Calibacy For Priests - Vatican Secretary Of State

[KnightofChrist]

Here are some of my reasons why I personally think a married priesthood might be an OK idea:
 
1: Our seminaries don't really teach men how to be celibate anymore. They expect men to do it, expect a charism of celibacy, but don't generally teach it. This seems very odd to me, since celibacy is not a natural state for man.
2: In the US, isolation is a very serious problem for priests.
3: In the US, many Catholics need to have holy matrimony modeled for them. Who better to do this than a priest?
 
Allowing for priests to be married is not a decrease in discipline, but would actually require more discipline. Assuming it's a lowering of standards is a rather ridiculous assumption. :P

The first point can be helped by seminaries giving better teachings on how to be celibate.

As for second point, the priesthood is a call that does isolate or separate one from the rest of society, so without further clarification, that's the way it is suppose to be. They give up a lot wives and families for God and the bride of Christ. Devoting one's life to God completely can feel and look like isolation, because so much is given up for it.

As to the third point, in the west priests are married, to the Church.

I disagree it would not be a decrease in discipline, it takes more discipline to be a priest and give up a wife and a family than it does to be a priest and to not give up a wife and a family. Loosening traditions continually as we have done the last couple of decades will not help but hurt the Church. Edited September 11, 2013 by KnightofChrist

[arfink]

The first point can be helped by seminaries giving better teachings on how to be celibate.

As for second point, the priesthood is a call that does isolate or separate one from the rest of society, so without further clarification, that's the way it is suppose to be. They give up a lot wives and families for God and the bride of Christ. Devoting one's life to God completely can feel and look like isolation, because so much is given up for it.

As to the third point, in the west priests are married, to the Church.

I disagree it would not be a decrease in discipline, it takes more discipline to be a priest and give up a wife and a family than it does to be a priest and to not give up a wife and a family. Loosening traditions continually as we have done the last couple of decades will not help but hurt the Church.

 

This attitude is precisely why the seminary I attended ruined so many good men. A few, somehow, only by the grace of God, have managed to become good priests in spite of this attitude that priests ought to be isolated from society, isolated from families, and isolated from the very people they are being called to serve.

 

I am not talking about some appearance of isolation. To be celibate without being isolated is not something people can just do without training, and I for one count the Church in the US as being flagrantly irresponsible for doing so little about it. If some folks in the Vatican think opening this question might fix this problem, I say by all means, let it be tried. Plenty of other things have been tried, I can assure you.

[Apotheoun]

The Roman Church, instead of making unnecessary changes to its nearly one thousand year old discipline of priestly celibacy, should focus on restoring a proper sense of Tradition by cleaning up its liturgical life. Honestly, if there is one thing that the Latins do not need at the present time it is more change.

[KnightofChrist]

This attitude is precisely why the seminary I attended ruined so many good men. A few, somehow, only by the grace of God, have managed to become good priests in spite of this attitude that priests ought to be isolated from society, isolated from families, and isolated from the very people they are being called to serve.
 
I am not talking about some appearance of isolation. To be celibate without being isolated is not something people can just do without training, and I for one count the Church in the US as being flagrantly irresponsible for doing so little about it. If some folks in the Vatican think opening this question might fix this problem, I say by all means, let it be tried. Plenty of other things have been tried, I can assure you.

What exactly are you placing blame on with the 'attitude' I presented? The Priesthood is a great sacrifice, one sacrifices a lot and gives up a lot to be a priest. These sacrifices separate the priest from the rest of us. Devoting one's life completely to God for the salvation of souls and giving up many earthly things such as families is a kind of isolation. Giving up yet another tradition and giving priests two 'masters' to serve is not I think a good idea for the Church in the west. If one feels called to both marriage and the priesthood perhaps they are called to first become Eastern Catholic. Edited September 11, 2013 by KnightofChrist

[Apotheoun]

. . .  If one feels called to both marriage and the priesthood perhaps they are called to first become Eastern Catholic.

That would be a terrible reason to become Eastern Catholic, and any man who changes ritual Churches for that purpose would not be ordained if his reasons became known. 

 

That said, the West needs to stabilize itself after years of constant (usually unnecessary) changes* before even considering any new alterations to its liturgical life and discipline.

 

 

* Some examples of unnecessary changes:  the priest facing the wrong direction during the prayers of the Mass, communion in the hand, lay people distributing communion, women readers in the sanctuary, female altar boys, use of banal 1970s soft rock / elevator music during the liturgy, turning the holy altar into a supper table, removal of sacred images from Churches, the substitution of modern abstract images, which fail to properly reflect the incarnation, for traditional hieratic iconography, et cetera.

