I'm calling on everyone here in this forum EXCEPT Catholics !!!

[flameburns623]

I guess for the moment the only point I would want to add–relevant to the discussion on Romans that took place several pages back–is that I have been warned several times when this discussion has taken place previously that the teachings of the RCC seek to define a ‘middle path’ between fatalistic determinism and libertarian indeterminate free well. Catholic doctrine does teach that God predestines, and the Church also teaches that God’s predestination is rooted in some sense in God’s foreknowledge of those who will cooperate with His grace.

When Augustinian thought dominated Catholic soteriology–up to the time of Aquinas or so–it was the ‘predestinarian’ side of RCC theology which was being stressed in such things as the Scapular Promise of St. Simon Stock, (“whoever dies wearing this will not be damned”). That is, the RCC approved the scapular NOT because they believed that wearing a woolen garment–or performing the prayers and other requirements specified–would save the person, but because God would ensure that only those whom He already had predestined to His glory would choose to wear such a garment throughout life and to perform the requirements specified.

In Protestant theology, this would be called ‘prevenient grace’ and it is not without it’s own problems. Oddly enough, RC Sproul (a ‘hard’ Calvinist thinker popular on Evangelical radio stations) just discussed some of those problems this week just past. It is those sorts of problems with which I am struggling as I reflect on whether or not to return to the RCC.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

Cyber: Hopefully this bit of context has been helpful!

RA: Uhm, no, since al you did was re-tell the story. I said, “word-context study on the ORIGINAL LANGUAGE.”

---

**Ag_not: **But, you did say this

RA: I suppose this boils down to our subjective definition of what “full of” and "rife with " means. That is really the bottom line in our disagreement.

For a church that is supposedly God’s One True Church headed up by the Vicar of Christ having full communities, churches, and Diocoses scattered throughout various third world countries out in the open with nothing being done about it by God’s spiritual leaders…well, that’s “full of” and “rife with” if you ask me.

This is not even mentioning how many Italians, right near the very heart of the Pontiff’s castle, if you will, who are “good” Mass-attending Catholics are into absolute witchcraft - putting Sicilian curses on people, using pagan symbols and hand gestures (in all seriousness) to either impart or ward off evil, relying on magickal herbs/incantations, talismen/amulets, folk magick, etc. This is known in forms such as Stregheria, Benedicaria, and Stregoneria.

Not surprisingly, some of the current Roman Catholic practices date back to an incorporation of pagan ritual/magick into its rites/rituals. This is why you have some aspects of RC practice that are remarkably similar to magick. This is not anti-Roman Catholic propaganda, it’s just history and the current state of things.

Ag_not: Now, that seems to mitigate against your statement that the Church is FULL of occultists

RA: Not at all. I can indeed make a statement like that, but not have written, completed, detailed, in-depth, documented for referencing, material for public reading. It’s the difference between speaking in specifics and making a passing comment based on material that’s in my head, but not yet definitively processed and recorded.

---

**Cthul: **I’ve always been curious about the whole celibacy of the clergy thing. I mean, they were allowed to marry before right?

RA: Yes. It was never even a question.

---

grace: It was a suggestion by St. Paul.

RA: It was NOT “suggested” by Paul. If you read that in context there is NOTHING that says a man/women MUST be celibate if they want to serve God in full ministry.

Paul was merely making an observation about how time/energy is indeed taken away from TOTAL ministerial focus when you’re married because you have a spouse/family to also consider. But this in no way mandates such a state for people. Paul was simply saying, if you want to serve God, count the cost, and understand that family life/time will dip into that.

Need I even say that Paul certainly didn’t “suggest” along with that verse allowing those who are celibate to have their way with little defenseless boys and girls, and then make sure that those vile human beings are protected by God’s one True Church and his representatives on earth. Mmkay.

So, we have a few problems with this whole marriage thing.

And as far back as when I was a Roman Catholic, BTW, even when I was just a late teenager and early twenty-something, we all knew that the RCC was a haven for homosexual men.

According to Amanda Ripley of Time Magazine, estimates range from 15% to 50%. According to Bill Blakemore of ABC News, “…nobody knows what percentage of the American priesthood is gay; estimates range from less than 10% to more than 30%.” A NBC report on chastity and the clergy found that “anywhere from 23 percent to 58 percent” of the Catholic clergy have a homosexual orientation. Author and sociologist James G. Wolfe estimated that 48.5% of priests were gay.

Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former priest, has studied celibacy, chastity, and sexuality in the priesthood for four decades. He has authored three books on the topic. He once estimated that 30% of the priesthood is homosexually oriented. Elsewhere, he is quoted as estimating that between 25% and 45% of American priests are homosexual in orientation. He told the Boston Globe: “If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb; it would do the same damage to the church’s operation…It would mean the resignation of at least a third of the bishops of the world. And it’s very much against the tradition of the church; many saints had a gay orientation, and many popes had gay orientations. Discriminating against orientation is not going to solve the problem.”

You have some serious, serious problems for God’s one true Church, IMHO.

---

**flame: **You would probably have these same sorts of pitched battles on a Protestant webforum dominated by folks of an Arminian persuasion.

RA: Agreed. I have few friends among the Arminians, I would imagine. And the Fundamentalists pretty much hate me, too, because, well, because I don’t hate the Roman Catholics like they do – figure that one out.

**flame: **Most Protestant laypeople have only a passing familiarity with the ECF’s, and even most pulpit pastors put the study of these aside once they are in-harness.

**RA: **Agreed. I actually loved the ECF and have often read them as daily devotionals – I am reeeeeealllly tired of this 21st century brand of evangelicalism you see in so many places that is completely Americanized with regard to the thrust of WHY we are Christians. You see no talk in the ECF of being happy, healthy, wealthy, fulfilled, purposeful, satisfied, me-me-me.

I love reading what first century Christians had to say about their faith, life, and service to God.

peace,

R.A.

 

[emeraldcoast]

I’ve always been curious about the whole celibacy of the clergy thing. I mean, they were allowed to marry before right?

Hi Bryan,

Take a look at Peter in Mark 1:29-39 and also 1Co 9:5.

It is pretty clear that Jesus did have apostles that were married.

God Bless!

 

[cthulhubryan]

It’s Scriptural, Bryan. It was a suggestion by St. Paul.

**I wish that all were as I myself am. **(celibate) But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another

1 Corinthians 7

I understand the suggestion of St. Paul but isn’t it true that Clergy and even Popes married at one time and then at some point it was banned? I seem to remember it having to do with a popes daughter or something. Or maybe to Medicci’s, Dale Brown said everything can be blamed on the Medicci’s

 

[Pixie_Dust]

I understand the suggestion of St. Paul but isn’t it true that Clergy and even Popes married at one time and then at some point it was banned? I seem to remember it having to do with a popes daughter or something. Or maybe to Medicci’s, Dale Brown said everything can be blamed on the Medicci’s

Celibate clergy is a discipline in the Latin Rite, not a hard and fast rule. If a Protestant minister becomes Catholic, it’s possible he can be ordained a priest and he would not have to divorce his wife.

Some popes in their lives demonstrated some abhorrent behavior, and they stand out to us in history because there really were very few of them comparatively - but even under the vilest sinner of a pope, no doctrine or dogma was changed or compromised. The true teachings of the Church remained as they were given to us by Christ.

 

[RobHom]

I understand the suggestion of St. Paul

Even Christ “suggested” it…

but isn’t it true that Clergy and even Popes married at one time and then at some point it was banned? I seem to remember it having to do with a popes daughter or something.

See the link below. The subject is more complex than most think, and there is much Biblical justification for it.

Or maybe to Medicci’s, Dale Brown said everything can be blamed on the Medicci’s

If you’re referring to the “novelist”…he’s entitled to his opinions, though the Medici’s were quite novel…but they came along well after celibacy was widespread in the Latin Rite. The lower link is about the Medici’s…

newadvent.org/cathen/03481a.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/10120a.htm

 

[graceandglory]

Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former priest, has studied celibacy, chastity, and sexuality in the priesthood for four decades. He has authored three books on the topic. He once estimated that 30% of the priesthood is homosexually oriented. Elsewhere, he is quoted as estimating that between 25% and 45% of American priests are homosexual in orientation. He told the Boston Globe: “If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb; it would do the same damage to the church’s operation…It would mean the resignation of at least a third of the bishops of the world. And it’s very much against the tradition of the church; many saints had a gay orientation, and many popes had gay orientations. Discriminating against orientation is not going to solve the problem.”

You have some serious, serious problems for God’s one true Church, IMHO.

