Thank you. Alright so the Latin Church requires a promise of celibacy for her priests and that they be single for ordination and remain celibate but for other Churches this is not necessarily the case: these permit a man to be married upon ordination but that he make a promise, in effect, not to marry again and practice celibacy if his wife should pass on?
That’s right. The Latin Church and maybe two of the other Churches will ordain only celibate men, with some exceptions. In the other Catholic Churches, they will ordain married men.
None of the Churches allow deacons, priests or bishops to marry after ordination. This practice stopped very early in the history of the Church. My impression is that it may have stopped as early as the 2nd century, not long after the death of the last apostle. I’m not an historian. I can’t tell you the exact year.
That sounds a little awkward. Are you saying if someone should ask me where a/the local Catholic Church is or might be I should not point out any of the local Latin parish churches? They are the only ones around here. Aren’t all the Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome “Catholic” and, therefore, also fully Catholic Churches? All I mean to say is that there must be some sense in which both the Latin and Eastern Churches in communion with Rome can be called “Catholic”, otherwise we are going to have a tough time finding any Catholic Churches
For the sake of simplicity, we simply say “St. Joseph Catholic Church” etc. When the need arises to make a distinction, as is the case on this subject, then we identify which of the Churches we’re speaking about. They are all truly and fully Catholic. They are different in disciplines. They also have a few doctrinal differences, but nothing earth shattering. One of the doctrinal differences is the doctrine on celibacy. In most of the Eastern Churches, celibacy is part of the vow of consecrated chastity. They don’t look at the two separately. In the Latin Church, we see celibacy as a discipline and chastity as a doctrine.
Our Latin/Roman idea is that celibacy is a discipline that is desired by the Holy Spirit for us, not for the whole Church.
I think I understand what you are saying here: it would be wrong to give the impression that a peculiar practice or discipline of one of the Churches is necessary for all of the Catholic Churches in the world, lest people get the impression that those other Churches aren’t also fully members of the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church?
That’s right.
This often hurts the Eastern Catholics, because the way that Roman Catholics speak it’s as if we’re the THE Church. It begs the question from the Eastern Catholics, “What are we, applesauce?” For example, the Malankar and Malabar Syrian Churches were founded by St. Thomas the Apostle. They do not follow the traditions handed down by Peter and Paul, but the traditions handed down by Thomas. Interestingly enough, they do require that only celibate men be ordained. Whereas the Greek Catholics, do not have this requirement. Among Greek Catholics, you must be celibate to be a consecrated religious such as a brother, but not to be a deacon or priest. Why not? Because in the theology of the Church, priests have never been considered to be consecrated religious and ordination is not the same kind of consecration.
In the ordination rite of the priest, his hands are consecrated, not his person. In the profession of vows of a brother, the entire man is consecrated: mind, body and soul.
On the other hand, only single men can become bishops, because a bishop is consecrated. This is true for the universal Church, not just Latin/Roman Catholics. Even the Orthodox Christians hold to this.
