Any way to save the Catholic Church in Europe?

[phil19034]

The only way to save the Catholic Church in Europe is to rid her of the clergy who are watering down the faith.

 

[Ostiarius]

The Church won’t begin to recover until it gets its own house in order. That will require strong leadership. It will require full adherence to the teachings of the Church. Until it does, the Church will continue to bleed.

 

[phil19034]

In my opinion the best hope would be for Russia to come back into communion with Rome. Orthodox Christianity is a huge part of their culture and identity. Imagine if the Russian Orthodox Church finally reunited with Rome. If Russia came back into communion with Rome they would become the largest Catholic military power in the world, and we haven’t had that in many decades.

I don’t know about this.

YES - It would be great if they were to come into full communion, but I don’t think that’s would help the rest of Europe. At least not in of itself.

The Orthodox (esp the Russian Orthodox) have nationalistic churches. So even if they came into full communion, they wouldn’t feel much kinship with Latin Catholics - or at least not enough to for it make a difference.

 

[jack63]

The Irish millennials are the most sexually liberal group of millennials in all of Europe, according to a 2017 survey.

While I think Ireland will keep its Christian identity, I’m not sure if they will keep their Catholic identity.

While I see your point…I think Irish millennials basically are going Pagan rather than protestant/Christian.

As for the Irish being sexually liberated…I’d say this is nothing new…it’s just that now it is not hidden…letting their clergy marry will solve part of this problem.

 

[PetraG]

As for the Irish being sexually liberated…I’d say this is nothing new…it’s just that now it is not hidden…letting their clergy marry will solve part of this problem.

No, it won’t solve anything. There are arguments for and against it, but this is no argument for it.

“Sexually liberal” is a code word for what used to be called licentiousness. (We are not, after all, talking about an appropriately positive attitude towards the marital act within healthy marriages.) There are good reasons to change a discipline, but removing a discipline doesn’t cure licentiousness. If anything, it does the opposite.
I mean that self-mastery isn’t improved in the laity by removing self-denial in the clergy. That isn’t how the cause-and-effect work.

 

[KevinK]

Or better still the clergy abusing children.

 

[jack63]

I stand by what I said.

First, Irish…“off the boat Irish” in the US and Irish in Ireland are sexually liberated and have been so for a long long time. I mean they are promiscuous…licentious…whatever you want to call it. It is nothing new. That is just being Irish…do you disagree with this at least…Am I the first person you’ve heard or read say this…?

Married Priests will provide a role model who don’t have illicit affairs or abuse children. This will makes sense to millennials.

 

[jack63]

btw…another one of my threads about guess which country…

https://forums.catholic-questions.o...ty-that-unexpectantly-finds-long-lost-cousin/

I’m not trying to be argumentative or unkind to you here. I’m just trying to describe what I’ve seen about Ireland and the Irish.

 

[phil19034]

Married Priests will provide a role model who don’t have illicit affairs or abuse children. This will makes sense to millennials.

When we say “Married Priests” we have to be very careful regarding what we mean.

If we mean allowing Married men to become priests (for example: allowing select Permanent Deacons to become priests) than that’s 1 thing.

But if we mean allowing Ordained Priests to get married, that will open another can of worms and be another stumbling block in regards to Catholic and Orthodox reunification.

While the Orthodox churches do allow married men to become priests, they do NOT allow ordained priests to marry. Allowing ordained priests to marry would be another accusation of Heresy against the Catholic Church by the Orthodox churches.

Furthermore, having more married priests will introduce new issues to priesthood. For example: priest’s wife who decides to leave him, troubled children of priest, etc.

Also, in parishes where we currently have 2 or more priests living in the parish rectory, where will the married priests live with their families? Are Catholic parishes ready to pay their priests a family wage, similar to the Anglicans?

Also, since Catholics do not believe in birth control, a married priest (unlike Protestant a clergyman) is going to feel the pressure to have 5+ children.

My parish priest once said that the Permanent Diaconate was/is used as a testing ground to see if removing the discipline of priestly celibacy would work. According to my priest, he said it has failed bigtime. The reason, it’s become crystal clear that married clergy would not have time in the evenings to handle a number of priestly responsibilities: i.e. visits to the sick, evening confession and/or devotions, parish meetings, school meetings, parish events, etc.

