Priesthood and celibacy question for my fellow Easterners (and Latin brethren as well 😊)

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Agathon77 said:
To answer your question, @ziapueblo:

The rules of priestly celibacy is just a matter of discipline; not revelation. I think the Holy Fathers of the past simply chose a safer course to have celibate clergy so they can fully devote themselves to their pastoral work.

As for the “ pastoral catastrophe “: I’m not sure if it would be a catastrophe. You Easterners have done it effectively for centuries. If we do it for that reason, not just caving to modernist pressures; I’d see no problem with it.
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To be fair the Change in eastern discipline over priestly continence was extremely controversial in its day. It was seen by many as an innovation, which in all truth it was.
 
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Fair enough, @Wandile.

But, @Phillip_Rolfes has a good point:

There’s a huge difference between allowing clergy to marry, like Protestant ministers; and simply allowing the ordination of already married men.
 
Agathon77 said:
Fair enough, @Wandile.

But, @Phillip_Rolfes has a good point:

There’s a huge difference between allowing clergy to marry, like Protestant ministers; and simply allowing the ordination of already married men.
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I know, read what I said above.
 
Wandile said:
No they weren’t.
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The Catholic Encyclopedia says " a large number of the clergy, not only priests but bishops, openly took wives and begot children to whom they transmitted their benefices ,… the principle of celibacy was never completely surrendered in the official enactments of the Church."
Published with Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
And is it not true that Pope Alexander VI had several common law wives and children after his ordination?
 
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To be fair as well, every change in discipline that took place in the East in the past was extremely controversial and heralded as an innovation. I remember helping the late Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. record a talk where he mentioned the backlash throughout the Byzantine East against the innovation of using a spoon to administer Holy Communion.
 
AlNg said:
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Wandile:
No they weren’t.
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The Catholic Encyclopedia says " a large number of the clergy, not only priests but bishops, openly took wives and begot children to whom they transmitted their benefices ,… the principle of celibacy was never completely surrendered in the official enactments of the Church."
Published with Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
And is it not true that Pope Alexander VI had several common law wives and children after his ordination?
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Like I said, the rules weren’t always enforced faithfuly despite continence being ecclesiastical law. Even post-schism there was a pope who had children.
 
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LOL. And we have lasting repercussions thanks to revisions in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that resulted in the creation of the Russian Old Believers.

“Not one jot or tittle…” 😆
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
To be fair as well, every change in discipline that took place in the East in the past was extremely controversial and heralded as an innovation. I remember helping the late Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. record a talk where he mentioned the backlash throughout the Byzantine East against the innovation of using a spoon to administer Holy Communion.
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Yes but this was a clear innovation as the universal law was priests must be continent. In fact despite the laxing of eatsern custom, continence is still enforced as priests must not engage in sexual relations a day before mass or something like that which serves as evidence of the ontological link between continence and the priesthood.

Pope Sergius (a Syrian by birth) famously said he would rather die than accept the canons of the council of Trullo and its innovations (particularly on priestly continence). His successor Pope John VII returned the Acts of the Trullan Council unsigned. However, Pope Adrian I, while rejecting the canons on clerical marriage, did accept with qualification other Trullan Acts that were free of anti-Roman canons.(obviously excluding endorsement of those relating to the new priestly discipline in the east).
 
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Ok. But this still fails to prove that the Latin Church’s modern push to allow for married men to become priests is ultimately a (thinly) veiled attempt to allow priests to get married.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
Ok. But this still fails to prove that the Latin Church’s modern push to allow for married men to become priests is ultimately a (thinly) veiled attempt to allow priests to get married.
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Those progressives who wanted priests to marry back then hold the bishoprics and high offices today. Especially in places like Germany where the push is most forceful.
 
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I’ve never seen any writing from any of these priests or bishops where they state that their goal is to change the rule/dogma so that priests can marry. Can you provide a source for this claim?
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
I’ve never seen any writing from any of these priests or bishops where they state that their goal is to change the rule/dogma so that priests can marry. Can you provide a source for this claim?
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I’ll have to find some old articles for sure. Let me search.
 
Wandile said:
No they weren’t
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What about Gregory the Elder, father of St Gregory of Nazianzus? He was bishop of the see of Nazianzus.

I’m not saying we should have a married bishop, just that history has shown there have been.

ZP
 
AlNg said:
Priests and even bishops were allowed to marry in the early church, no?
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NO. The constant Tradition of the Catholic Church, East and West, is that a man who is already ordained a priest cannot marry. However, in the Eastern Catholic Churches, a married layman, provided his wife consents, may be ordained a priest.
 
Margaret_Ann said:
NO. The constant Tradition of the Catholic Church, East and West, is that a man who is already ordained a priest cannot marry .
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The Catholic Encyclopedia says " a large number of the clergy, not only priests but bishops, openly took wives and begot children to whom they transmitted their benefices ,"
If a priest cannot marry, how was it possible for him to take a wife?
 
Wandile said:
Like I said , the rules weren’t always enforced faithfuly
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By not enforcing the rules would it be true that Pope would be conceding to priests a license to contract carnal marriage? Does he not concede by refusing to enforce the rules?
 
ziapueblo said:
I don’t think their Patriarch would care.
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Care to glorify him? Or care about the private devotion?
ziapueblo said:
Especially Patriarchs that see their Churches as Orthodox.
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Again, I don’t really understand your point.
ziapueblo said:
Maybe, maybe not. I would guess most do (at least the ones I know).
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Most do what?
ziapueblo said:
The Pope seems to have everything to do with the Catholic Church on every issue.
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I really don’t understand your point, again.

If you are not understanding me, I will attempt to be clearer:
I can understand some sympathy for Toth in his dealing with Bishop Ireland - at least as those dealings are presented in polemical versions. I can understand some thinking that it is good to stand up for one’s rights - although for me, the canonical issues here are actually a bit murky here, and, in any case, this standing up is hardly an we3xample of kenotic service.

On the other hand, the sense that he was ministering to people who had been led astray and leading them from deception and ignorance to the Truth is, top say the very least, highly objectionable. It is for God to judge the motives of Toth and those parishioners who followed his lead by going to court and breaking up parishes
 
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