Agreed. The problems are people. Not God’s One holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

For a Catholic view of celibacy that will rock your world, read Theology of the Body Explained by Christopher West.
He has had articles at Focus on the Family and Breakpoint, I think also at Christianity Today, among many others.

You are fighting a straw man. Yes, there were many gays ordained into the priesthood in the past. The Church calls homosexual inclinations a disorder, and homosexual activity mortal sin. In Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s book, The Courage to be Chaste, he does write about this problem. In no uncertain terms, the priesthood is not the place for homosexuals. Yes, they got through before, “A don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Homosexuality is a disorder. Homosexual behavior is a grave sin.

Celibacy is a vow. Chastity is a virtue. Seminarians are now exposed to Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, and are not being ordained when it is learned that they have the disorder of homosexual inclinations.

The Catholic Church is pretty clear that it does not label people as homosexuals, any more than it would label people liars, fornicators, or adulterers. Homosexual behavior is a sin.

John Paul II was God’s man for the time. Clearly he was chosen by the Holy Spirit to bring healing and speak life into the Church that had been wounded from the sexual revolution.

The ramifications of the Theology of the Body still haven’t been seen everywhere in the Church.

George Weigel, the Pope’s biographer said, “the Theology of the Body is going to be like a theological time bomb set to go off sometime in the 21st Century.”

Clearly that is already happening. Seminaries are being cleaned out. Priests are learning what it is to be celibate, not to repress their sexuality, but for their sexuality to be redeemed by the power of Christ. Consecrated celibates are living the heavenly marriage already. For them their reality is the “now and the not yet.”

Pope Benedict wants to see a smaller purer Church. It is going to happen within and without. The clergy will become purer, and the numbers may decline. So be it. I think you’d support Pope Benedict too. It sounds like you want the Catholic Church to be a smaller, purer Church too. It is the Church Jesus founded. Yes, people have brought scandal to His Church. He forewarned that it would happen.

I suggest that you pick up and read some of the books that will become Catholic classics.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

The unbiblical injunction against sexual expression in life for those wanting to serve God full-time seems to have started in its earliest form around the 300s…

Council of Elvira (c. 306): “Bishops, presbyters, deacons, and others with a position in the ministry are to abstain completely from sexual intercourse with their wives and from the procreation of children. If anyone disobeys, he shall be removed from the clerical office.”

Council of Carthage (c. 387 - 400): “It is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e. those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep… It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity.”

Such views, of course, contradict:

• “Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Heb. 13:4),
• “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,” (1 Tim. 3:2-4),
• “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”
  (1 Cor. 9:5).

The prophecy stands true:

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.” (1 Tim. 4:1-3 ).

And this is not even to mention, but I’ll mention it anyway, Mark 10:6-9: “But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

The RCC already messed this one up as far back as the 300-400. So, the one True Church? Sorry, guys/gals, that’s not what it looks like to me…

And if you examine closely the history of celibacy, it was all about money/property and assets that the church didn’t want going to offspring: Pope Pelagius I, 556-561 made new priests agree that their offspring could not inherit Church property thereby protecting Church property from inheritance.

It was a messy, odd, controversial, debated, and inconsistent issue for centuries, until finally everyone got their act together, so to speak, and finally said in the most definitive terms – NO SEX an NO MARRIED PRIESTS (c. 16th century-ish).

R.A.

A good overview:
criticaltheology.net/II_Chronology_history_of_celibacy.html

 

[graceandglory]

Cyber:
grace: It was a suggestion by St. Paul.

RA: It was NOT “suggested” by Paul. If you read that in context there is NOTHING that says a man/women MUST be celibate if they want to serve God in full ministry. .

Fair enough. It was St. Paul’s wish.
The Church decided that it was a good one.
It is not a requirement, but a discipline. Let me say that clearer. Latin Rite priests must make a vow of celibacy. You can’t become a priest and get married. But, Eastern Catholic priests may marry. A married Anglican priest who converts to Catholicism, may be a married priest in the Latin (Roman Catholic ) Catholic Church.

You are right in the Scripture doesn’t MANDATE celibacy for priests. It is a higher calling though, and presently it’s the regulation for priests to take a vow of celibacy.

More of this is in Ephesians 5. The priest is “in persona Christi.” As such, he represents Christ. As Christ’s representative, he is married to the Bride of Christ, the Church.