Most Deacons (due their family responsibilities) are simply not able to spend enough time in evening and weekend ministry required of priests.

So if we allow the Church to move to primarily married priests, parishioners will have LESS access to their priests, not more.

God bless

 

[PJH_74]

Religion is the past and the future. God will obviously precede and proceed man

Yes, but it remains to Christians to explain.

 

[phil19034]

While I see your point…I think Irish millennials basically are going Pagan rather than protestant/Christian.

Well, I don’t think they will become protestant. I was thinking more “spiritual but not religious” generic Christians or that they will migrate to one of the liberal branches of the schematic Old Catholic Church.

 

[PetraG]

I stand by what I said.

First, Irish…“off the boat Irish” in the US and Irish in Ireland are sexually liberated and have been so for a long long time. I mean they are promiscuous…licentious…whatever you want to call it. It is nothing new. That is just being Irish…do you disagree with this at least…Am I the first person you’ve heard or read say this…?

Married Priests will provide a role model who don’t have illicit affairs or abuse children. This will makes sense to millennials.

You’re saying that married Irish adults have affairs and abuse their children, but if you ordain married men, those Irish won’t do that?
Hmmm…I suspect that if the Irish who don’t have affairs and don’t abuse their children aren’t already inspiring, ordaining married men won’t change that. It is kind of like Our Lord’s parable about the rich man who wanted someone to come back from the dead to preach to his profligate brothers. Abraham told him that if they don’t care about listening to Moses and the prophets yet, it wouldn’t make any difference.

I mean that if those who are married and those who are priests live their state in life in a holy way, that is what is needed.

 

[jack63]

Thanks for the response…

I agree that allowing ordained priests to be marry is opening a huge can of worms. I would not recommend that. That is not a good solution to anything. I had never heard the issue of Catholic and Orthodox reunification as an argument against allowing already ordained men not to marry. That’s interesting. If you allow ordained men to marry, you’ll have many disasters.

I do like the idea of Viri probati for places like Ireland similar to the discussion in the Amazon that will thankfully happen soon. In the case of Viri probati the Church could look at the entire family including the financial aspects. The church could pick and choose which men to take while considering their family situation. If the priest’s wife decides to leave, we have Amoris laetitia. The wife has limited leverage. Divorce is sad, but I agree with Pope Francis on this. It was a stumbling block to married priests.

As for Deacons, I have seen some do an excellent job. They almost always have other jobs too. In rural areas in the United States, priests are spread over several churches and schools. Unless somebody is dying, they are not often available at the last moment. They seems to be no more available than if they were married. Additionally, many Anglican priest converts have done a wonderful job. Viri Probati in places like Ireland would really help I think.

 

[jack63]

I’m certainly not saying that Irish families abuse their children. Nor am I saying that you should ordain married men who cheat on their wives. C’mon…

There is an assumption that the Irish were well behaved until the Catholic church lost its dominance in that country late in the 20th century. That could not be farther from the truth. A great deal was hidden. This is the truth as I see it.

What the Irish had in regards to the church wasn’t working. It wasn’t working before Vatican II. It just wasn’t working. It is a reasonable to consider a different clerical structure (i.e. married priests). As for Abraham and Moses (…in that order…) they had wives didn’t they?

 

[phil19034]

As for Deacons, I have seen some do an excellent job. They almost always have other jobs too. In rural areas in the United States, priests are spread over several churches and schools. Unless somebody is dying, they are not often available at the last moment. They seems to be no more available than if they were married. Additionally, many Anglican priest converts have done a wonderful job. Viri Probati in places like Ireland would really help I think.

Yes, Deacons do a great job and are a blessing to the Church. If you thought I was implying that the Permanent Diaconate was a failure, I apologize- because that’s the furtherest thing from the Truth. The deacons are a great help to many priests.

HOWEVER, what has proven to be a failure Was the question if married clergy would be able to fullfill the all the roles of celibate clergy.

The answer is no. Even the deacons who work full time for the Church are not able to handle all of the time commitments of a celibate priest.

Married clergy have to have time with their families. Just like the Church tells the Deacons, the wife comes first. This would be no different for married priests.

