Is there anything we can learn from Protestantism?

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I’m curious to know (as a Reformed Protestant) where you think the theology of the Trinity was developed?
 
Here’s one thing you can learn from Anglicanism - a married priesthood will solve your shortage of clergy. We have a steady stream of candidates in our diocese.
 
JohnStrachan said:
Here’s one thing you can learn from Anglicanism - a married priesthood will solve your shortage of clergy. We have a steady stream of candidates in our diocese.
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If a man absolutely won’t enter the priesthood because he’s unwilling to sacrifice the married life, then he probably isn’t priest material, considering that the priestly life is one of self sacrifice.
 
JohnStrachan said:
Here’s one thing you can learn from Anglicanism - a married priesthood will solve your shortage of clergy. We have a steady stream of candidates in our diocese.
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Allowing female “priests” would also solve the shortage, but that’s a solution to one problem that worsens others.

The question is not merely prudential. There are strong historical and doctrinal underpinnings of the celibate priesthood; it’s not something the Catholic Church just came up with out of the blue one day.

Personally, I think the celibacy requirements should looser, for prudential reasons. But I think celibacy should probably be the norm, even if not strictly required. Perhaps keep the current policy of not allowing priests to marry, but remove barriers to the married becoming priests.
 
It seems like many of the young men being called to the priesthood lately, at least in USA, are traditionalists, and they definitely do NOT want to be married and do NOT support a married priesthood. I’m not at all convinced that allowing married priests would suddenly get a lot more guys to sign up. Or rather, they might sign up, but the first time their priesthood vocation/ duties hit a conflict with their marriage, they might not stick around in the priesthood.
 
CCHcolonel said:
I’m currently watching a bunch Ryan reeves videos on YouTube. He’s a teacher at some Protestant seminary. His videos on Tolkien and Lewis are very good.
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For all our flaws, Protestantism does include C S Lewis, so sometimes we do good stuff.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It seems like many of the young men being called to the priesthood lately, at least in USA, are traditionalists, and they definitely do NOT want to be married and do NOT support a married priesthood. I’m not at all convinced that allowing married priests would suddenly get a lot more guys to sign up. Or rather, they might sign up, but the first time their priesthood vocation/ duties hit a conflict with their marriage, they might not stick around in the priesthood.
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I agree in that there are no perfect solutions - including the one currently used by the RCC.

But as to whether more would sign up, I know a few posters here who would have absolutely sought the priesthood if it didn’t violate their call to have families. I won’t @ them for sake of respecting their privacy, but they’re absolutely here.

Will there be problems? Sure. Are there problems now? Sure.

As such, the fact that there will be issues doesn’t seem make it worthy of dismissal per marginal analysis.
 
I’m not sure that the statements of posters here, or even the statements of other people, that they would have become priests if only they could marry, are reliable; we also don’t know if there’s some other reason they would have chosen to not go forward as priests, would have sought to leave the priesthood later, or would even have been rejected as priests. The only way we would ever know if this would work is to start ordaining a bunch of married men and see what happens. Also, when we run into inevitable bumps in the road with this approach, the Church will have to figure out how much they want to work with the married men to work out the issues vs. just ending the experiment as being more bother than it’s worth.

I myself think if a man can’t make a sacrifice of marriage for a vocation that is likely to take the vast majority of his time just tending to his priestly duties, he shouldn’t sign up, but that’s just me, and I don’t make the rules.
 
What are your thoughts on allowing married Anglican priests to be ordained as Catholic priests?
 
Sure I’ll take a good Protestant over a bad Catholic any day. With that said haha just because we disagree in our practices of faith does not mean we can’t learn love compassion ways they imitate Christ to the best of their ability. You can learn from an atheist. Many are better Christian’s then we could ever be. Some have limitations we don’t. I know a few who imitate Christ in all they do. As the song says isn’t it ironic. They live by and imitate the same person they deny!ll ironic nay just Christ showing us how powerful he is.
 
rinnie said:
Many [atheists] are better Christian’s then we could ever be.
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This statement is false, and this is something that Lewis wrote about.