It’s part of bridal theology. Did you ever think that the Bible has “nuptial bookends?” In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve (and God). Together they represent the Trinity.

At the end of Revelation 22:17, it is Christ, and the Bride (Christ’s Church) and "The Spirit and the Bride says “come.”

Smack in the middle is the Book of the Song of Solomon. In the New Testament, is Ephesians 5, St. Paul compares the marital union of a husband and wife with Christ and His bride, the Church,

"that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

I had to accept mystery in my journey back to the Catholic Church. There will be some things that my human mind just cannot understand this side of eternity. Ephesians 5 is a mystery.

That my priest, in his humanity and sinfulness, can represent Jesus to me, is a mystery. This spousal analogy works better when the priest is celibate, in my opinion.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

The unbiblical injunction against sexual expression in life for those wanting to serve God full-time seems to have started in its earliest form around the 300s…

Council of Elvira (c. 306): “Bishops, presbyters, deacons, and others with a position in the ministry are to abstain completely from sexual intercourse with their wives and from the procreation of children. If anyone disobeys, he shall be removed from the clerical office.”

Council of Carthage (c. 387 - 400): “It is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e. those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep… It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity.”

Oh, no. It’s much older than that, as the latter quote testifies.

Such views, of course, contradict:

• “Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Heb. 13:4),
• “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,” (1 Tim. 3:2-4),
• “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”
  (1 Cor. 9:5).

Amen! I agree 100% with those Bible passages. Not sure I agree with your interpretation, though.

The prophecy stands true:

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.” (1 Tim. 4:1-3 ).

You’ve GOT to be kidding! This has nothing to do with priestly celibacy (again, a discipline in the Latin Rite and not a hard and fast rule universally) and everything to do with the Gnostic (I believe) heresy.

And this is not even to mention, but I’ll mention it anyway, Mark 10:6-9: “But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Amen! This is why the Catholic Church will not remarry those who are civilly divorced. They’re still married in the eyes of God and cannot be bound to someone else.

The RCC already messed this one up as far back as the 300-400. So, the one True Church? Sorry, guys/gals, that’s not what it looks like to me…

In 300-400 the Church was Catholic, not “RCC.” If you really know so much about history you should know that.

And if you examine closely the history of celibacy, it was all about money/property and assets that the church didn’t want going to offspring: Pope Pelagius I, 556-561 made new priests agree that their offspring could not inherit Church property thereby protecting Church property from inheritance.

It was a messy, odd, controversial, debated, and inconsistent issue for centuries, until finally everyone got their act together, so to speak, and finally said in the most definitive terms – NO SEX an NO MARRIED PRIESTS (c. 16th century-ish).

Would you prefer the priests have sex outside of marriage!?!? Priestly celibacy is a DISCIPLINE in the Latin Rite, it is not dogma. At any time, it could be changed. However, most priests are willing to not be married in order to be fully devoted to the Church, as Christ and St Paul were. If a married man is called to the priesthood, he can go East.

 

[graceandglory]

For more information

tobinstitute.org/page.asp?ContentID=5

christopherwest.com/page.asp?ContentID=15

 

[Richard_Abanes]

Grace: The priest is “in persona Christi.” As such, he represents Christ.

RA: Friend, dear friend…

YOU are “in persona Christi.”
I am “in persona Christi.”
WE are “in persona Christi.”
THE CHURCH (God’s ekklesia, “called out ones”) are “in persona Christi.”

When Jesus said to his followers, “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14), he was identifying them as his representatives; luminous extensions, so to speak, of himself—i.e., the one true light (John 8:12; 9:5; 12:46).

In other words, because Christ indwells his followers (Eph. 3:17; Col. 3:16), wherever they go, others actually see Christ’s light: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). A priest is no more “in persona Christi” than you, or me, or anyone else who calls on the name of the Lord. We are all equally “ambassadors” for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) – i.e., we are his representatives on earth in his place.

Grace: As Christ’s representative, he is married to the Bride of Christ, the Church.

RA: What???

Christ is married to his Bride, and the body of priests (as Christ’s representatives) are also married to the bride? That’s polygamy. That’s like saying the groom is marrying the bride, and his best man, who is his representative is going to marry her to.

Where the church, the bride of CHRIST, said to be some bride of Christ’s representative.

