I’ve read this elsewhere. A Bishop can send an R.C. priest to the Congo or Ballyfitzpartick at 24 hours notice. Very useful for evangelism. Probably the reason Roman Catholicism is so widespread.
Well, certainly when you have celibate priests who are eager to serve, usually in a religious Order, then they will move at a moment’s notice.
As for the Latin Church being widespread - we cannot eliminate the fact that Catholicism came with the imperial colonizers of Europe and tended to be imposed from the top down.
This is why in Latin America, for instance, there is largely a Catholic culture but not really a Catholic society.
In addition, Roman Catholicism was “lucky” so to speak to be in the driver’s seat and moving across the globe with the great empires.
The Eastern Churches suffered under various foreign and anti-Christian “yokes” of oppression, the Turkish Yoke etc.
The married priests under those regimes kept the Christian Church and faith alive, moving from village to village, teaching people the faith, how to worship, and at very grave risk to their lives. Monastics, such as St Cosmas Aitolos, did the same.
In the Soviet Union, the married priests likewise kept the faith alive. When the USSR crumbled, it was married priests who took matters into their own hands, and affirmed that Christianity was alive and that the Church is “back!”
In the first millennium, married Latini priests were likewise missionaries and carried the faith everywhere. St Boniface the Apostle of Germany, although certainly not married, was helped in his mission by zealous nuns who established monasteries and contributed in ways that men simply could not and did not.
I wanted to mention a further point on this because I had been wanting to become a celibate priest myself and thought of nothing else for years before completing university.
My father left the seminary during the war and wanted me to be a priest to carry on the “family tradition”
.
I liked reading about all things religious anyway, loved the church services and saw myself in priestly robes (I would dress up in makeshift robes for prayer, would give blessings at baseball games etc.).
Everything came to a halt when I went to high school, a Catholic high school. When it became known that I wanted to be a priest (which would certainly have meant a celibate priest), I was shocked at what followed for the duration of my time in the school.
Students regarded me as inclining toward homosexuality and this simply because I said I wanted to be a priest. I was not only attacked verbally, but also physically (which is why I trained as an amateur wrestler, simply to defend myself).
There was also tension between the clerical teachers and the lay teachers. The guidance counsellor actually had me examined by a school psychologist (also a former seminarian) who told me that he saw homosexual behaviour in seminaries which is why he left. “But if you have the calling, Alex . . .” Not very encouraging, to say the least.
I was then told to see a woman counselor who assessed, believe me or not, my physical attractiveness to women. I was taught how to ask a girl out, conversation during a date and in the end the counselor (who was no great “looker” herself, truth be told
), told me that “you are no Rock Hudson (thank you Lord!!), but you are OK . . .”
I would have broken in faith altogether were it not for the devotions of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima and the consolation I had from them.
I later became godfather to a number of friends’ children and to this day, they love telling others how I almost became a priest but then thought better of it.
No, I didn’t think better of it. When I work with friends who become priests and attend their ordinations, I have to look the other way. My heart breaks at those times. Sorry, but that is the truth.
People tell me I know more theology than many priests they know. That is no consolation for me at all. Anyone can read theology.
Thank you for tolerating me and for letting me get this off my chest.
Alex
