Most priests know far more about marriage than most married people do

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Some experiences are similar; some are not.

It takes a supple and lively mind to dig into the experience, to understand what virtues are tested by that experience or event, what human faculties are called upon in situation X and compare it (dispassionately, not with self-pitying justification) to another experience.

What are the virtues?

Let’s list the cardinals ones: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.

Of course under the cardinal virtues are many others, and this is where the harder work suggested above would be done by someone with the intelligence to do it.

Just an abbreviated list.

Generosity
Optimism
Perseverance
Orderliness
Cheerfulness
Responsibility
Respect for others
Sincerity
Chastity
Modesty
Moderation
Enterprise
Flexibility
Loyalty
Industriousness
Patience
Justice
Obedience
Prudence
Audacity
Boldness
Humility
Simplicity
Sociability
Friendship
Understanding
Patriotism
Studiosity (curiosity is the vice).
 
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Xantippe said:
So, I could get a reasonable facsimile of your combat experience by playing enough Call of Duty?
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This is the sort of abstraction I was unwilling to make earlier. I don’t think this is a good mode of dialogue, even in obvious jest, and even when others break the 8th commandment against us. It just leads to folks belittling the experiences of others, for whatever pitiable or malicious reasons. Let them burn their strawmen; don’t add to the bonfire. Engage with Truth, instead.
 
Xantippe said:
Being the second person of the Holy Trinity is helpful here
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And, so is sharing in the ministerial priesthood of the second Person of the Holy Trinity! The Eternal High Priest acts through, with, and in the ministerial priest; to say that the ministerial priest cannot have empathy with married couples is to say Our High Priest cannot!
 
I guarantee that a celibate priest has more knowledge and capability of empathizing with married couples than any married couples themselves. A celibate bishop wrote more on marriage that made it into Holy Scripture than any married patriarch, prophet, Apostle, etc. What was his name…? Oh, yeah, Saint Paul!
 
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steido01 said:
This is the sort of abstraction I was unwilling to make earlier. I don’t think this is a good mode of dialogue, even in obvious jest, and even when others break the 8th commandment against us. It just leads to folks belittling the experiences of others, for whatever pitiable or malicious reasons. Let them burn their strawmen; don’t add to the bonfire. Engage with Truth, instead.
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Sorry!

What I’m trying to get across to Edward_H is that just as I don’t have any analogous experiences to his military duty, priests don’t necessarily have analogous experience to married life, the amicably married don’t necessarily have analogous experience to people in abusive marriages, and people with healthy children don’t necessarily have analogous experiences to NICU families or families with autistic or otherwise seriously disabled children.

I think I’d also add that believing that believing that one has analogous experience is likely to be the product of lack of self-awareness, empathy, wisdom, etc.

A sensible person will understand fairly quickly, “I don’t have that experience or anything like it,” rather than trying to demonstrate that they have it.
 
BREAK BREAK Lima Six. You’ve completely missed the target. Standby for adjustment.

Marriage is grand, is spectacular, is as close to heaven on earth as I will get. It takes all of me, all of my bride of 30 plus years, every day.

The happy Cross of self-gift is NEVER far. It takes great love, constant self denial, and the happier and more eager the self gift the more joy one gets out of marriage.
 
AugustTherese said:
and in the ministerial priest; to say that the ministerial priest cannot have empathy with married couples is to say Our High Priest cannot!
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Hopefully he can–but it’s not guaranteed.
AugustTherese said:
I guarantee that a celibate priest has more knowledge and capability of empathizing with married couples than any married couples themselves.
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That’s a pretty sweeping statement–that every single priest is better at empathy than every single married couple.
Edward_H said:
Marriage is grand, is spectacular, is as close to heaven on earth as I will get. It takes all of me, all of my bride of 30 plus years, every day.
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I don’t think it’s that hard when it’s going well–at least not in my experience.
 
Why must “empathy” be the criterion?

That’s secular psych speaking.

Presenting the truth to people in an effective way is the criterion. Bringing people to the truth is the end goal.
 
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Xantippe said:
that every single priest is better at empathy than every single married couple.
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Except, I did not say that! I said he has the ‘capability’ - I did not say ‘that every single priest is better at empathy’; that is putting words into my mouth that were never there.
AugustTherese said:
I guarantee that a celibate priest has more knowledge and capability of empathizing with married couples than any married couples themselves.
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steido01 said:
Good thing the writer of Hebrews notes that Christ had sympathy with us then. 😉 Christ 100% experienced the effects of our sin. Anyone who’d deny this is no Christian. But Christians are not Christ; we did not have the exact same experiences. You were not literally nailed to the Cross (though your “Old Adam” and his sins were). You did not raise the Lazarus from the tomb. You did not heal the soldier’s ear or tell Peter he’d deny you three times. You weren’t Peter, either. Nor were you Paul. “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”
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I think you are saying that true empathy is, to some extent, impossible. No one ever truly has the same experiences as anyone else.
 
A day that one hasn’t mortified oneself happily for one’s bride is a day lived with less love.

“No routine kisses” is some advice that I once got from…wait for it…

a priest of Opus Dei!

Shudders!
 
Edward_H said:
“No routine kisses” is some advice that I once got from…wait for it…

a priest of Opus Dei!

Shudders!
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Is that supposed to be good advice or bad advice?

If he means that every kiss needs to be passionate and mind-blowing and involve swelling violins, I have to say that that isn’t very realistic.
Edward_H said:
A day that one hasn’t mortified oneself happily for one’s bride is a day lived with less love.
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I don’t want my husband to mortify himself for me–but I do want him to do his best for our family. If he does what our family needs, I’m going to be happy, even if he doesn’t have to mortify himself to do so.

I feel like you have a lot more emphasis on (name removed by moderator)uts (mortification) than outputs. I personally prefer results rather than effort.
 
I understand that you’ve adopted me as your online nemesis. I understand that you hunt for my posts to comment in response. I understand that your expectation is to disagree with me. I’m sorry to disappoint you.

Please re-read my posts in this thread before you take me out of context (again) to make me mean something different from what I’ve actually written (again). I’m literally defending the Roman Catholic Church’s historically-varied disciplines on married/unmarried priests and very much defending the USCCB’s Pre Cana curriculum. Not one of the theological points I’ve made in this thread is incongruent with the RCC.
P.S.- While it is likely that St. Paul remained unmarried his entire life, this is actually an open question. Christian historians and theologians, even on this very forum, have acknowledged this. He cannot be claimed as a prooftext either way, as he himself cites that other Apostles took wives.
 
What is up with the snark-bordering-on-anger infused into nearly all of your posts here? From a rational perspective, it seems others have highlighted legitimate ways in which priests understand marriage better or don’t – and (again, from a rational perspective) it seems that both can co-exist. Why does it seemingly destroy your worldview if this is so?
 
It’s obvious, but for the summer school folks, let me spell it out.

“Put love into the little things. Keep things stirring. It’s your job. Don’t think it’s hers. Esto vir. Lift up the happy cross of a marriage and carry it with the joy of one who knows he is a son of God.”
 
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Do you think you could manage to write a response without an insult in it?

It really undermines all of your stuff about virtue and self-denial when there’s so much putting down of others wrapped up with it.
 
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Do you now understand what the priest meant or not? Or do you want me to come up with yet another interpretation of it, or do you want to recast it into some other negative light as before?
 
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