YOU are the Bride .
I am the Bride.
WE are the Bride
THE CHURCH (God’s ekklesia, “called out ones”) are the Bride.

And the Church, all of us, are married as the bride to Christ.

Grace: In the New Testament, is Ephesians 5, St. Paul compares the marital union of a husband and wife with Christ and His bride, the Church,

**RA: **EXACTLY!!! Yes. There is no second party in there ALSO married to the church (priests, as you say). The church, the bride, has ONE bridegroom – Jesus.

Grace: That my priest, in his humanity and sinfulness, can represent Jesus to me, is a mystery.

RA: Your priest is not supposed to be representing anyone to you. You have access as God’s child to the very one whom you worship because:

• YOU are the representative to others who do not know Christ.
• YOU are the bride of the coming bridegroom.
• YOU are the priest to the world (in the royal priesthood).

That’s how I see it in scripture. One of the very basic aspects of Christ’s work was to do away with the old priesthoods that stood between the people and God. Entering into the Holy of Holies, with God now as our Father, Abba, WE inherited a new priesthood, the royal priesthood, and became the representatives to the world – as opposed to the old priesthoods where select men stood in place and acted on behalf of the people toward God (read Hebrews).

R.A.

RA

 

[Richard_Abanes]

**Pixie: **In 300-400 the Church was Catholic, not “RCC.” If you really know so much about history you should know that.

RA: You’re the ones who say the RCC traces it’s doctriens back to the 1st century. I’, using your own language to make a point.

Pixie: Would you prefer the priests have sex outside of marriage!?!?

**RA: **Yes, you got me, that’s precisely what I mean. LoL. I would prefer they stay away from children.

Pixie: Priestly celibacy is a DISCIPLINE in the Latin Rite, it is not dogma. At any time, it could be changed.

RA: First, agreed, yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot. God chanegs his mind. Second, as for it being a discipline, that’s like my doctor telling me that it’s my CHOICE to sign the arbitration/lawsuit waiver before he sees me, but then when I don’t want to sign it, he refuses to see me – while I’m dying in his office. Yeah, it’s really my choice to sign it.

**Pixie: **If a married man is called to the priesthood, he can go East

**RA: **That is very true.

R.A.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

**Pixie: **In 300-400 the Church was Catholic, not “RCC.” If you really know so much about history you should know that.

RA: You’re the ones who say the RCC traces it’s doctriens back to the 1st century. I’, using your own language to make a point.

Yes, the Roman Catholic Church can trace its doctrines back to Christ and His Apostles. So can the Byzantine Catholics and the Ruthenian Catholics and the Armenian Catholics and the Ethiopian Catholics…etc…

Pixie: Would you prefer the priests have sex outside of marriage!?!?

**RA: **Yes, you got me, that’s precisely what I mean. LoL. I would prefer they stay away from children.

Oh, please don’t go there.

Pixie: Priestly celibacy is a DISCIPLINE in the Latin Rite, it is not dogma. At any time, it could be changed.

RA: First, agreed, yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot. God chanegs his mind. Second, as for it being a discipline, that’s like my doctor telling me that it’s my CHOICE to sign the arbitration/lawsuit waiver before he sees me, but then when I don’t want to sign it, he refuses to see me – while I’m dying in his office. Yeah, it’s really my choice to sign it.

No, it’s not that God changes His mind (though Scripture shows that He is capable of doing so) so much that the Church has determined that a man can better serve the Church if he isn’t married. I know many a pastor’s kid who can testify that their dad was forever off doing church business. It’s a tough balance and if a man doesn’t have to choose between his church family and his household, it’s better.

 

[graceandglory]

Oh Richard, I agree with practically everything you said. That’s the deal. You agree with orthodox Catholicism on almost everything. It is totally Biblical. It is the full gospel Church. It was my deep love and study of God;s Word that finally brought me full circle and back into the Catholic Church.

**RA: ** Christ is married to his Bride, and the body of priests (as Christ’s representatives) are also married to the bride? That’s polygamy. That’s like saying the groom is marrying the bride, and his best man, who is his representative is going to marry her to.

That’s goofy. It might be “like” saying, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not speaking literally. It is one way to understand the mystical union of Christ and His Church. For someone else suggesting that men could be a bride would bother them with transexual overtones. That’s not it. It’s a mystery, it’s mystical. It’s other-worldly.

