simply too divided in balancing home life, work and earthly pursuits to give 110% of themselves to God. The closer you get to Him, the more He demands of your time and attention. More so if you're His vicar on earth.

Has anyone forgotten that married Catholic men quietly contracept and divorce at the same rate as non-Catholics?  Why else do you think Bergoglio speaks softly on discipline regarding these things.

We don't need married priests. If they are quietly not continent because of relaxed discipline then they're not able to say a valid mass. A continent priest is necessary. That's why the exception for a married man was historically rare.

Let me state the following up front: I do not agree with married men being ordained as a general rule. As a former (Baptist) pastor's kid, I can tell you without scruple that such is an awful life for all involved. And yes, the "work"/life balance is untenable for 99% of people.

But a man ordained a priest is a priest forever in the order of melchisedech. He is always a priest, regardless of his personal actions, just as a baptized person is always baptized regardless of his sins.

Yes, there is potential for much more scandal: how can Fr. so-and-so lead his flock when he cannot even lead his family!? How can Fr. talk about obedience, when his own wife is a feminist? How can Fr. be trusted for marital advice when it's obvious he's having issues with his own wife -- is THAT why he took the husband's side in an argument? If he is in a situation because of lack of priests, there are no other priests in his area to hear his family's confessions, so how will he actually deal with the seal of confession in the context of his own family? He is BOUND to not take that outside the box. What if his wife confesses to him, or his kids? Will she actually confess her infidelity? Will his son actually confess his having stolen the offering money? Or that HE broke the stained-glass window while playing ball in the front yard? Can he impose a natural father's punishment in the context of being a supernatural father? Oh man... I don't know the answers to those questions and frankly, they seem like a very rock and hard place style existence.

Oh, the problems are many.

Continence is the least of your worries. His Sacraments will ALWAYS be valid so long as he has proper form, matter, and intent.

I am not challenging you on the sensibility of married priests.

I'm challenging you on your outright Donatism, and as Kreuzritter has point out, the heresy of a priest ceasing to be a priest for personal flaws, sins, etc.

[lauermar]

Xavier's OP is spot-on.  Thank you, St. Bridget!

It doesn't stop with married men, that's the point Xavier's making. Where do the novelties end? What's the limit?  So I'm a Donatist if I refuse to take communion from a publicly transgender priest in rainbow chausable.

And I'm a Donatist if I refuse to take communion from a priest in hijab.  https://novusordowatch.org/2018/05/priest-wears-headscarf-to-protest-anti-muslim-discrimination/

Knock it off with the Donatism slander. That is b.s. and you know it. This has nothing to do with the private sins of the priests at my parish and their consecrations at mass. I'm objecting to the Protestant direction the Catholic church is taking.

By the time you ordain married men and women as priests, women deacons, women cardinals,  lay "elders" running the church (inclusive of LGBTs), communion services, etc...the church is no longer recognizably Catholic. The Novus Ordo mass is already diluted to appeal to Protestants. Now add this to these new types of ordinations which are questionable. A faux priest cannot confect a sacrament. God does not require me to approach doubtful sacraments.

Married priests certainly *are* a novelty. If they weren't, there'd be no need to have a synod about it:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/close-collaborator-of-pope-francis-advocates-female-priests.

I don't know any married priests and I hope I never do.  Let the Byzantine church answer to God for their ordination of married men. In 304 AD, the first written requirement for those seeking ordination to remain celibate can be documented. Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira required all clergy to abstain "from their wives and not to have children." Some Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christians give lesser credence to this council and the practice of ordaining married men to the order of deacon and priest has a long history in their ranks.     https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=70507

Since cultural appropriation of the East is so fashionable, why not accept case-by-case abortion, contraception, and up to 3 divorces like the Orthodox do? [sarcasm]

[Habitual_Ritual]

Transgender people encouraged to become priests in Church of England diversity drive

It only ends in heavenly fire-balls:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/26/transgender-people-encouraged-become-priests-church-england/

[lauermar]

Transgender people encouraged to become priests in Church of England diversity drive

It only ends in heavenly fire-balls:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/26/transgender-people-encouraged-become-priests-church-england/

Oh yeah! And I'd be accused of Donatism if I refuse to take communion from a diversity priest like those in the article, if one was "ordained" into the Catholic church.

[Habitual_Ritual]

Currently reading this

http://fatherwathen.com/product/the-great-sacrilege/

[lauermar]

I also recommend "Work Of Human Hands."

[Older Salt]

People said that about the Canonisation of JP2

Rome can sat anything they want, it will never make a wolverine a pear.

[jovan66102]

I just saw this, so if my points have already been made, my apologies.

I am Eastern Rite. I have had pastors who were married men and were holy, hard working, good priests, but I absolutely oppose changing the discipline in the West. No Church, East or West, has ever allowed priests to marry. Anciently, and in the East today, married men are ordained to the priesthood, but if they are widowed, they must remain celibate. The episcopate is drawn from the monastics, or on rare occasions, from the widowed clergy.

If priests are actually allowed to marry, not married men being ordained, it is a radical rupture with the Tradition of the Church both East and West. The next step will be a married episcopate, and after that, who knows? But, I'll guarantee you that it will include mounting calls for 'priestesses'.

And, I predict that if the Western discipline is changed to conform to the Eastern practice, it will just be the opening wedge for all of the above.

[Kaesekopf]

This thread shows the wisdom of 1 Timothy 2:12, as an aside...

