Cardinal McCarrick scandal inflames debate over gay priests

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Yes. monastic orders could be a source of bishops, although I wonder, if monks can be celibate why not priests? Personally I doubt that anyone has really thought through the implications of a married priesthood. In my own parish we have three priests, and they are so busy I don’t see how they would have time to be married. I recall one new priest who was so exhausted he fell asleep during the Mass readings.

And a married priesthood with priests who follow Catholic teaching, especially no contraception, might ensure a rectory filled with priests’ kids. We would probably have to do away with parish rectories and provide a housing allowance instead.
 
Those are all good questions, but the Anglicans make it work. We also have lots of married deacons who could be ordained and then serve as “part-time” priests, under the supervision of the “primary” priest. We’d definitely have to change how parishes operate, but we’ll be able to look to the Anglicans and the Eastern churches for ideas.

As for why monks can be celibate and priests can’t, it’s not that priests can’t be celibate; it’s that celibacy isn’t obviously fundamental to what priests do. Monks, on the other hand, commit to living in communities with other monks. Celibacy is a natural consequence of the monk’s role, and it’s not clear that’s the case where priests are concerned.
 
JimG said:
So if married priests become the norm, where would we get our bishops?
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In the Eastern Church, monasteries supply the (unmarried) bishops. The Western Church could do the same, including other religious orders and congregations besides monastic ones. The religious will always be celibate. It would be chaos otherwise.
JimG said:
Yes. monastic orders could be a source of bishops, although I wonder, if monks can be celibate why not priests?
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Being a solo priest with responsibility for a lonely rural parish, or inner-city parish, is a whole lot different than living in a community with 10 to 50 other like-minded men. The religious men may not be sexually active, but they are not lonely either.
 
ALL priests? What about monasticism? Even in Orthodoxy, all bishops are celibate.
 
About 80 % of the abused have been/are young men, I haven’t heard anything about the cover up of heterosexual abusers. I do hear that there is a homosexual cover up and there are many homosexuals in the Vatican. Have you heard about the letter written by Abp. Vigano.? He only mentions the cover up of homosexuals. I can’t seem to find the entire contents of the letter.
 
twf said:
Even in Orthodoxy, all bishops are celibate.
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1 Timothy 3:
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
…
There have been married bishops and married Roman Catholic Popes.
 
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It’s true that all Orthodox bishops are celibate, although that might just be tradition.
 
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