RA, I’m just a lay person. Former prot youth leader, worship team, bible study leader kinda gal. I married a PK. I am not a seminarian. Never went to Bible school. There are so many better people who can explain it to you than me. Please keep asking the questions, but also when something sounds goofy, give it the benefit of the doubt. Be of the mind that it might actually be you who doesn’t understand it, or may be looking at things through protestant lenses. Either way, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna meet you in heaven.

 

[jen_fla]

**Pixie: **In 300-400 the Church was Catholic, not “RCC.” If you really know so much about history you should know that.

RA: You’re the ones who say the RCC traces it’s doctriens back to the 1st century. I’, using your own language to make a point.

Pixie: Would you prefer the priests have sex outside of marriage!?!?

**RA: **Yes, you got me, that’s precisely what I mean. LoL. I would prefer they stay away from children.

Pixie: Priestly celibacy is a DISCIPLINE in the Latin Rite, it is not dogma. At any time, it could be changed.

RA: First, agreed, yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot. God chanegs his mind. Second, as for it being a discipline, that’s like my doctor telling me that it’s my CHOICE to sign the arbitration/lawsuit waiver before he sees me, but then when I don’t want to sign it, he refuses to see me – while I’m dying in his office. Yeah, it’s really my choice to sign it.

**Pixie: **If a married man is called to the priesthood, he can go East

**RA: **That is very true.

R.A.

no we do not. we say Catholic.

i take it you didn’t see my earlier post that was in response to you so i shall post it again:

the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches are the only churches that can claim apostolic succession.

if you truly believe the Catholic Church is not the church that Christ founded and that corruption occurred in the time post constantine, then how come you are not orthodox? are they corrupt too?

would you say the Greek or Coptic Orthodox churches are wrong for having the Sacraments as well?

have you read Catholicism and Fundamentalism by Karl Keating? excellent material to help you with your books.

**also just to note, we call Christ’s Church the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church not the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholicism refers to the latin or roman rite. there are other rites so to call the Church Roman would be a bit of an insult to the other rites. the Roman rite is the most common and of course the diocese of rome is central to Catholicism, but it is incorrect to call her the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.

this might help clear up the confusion a bit:**

ewtn.com/faith/teachings/churb3.htm

you also might learn a bit from other threads on this site that can go into detail point by point debunking all of your accusations.

peace.

 

[graceandglory]

**Pixie: **

Pixie: Would you prefer the priests have sex outside of marriage!?!?

**RA: **Yes, you got me, that’s precisely what I mean. LoL. I would prefer they stay away from children…

RA, that is a good concern.

Celibacy does not cause people to abuse children. False correlation. Sick perverted disordered people abuse children.

Please read the Courage to be Chasteas I mentioned in my earlier post.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

RA, that is a good concern.

Celibacy does not cause people to abuse children. False correlation. Sick perverted disordered people abuse children.

I concur. I know of many cases (one up close and personal) where women/children are sexually harassed/molested by “happily married” non-Catholic pastors.

 

[emeraldcoast]

No, it’s not that God changes His mind (though Scripture shows that He is capable of doing so) so much that the Church has determined that a man can better serve the Church if he isn’t married. I know many a pastor’s kid who can testify that their dad was forever off doing church business. It’s a tough balance and if a man doesn’t have to choose between his church family and his household, it’s better.

Oh Pixie,(I now have Pixie Sticks on my mind… )

Many other people besides Priests live lives of service - look at law enforcement officers and military members. As the wife of a career Naval Officer, I know that many times duty has taken my husband away from our family for long periods. However, he has often said being married has made him a better officer, with more empathy for his Sailors because he understands how their family issues can affect their military service. I think the RC Church misses out by not having clergy who have experienced the bad and good of marriage and family.

~Your Sister in Christ

 

[Pixie_Dust]

Oh Pixie,(I now have Pixie Sticks on my mind… )

Actually it’s a Peter Pan reference.

Many other people besides Priests live lives of service - look at law enforcement officers and military members. As the wife of a career Naval Officer, I know that many times duty has taken my husband away from our family for long periods. However, he has often said being married has made him a better officer, with more empathy for his Sailors because he understands how their family issues can affect their military service. I think the RC Church misses out by not having clergy who have experienced the bad and good of marriage and family.

~Your Sister in Christ

We are all entitled to our opinions.