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk

[spasiisochrani]

In response to one of the points made above:

Married priests do not hear the confession of their wives or children.

[Xavier]

Doctrinally, yes (1) celibate men who are ordained to the priesthood should remain celibate (2) married men are sometimes ordained, the requirement of celibacy being dispensed in their case. This happens in the Eastern Catholic Churches and on rare occasions in the west, when former Anglican or Lutheran ministers are ordained as Catholic priests etc and (3) bishops are exclusively chosen from perpetually continent men, in both east and west, by the universal Tradition and practice of the Church.

1. In researching the question, I found a brief article below: clerical celibacy in the west has a long history, right from Elvira, Spain in 306 A.D. It was apparently discussed in Nicaea but a universal discipline was not arrived at. St. Epiphanius of Salamis does however commend the monastic discipline as a more strict observance that is befitting the dignity of the priesthood and a long line of Popes have enforced this discipline in the west. Eastern canons passed over lower orders but specifically decreed bishops must practise the monastic discipline, to the point of separating from one's former wife. https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/celibacy-in-the-priesthood.html

"St. Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) stated, "Holy Church respects the dignity of the priesthood to such a point that she does not admit to the deaconate, the priesthood or the episcopate, nor even to the subdeaconate, anyone still living in marriage and begetting children. She accepts only him who if married gives up his wife or has lost her by death, especially in those places where the ecclesiastical canons are strictly attended to." The local, Spanish Council of Elvira (306) imposed celibacy on bishops, priests, and deacons: "We decree that all bishops, priests, deacons, and all clerics engaged in the ministry are forbidden entirely to live with their wives and to beget children: whoever shall do so will be deposed from the clerical dignity." Later, the Council of Carthage extended the celibacy requirement to the subdeaconate ... At the ecumenical Council of Nicea I (325), Bishop Hosius of Cordova proposed a decree mandating clerical celibacy, including for those clergy already married. Egyptian Bishop Paphnutius, unmarried himself, rose in protest, asserting that such a requirement would be too rigorous and imprudent. Rather, those members of the clergy already married should continue to be faithful to their wives, and those who were unmarried should personally decide whether or not to be celibate. As a consequence, no church-wide requirement for priests to be celibate was mandated. For the Western Church several popes decreed celibacy: Damasus I (384), Siricius (385), Innocent I (404), and Leo I (458). Local councils issued edicts imposing celibacy on the clergy: in Africa, Carthage (390, 401-19); in France, Orange (441) and Tours (461); and in Italy, Turin (398). By the time of Pope Leo I (d. 461), no bishop, priest, deacon, or subdeacon could be married. Nevertheless, the rules were not always as enforced as they should have been.

In the Eastern Church, a distinction was made between bishops and other clergy as to whether they had to be celibate. Emperor Justinians Code of Civil Law forbade anyone who had children or even nephews to be consecrated a bishop. The Council of Trullo (692) mandated that a bishop be celibate, and if he were married, he would have to separate from his wife before his consecration. Priests, deacons, and subdeacons were forbidden to marry after ordination, although they were to continue to fulfill their marital vows if married before ordination. These regulations still stand for most of the Eastern Churches.

... the Council of Trent in its Doctrine on the Sacrament of Orders (1563) stipulated that although celibacy was not a divine law, the Church had the authority to impose celibacy as a discipline. While holding celibacy in high regard, the Church did not diminish the sanctity of marriage or marital love. Moreover, the Council asserted that celibacy was not impossible to live but at the same time recognized that celibates needed the grace of God to do so.

2. Practically speaking, the current situation in the Church is very grave. In Brazil, for e.g. there is a dramatic shortage of priests and that's where this God-forsaken idea from the pit of hell is being put forth from. In Brazil, priests have lapsed like hirelings from their duties to their flock to go live with women in attempted "marriages". That's what the Mother of God clearly condemns to St. Bridget, and what modern churchmen, to their shame, have no problem with and want to encourage first in Brazil and then in the wider church. The disciplinary issue of clerical celibacy in history aside, I think all traditional Catholics can clearly see the below is a heinous abomination. https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/brazil-may-soon-have-married-priests-says-leonardo-boff

"The Brazilian bishops, especially the pope's close friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes, have expressly requested Pope Francis to enable married priests in Brazil to return to their pastoral ministry," Boff said. "I have recently heard that the pope wants to fulfil this request — as an experimental, preliminary phase for the moment confined to Brazil."

With its 140 million Catholics, Brazil needs at least 100,000 priests but it only has 1,800, which is a "catastrophe," Boff said. "No wonder the faithful are going over to the evangelical churches or to the Pentecostals in droves, as they are filling the personnel vacuum. If the many thousands of priests who have married are once again allowed to practice their ministry, that would be a first step to improving the situation but at the same time also an impulse for the church to free itself of the fetters of celibacy."

Asked if he, as a former Franciscan, would reassume his priestly ministry should the pope decide to acquiesce to the Brazilian bishops' request, Boff replied, "I personally do not need such a decision. It would not change anything for me as I have continued to do what I have always done: I baptize, bury and when I come to a community that has no priest, I celebrate Mass with the faithful. Up to now, as far as I know, no bishop has ever objected, let alone forbidden me to do this. On the contrary, bishops often tell me to keep it up, as people have a right to the Eucharist."

The late Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, under whom Boff studied theology, had always been very open on this issue, Boff said. Whenever Arns noticed married priests in the pews, he would invite them to come up to the altar and concelebrate with him, saying, "They are still priests and they will remain priests!"