The word “Christian” does not mean “good person.” While there are many atheists who are upstanding people, they are simply not Christian in any sense. Being Christian means, at the very least, believing in the triune God and Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. If you reject these claims, you’re not Christian. Even if you’re a wonderful human being, if you reject those claims, you’re not Christian at all.

Words have meanings.
 
HopkinsReb said:
What are your thoughts on allowing married Anglican priests to be ordained as Catholic priests?
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I haven’t had a problem with it, because by the time Mr. Married Anglican Priest converts over to the Ordinariate, he’s generally an older guy in a stable situation and both he and his wife are committed to the idea of being Mr. and Mrs. Priest. This is a completely different situation than ordaining some newly married guy in his 20s with little support structure within the Church. The Anglican couple married and oriented to their married life within a church that has a fairly long tradition of married clergy and therefore it’s not some big new challenge for them.

The only concern I would have is whether the priest is OK with living the single life with no remarriage should his wife die. I already saw personally one situation where a man was ordained as a deacon, served for about 10 years, his wife died and then he wanted to remarry and ended up quitting the diaconate to do so.

The Roman Catholic Church unfortunately doesn’t have a history of developing structures and practices to support a married priesthood. Instead, they put all their eggs in the basket of developing structures and practices to support a single male priesthood. They are now facing crises on multiple fronts from both the sex abuse business and the shortage of priests. There is a school of thought, with which I agree based on my experience, that both the sex abuse and the priest shortage as far as it pertains to priests who quit after ordination stemmed from the seminaries accepting poor candidates and making too many accommodations for them. If the Church gets back to recruiting the type of priestly candidates it should have been recruiting, some of the problem may take care of itself. I’ve been impressed in the last few years with the younger priests who are being ordained into the Church as they seem much more committed than the young 70s and 80s priests; they act more like priests, many of them seem to enjoy wearing the collar, and I’m not seeing so many of them doing weird stuff like spending a lot of money on golf equipment or slow dancing with young nuns (saw both of these things back in the day).

If the Catholic Church wants to have more married priests, perhaps they should think about ordaining the types of middle-aged married guys who are now becoming deacons. This would also open up a good path for the many people who perhaps get more serious about their religion as they age, and perhaps remove some of the family strain since these men generally don’t have young children they’re trying to support and raise. I’m not sure if the Church would be open to that idea, or if they would prefer to ordain younger men so as to get more years out of them.
 
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HopkinsReb:
For all our flaws, Protestantism does include C S Lewis, so sometimes we do good stuff.
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I yield to you CS Lewis and scotch. And Amazing Grace played on bagpipes.

Nothing more.
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HEY NOW

Cranmer, for his many faults, was an absolutely brilliant liturgist. While he snuck some doctrinal problems into the liturgies, they were still beautiful. There’s a reason the Pope allowed the Ordinariate to retain much of the traditional Anglican liturgy.

Lots of good Chesterton writing from before he swam the Tiber.

My favorite hymn, Lift High the Cross, doesn’t contain anything I’d think Catholics would find objectionable and is an Anglican hymn.

WE DO LOTS OF GOOD STUFF EVEN IF THERE’S A LOT OF CRAP MIXED IN.
 
I’m wondering this morning, based on the most recent spate of Purgatory and Hell threads, and thinking about my husband, whether some Protestants have more trust in God and His mercy than Catholics do. “Some” not “all”. Perhaps I’m just having a bad day, but there are times when I think the main goal of most Catholics is to send as many people to hell as possible and themselves at least to purgatory.
 
Haha! Just kidding. Yeah, I grew up hearing ‘Lift High the Cross’ a lot in Mass. I like it and it’s easy to sing for a guy like me.

I forgot about Chesterton. And Newman. And Scott Hahn.

But that’s it!
 
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