1 Tim 4 describes celibacy and Lenten fast?

[opdsgt]

I have a bible-only Protestant friend that suggests 1 Tim 4:1-3 is a mandate against the Catholic Church’s discipline of having their priests remain celibate and unmarried, as well as a mandate against abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent.

Throughout my studies of apologetics and in reading sacred scripture myself, this is one of the few attacks on my faith that I haven’t recognized as standard fundamentalist boilerplate… matter of fact, it’s a new one on me, never heard of it.

Can someone provide the nuts and bolts on this one? I’m greatly appreciate it.

Thanks much, and God Bless all CAF forumites!

Jeff

 

[Contarini]

It’s a fairly standard “boilerplate” argument in my experience. Actually, my grandparents once published in their magazine a testimony of a former Catholic who had been converted in prison and cited this verse as the thing that convinced him that Catholicism was wrong.

However, the passage is clearly talking about ascetic, “Gnostic” groups in the ancient world who thought sex and meat were *intrinsically *wrong. It is not talking about periodic abstinence (see 1 Cor. 7:5, which explicitly allows for such abstinence under certain circumstances) or about celibacy as a calling within the Church (which, again, 1 Cor. 7 praises highly).

The early Church explicitly *condemned *abstinence if it was an expression of contempt for certain kinds of food as intrinsically evil.

The Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on “Abstinence” is helpful.

Edwin

 

[opdsgt]

Very helpful, Edwin. Thank you.