[Apotheoun]

Here is an example, from a parish near my house, of the really bad modern images that I am talking about:

 

Holographic Jesus cross

 

Recently renovated parish, which looks a lot like the old Methodist Church I attended as a boy (just replace the table with a pulpit).

Edited September 11, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

you may be right, though there is another possibility that could recognize that the best way to really move away from those errors is a proactive measure to completely change the game, bringing in a married priesthood as part of an overhaul through which many of the bad things could be swept away.  if a married priesthood were brought in through the right context and with the right other moves, it could provide the right cover for really infusing people with a love of proper liturgical senses.  any effort that can be painted as a "return to pre-Vatican II times" is strongly resisted by large portions of the clergy and the laity.  but if the move towards allowing a married priesthood, subordinate to the celibate priesthood in monasteries (or in rectories as the only really salaried members of the clergy), was framed as part of an overture towards East/West unity by restructuring the ecclesiology to have strong monastic centers connected to the episcopacy (thus eliminating some of the views of bishops as careerist churchmen and emphasizing a bishop's monastic experience in prayer, which I think has been viewed positively when there are bishops that come from monastic orders), and along with that overture we infused our liturgies with some of those ancient practices that we should have in common with the East as part of our apostolic heritage, it could be part of a way forward out of the mess we find ourselves in.

 

that's all a bunch of pipe dreams maybe, I'm sure your view is a much more realistic picture of how this would likely take shape, but one can dream.

[Apotheoun]

Supplanting the Roman Church's ancient liturgy with a 1969 scholarly fabrication wasn't enough of a game changer? I think stability is what the Roman Church needs, because there is not much sense of Tradition in Roman parishes anymore.

[Apotheoun]

. . .  if a married priesthood were brought in through the right context and with the right other moves, it could provide the right cover for really infusing people with a love of proper liturgical senses. . . . 

Would it be brought in with that context in mind or would it more likely be simply another example of the Roman Church caving into modernist (often hyper-sexualized) ideas within Western societies? I tend to think it would merely be a new cause for division in the Roman Church.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

. . . was framed as part of an overture towards East/West unity by restructuring the ecclesiology to have strong monastic centers connected to the episcopacy (thus eliminating some of the views of bishops as careerist churchmen and emphasizing a bishop's monastic experience in prayer, which I think has been viewed positively when there are bishops that come from monastic orders) . . . 

It is not episcopal "careerism" that is separating East and West; instead, the division between the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches is founded upon a different conception of the nature of the Church as a communion of Churches. It is also caused by a different understanding of authority within the Church, and allowing the ordination of married men as priests would not alter either of those things.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

of course this is not at all comparable to the 1969 liturgical changes, any more than it'd be comparable if the Pope were considering removing the filioque from the creed.

 

nothing will ever get fixed by the spirit of 'stability', things will only get fixed by the spirit of tradition--passing down what was given by the Apostles, not necessarily clinging to the current historical status quo, even if that status quo has a millenium of precedent.  something inspirational and refreshing could be beneficial.  do I think this is how it will happen?  again, what I am saying may be a pipe dream.  I'm not speaking from a position of one who would make the decision, I'm speaking from my role as a layman who could interpret it in positive ways.  do I think it should be done?  I'm not sure I have a solid position yes or no on that, but I am definitely open to the possibility.

[Apotheoun]

. . . and along with that overture we infused our liturgies with some of those ancient practices that we should have in common with the East as part of our apostolic heritage, it could be part of a way forward out of the mess we find ourselves in.

As strange as it sounds, I think that the Roman Church liturgically needs to learn how to be the Roman Church again. Most of my Orthodox friends think that the modern Roman Church looks and acts Protestant. That perception by Orthodox Christians is a major obstacle to ecumenical dialogue, because they see Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as two sides of the same coin. Roman needs to revive its ancient liturgy before it is too late.

[Apotheoun]

of course this is not at all comparable to the 1969 liturgical changes, any more than it'd be comparable if the Pope were considering removing the filioque from the creed.

In Orthodoxy no hierarch could by the stroke of a pen substitute one liturgy for another. Tradition, not the bishops, is the magisterium within Orthodoxy.

 

I would say that abandoning a one thousand year old tradition is a major change.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

It is not episcopal "careerism" that is separating East and West; instead, the division between the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches is founded upon a different conception of the nature of the Church as a communion of Churches. It is also caused by a different understanding of authority within the Church, and allowing the ordination of married men as priests would not alter either of those things.

I didn't say that it was... that's a wholly different benefit that could come out of an arrangement that strengthened the role of monasteries in the Church.  there are many incidental ways in which the married priesthood could bring us closer, but of course it's by no means a big issue that would advance unity per se, that's not at all what I'm saying.

[Aloysius]

it's a major change, but it's not at all comparable to the 1969 liturgical changes.