Papal Marriage?

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='musturde' date='May 13 2005, 06:42 PM']Even eastern Catholics allow priests to be married only before becoming a priest and you can not be a bishop if you are married (at least in the Maronite rite).[/quote]
As was mentioned above, the entire Eastern Tradition of Christianity (i.e. both Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) restricts the office of bishop to celibate/un-married men.

An interesting document from the Vatican:
[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_01011993_bfoun_en.html"]The Biblical Foundation of Priestly Celibacy[/url]

[musturde]

cool, thnx mat.

[Matt Black]

Yes, I know the hierarchy of doctrine concept; but the distinctions begin to become blurred when the discipline or practive [i]appears [/i]to go against doctrine as revealed in Scripture

Yours in Christ

Matt

[son_of_angels]

I don't think it is so much that Eastern bishops must be celibate, but that they are traditionally monastic, which, of course, implies celibacy. The reason for this, I think, is as a sort of check and balance, choosing the humblest to serve at the highest service. Perhaps it would be a handy tradition in selecting the pope and our own bishops as well, choosing monks instead of these new age parish priests and so forth. Pope Gregory the Great, for example, was a lifelong Benedictine and abbot of several monasteries, so the tradition of monastic bishops has some roots in the West as well, before there was so distinct a division.

That being said, I don't see why there could not be occasional exceptions both for the priesthood and the bishopric, especially with men who have been married Permanent Deacons for over, say, ten to fifteen years. However, in neither the East nor the West has a priest or a bishop been allowed to marry while in the clergy. It is simply not appropriate, take it from a former Baptist, for young priests to become the targets for every elderly woman in a church wanting their daughter and/or grandaughter to marry the lovely new pastor. Can't people have a little pity?

[CatholicCid]

Here's a reply to this from another Forum... Dunno, i found it good.

So why can't women be president? Why can't women be Navy Seals? There you have some good politcal arguments. But then there's some other ones to look at: Why can't women be priests? And hey, why can't men...have...children....Ummm.....Oh ya, because they cant!

Men and women are complementary to each other. There is a word that we don't hear near enough in our world today, a world so obsessed with being equal (not that thats bad!) even hypocritically so at times(which is bad- whole other topic).

I'll put a view on this that my Dad was telling me- Men in the priesthood hold the role of initiation , as they do in conception. Women have the role of receival and fruition, as they do in conception as well. Without one or the other, there is no result, no meaning. The same goes if one has the same abilities as the other- no meaning.

Men and women were intelligently designed to be united, just as they were designed to be completely different beings. In this world that is so bent on political correctness it may be hard to imagine things "restricted" from women (like the priesthood) or from men (like having kids) but the thing is that not one is better than the other, not one has more "power" than the other. They are different creations with different abilities, and their different abilities complement the other's.

Women saints in the Church (without a doubt in MY mind) have done more for the extension of God’s kingdom than any other entity in the Church. The saints wield the fullness of God’s power in the Church, not priests! The fact is, men and women are different... and beautifully so!!

Christ was no bigot. Rather than bestow Holy Orders on his Mother, who was completely without sin, or upon Mary Magdalene, who at the least followed him to the Cross… he chose to give that ministry to his Disciples. Men that were as prone to sin as you or I; indeed their leader, the first Pope appointed by GOD, denied that he even knew Jesus Christ! But so it is.

Some might say it would be too “radical” if Jesus had ordained women for his time period. I say POPPYCOCK! Jesus proclaimed on a hilltop that people had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, the most heinous sin and defilement in the Jewish faith, if they were to have life at all. And people ran from him in the thousands. He would not have thought twice about ordaining women, if He did not have some purpose not to. Check out that other link for the crazy sweet connections, props to Chip!

And to close, just on a personal note, God is a Lover. Jesus was, for lack of a better term, the most intense guy to walk the earth. There is such a thing as perfect charity, and (ladies especially) I would love to chat w/ you about it but ya pm me or phone or sumthin would be better or else I will get carpal tunnel haha. But there is this love that leads men to want to serve to the best of their ability!

Surely you have had some person that you want to just say “Come, sit in this chair by the fire, let me put your feet up and get you some hot cocoa, I love you. Don’t bother yourself working on that- I will do it, I just want to be near you and share your company because…I love you!”
Well that love exceeds all bounds in God. And as given by Christ, the sacrificing of the Eucharist by priests is the most intimate and telling way he (and Christ through him!) can minister to his sisters in Christ.

I have experienced some of this. A pure love of my sisters that makes me just want to serve them in the greatest way possible, and it is no mistake of God’s to give us the priesthood for just that, Blessed be He!

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Wow, this discussion has gone all over the place. First of all, I do not think that women shouldn't be priests because they couldn't lead a parish. Women in the Old Testament led entire tribes. I don't think women should be priests, but the idea that they should not be priests because they cannot lead seems very wrong to me, having known a few women in particular.

I do agree with the idea that men and women have different roles in the Church. What I really don't agree with in this discussion is the attitude that being a priest is about having power and getting things out of it. THis is completely wrong-headed. Priests are the servants of their parishioners. The Pope's actual title is "Servant of the servants of God." THe priesthood is not about having power, it is about bringing others to Christ, as are all of our vocations. Our vocation in life is not to get whatever we can out of it, but to bring glory to God through our sacrifices and our struggles.

Frankly, it really disturbs me that something as minor as this could actually cause someone to switch to another religion. You guys, Catholicism has the fullest deposit of Truth on Earth. And one religion is NOT as good as any other religion. It's funny that there is all this discussion about Anglicanism, because there is only an Anglican Church because a fat old king (who, I might add, had very little respect for women) wanted to divorce his wife and wasn't allowed. He wanted to leave the Church for a trivial reason too. Anglicanism is not just like Catholicism, and anyone who would seriously consider switching from the religion they believe is right to a different religion over a tiny thing like this should reevaluate where they stand in their faith. If you're willing to give up your faith over something this trivial, how important is it in your life? I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, I'm just saying that this is not a monumental issue that should lead you away from the faith, and if it does, something is wrong.

We all have difficulties at some time with some of the Church's teachings. There is nothing wrong with that. Indeed, if we never question, how are we to grow in our faith and seek the Truth as Christ calls us to? I personally often wonder why the Church teaches what it does in a variety of areas. Even if I can't see the logic, I'm not going to abandon the faith that God gave me or the Church he led me too.

Also, I am studying to do a report on Anglicanism for Tuesday. The sacrament they have are not the same as ours. Many of them are merely seen as sacramentals, helpful, but not necessary. This is a stark contrast to the teachings of Catholicism.

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