Married priests are typically (not always) assigned to smaller Parishes, but esp. if they are going to be appointed Pastor. And most Dioceses will not make a married priest a pastor to begin with. These is because MOST married priests have jobs outside the parish. They are Catholic High School teachers, College professors, diocesan employees, paid chaplains, etc.

The only married priest that I’m aware of who is a “full time” pastor is Fr Dwight Longnecker. However, he is a prolific writer and is paid for his books, articles and weekday & Saturday speaking engagements. But obviously, when he’s writing or speaking, he’s engaged in work outside his parish. His parish is also small one with only 500 families & 2 Sunday masses. Plus he has 5 deacons to help him with devotionals, etc.

My point I fail to see how have a ton of married priests is going to help Ireland. While I agree that we should allow SELECT married men to become priests, treating Ireland like to the Amazon is a mistake.

There is NO reason why Ireland can’t import priests from Africa & Asia like some Dioceses in the United States do when they have no vocations. Ireland is a cool destination and nice place to live. It shouldn’t be hard to import Priests there, because living in Ireland is NOT like living in the remote parts of the Amazon.

God Bless

 

[PetraG]

I’m certainly not saying that Irish families abuse their children. Nor am I saying that you should ordain married men who cheat on their wives. C’mon…

Well, women wouldn’t marry men who were going to cheat on them, if they knew ahead of time. Will bishops be better at identifying what married men will cheat than the women who marry them have been?

I’m only saying that while priests of course tend to have better self-mastery than just some typical guy, they aren’t so much better that it would make up for the publicity when they aren’t. There are celibate priests who cheat now (and more and more now that it isn’t covered up who get caught at it now) and if any appreciable number of married men are ordained, then occasionally some of them will cheat on their wives, too. They’re still human, they still live in a sex-saturated society like the rest of us, they have jobs that are more stressful and have “clients” who form very strong emotional attachments to them. Ordination won’t remove that. (Let us remember, after all, that it is actually more likely for a married man to sexually abuse a child than a priest. You wouldn’t know it, from the news stories.)

Again: I’m not saying the discipline couldn’t or shouldn’t be changed. I’m saying that we shouldn’t expect that the example of married priests is going to rehabilitate Catholic laymen who weren’t taking their marriage vows seriously and didn’t expect that their state in life was meant to make them saints.

As for deacons, I have known some deacons who were pastoral associates. These were guys who were ordained when their children were grown. Their wives aren’t big fans of the idea of married priests and certainly not fans of the idea of being married to a man with younger children who is also trying to keep up with the responsibilities they see their pastors bearing. They think it would be too much. I take their word for it.

Having said that, lifting or easing the discipline to include ordaining men to the priesthood who are now being ordained to the permanent diaconate might have a good effect simply by easing the workload by making more men available to be priests. That might be in the cards.

 

[Linhares]

I often used to get scared that the Catholic Church not just in Europe but worldwide may soon no longer exist. Given that so many are leaving the faith. Specially our generation.

But then I came across Matthew 16:18. Jesus himself made this promise.

 

[anon98328916]

As an Irish Catholic the church is suffering in Ireland and over europe. The EU have spread their globalist agendas across Europe and it’s devastating. Please pray for Europe.

 

[ChristMyLife]

Even the most traditional of Catholic countries like France have terribly high declining rates of Catholicism

The Church is done its mission as far as Europe is concerned. At least in evangelizing the people and preaching the Gospel. Everyone in Europe knows the Gospel and is either going to accept or reject it. The seed is sown.

Africa and Asia, especially China and India, are the missions the Church is being called to today. “The final Christian frontiers” if you will.

 

[otjm]

The Church has a 2,000 year history of not letting priests marry. And this is not just the Roman rite; it is also the position of the 20+ Eastern rites - which have had a married clergy for 2,000 years. They ordain married men (and the Roman rite has married clergy, in Protestant ministerrs who have converted and subsequently ordained).

The only exception has been if a married man, then ordained, has young children and the wife dies, he then might receive permission to marry again.
It is far, far more likely that the Church will allow the ordination of married men than tht it will allow ordained men to marry. And right now, the odds are not strong for the former.