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Norseman82
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After reading this thread, does anyone else have an urge to buy stock in the company that makes Depends?
Why the Church no longer teaches the superiority of celibacy over marriage
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BarbTh
Guest
@Mboo - I cannot respond to your posts I am sorry. The Church does still teach that celibacy for the sake of The Kingdom is superior to marriage. It is a theological objective discernment. It is not subjective and that is quite obvious.
The reason theology objectively discerns celibacy for The Kingdom as superior is because it is eschatological and above human nature. Celibacy for God is a special gift to some only. It does not make that person superior. In fact, it could be reasoned, that the special gift of celibacy could be granted because God knows that if it was not granted, the person would make a terrible mess of their lives. We do not know often the why’s of God’s Actions in His world:
“I am mysterious folks…live with it”
If one does not have the gift of celibacy and strives to live a celibate life unsuccessfully, then obviously, celibacy is not superior to marriage for that person in that instance and a subjective determination. The person that cannot live celibate is called by implication to marriage. A holy and blessed state of life.
Marriage cannot be against God on any level. From the beginning God ordained procreation of children and that our sexuality be coded into all human nature male and female. And we now have The Sacrament of Marriage. Marriage is a good and holy state. It is a blessed state of life.
The other point I wanted to make is that there is perfect chastity in marriage and with normal conjugal relations- and The Church teaches this.
I do not mean to be impolite, but you have your own concepts fixed in your mind some you state The Church does not teach when She does and strange interpretations of other things that I cannot understand at all.
I tend to think you have psychological hang ups about human sexuality (God’s Gift to mankind written into our human nature) leading you astray re The Church and what She does indeed teach. A sound spiritual director and perhaps even a therapist would be helpful and a sound spiritual director would recommend consulting a therapist if necessary.
I am sorry and do apologise. God bless and keep you…Barb
Edit: Re your quote from St Paul on marriage, the next few lines are:
"Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
This I say by way of concession, however, not as a command.
Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PZC.HTM
The reason theology objectively discerns celibacy for The Kingdom as superior is because it is eschatological and above human nature. Celibacy for God is a special gift to some only. It does not make that person superior. In fact, it could be reasoned, that the special gift of celibacy could be granted because God knows that if it was not granted, the person would make a terrible mess of their lives. We do not know often the why’s of God’s Actions in His world:
“I am mysterious folks…live with it”
If one does not have the gift of celibacy and strives to live a celibate life unsuccessfully, then obviously, celibacy is not superior to marriage for that person in that instance and a subjective determination. The person that cannot live celibate is called by implication to marriage. A holy and blessed state of life.
Marriage cannot be against God on any level. From the beginning God ordained procreation of children and that our sexuality be coded into all human nature male and female. And we now have The Sacrament of Marriage. Marriage is a good and holy state. It is a blessed state of life.
The other point I wanted to make is that there is perfect chastity in marriage and with normal conjugal relations- and The Church teaches this.
I do not mean to be impolite, but you have your own concepts fixed in your mind some you state The Church does not teach when She does and strange interpretations of other things that I cannot understand at all.
I tend to think you have psychological hang ups about human sexuality (God’s Gift to mankind written into our human nature) leading you astray re The Church and what She does indeed teach. A sound spiritual director and perhaps even a therapist would be helpful and a sound spiritual director would recommend consulting a therapist if necessary.
I am sorry and do apologise. God bless and keep you…Barb
Edit: Re your quote from St Paul on marriage, the next few lines are:
"Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
This I say by way of concession, however, not as a command.
Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PZC.HTM
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Mboo
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I do not know what you mean by making someone superior. Celibacy is not superior to marriage only because it is a state of the future life, but because it brings benefits, particular rewards in this world, and especially in eternal life. I do not know if anyone who has a particular reward is “superior”, but the fact of being able to get a special reward because one has been a virgin for God, makes virginity more advantageous
Is it because I do not have the capacity to be a doctor but rather to be a nurse that I would say that being a doctor is no better than being a nurse objectively?
It is not because marriage is the most suitable for the sanctification of a person that it must relativize the intrinsic superiority of sacred celibacy. In other words, if he also had the possibility of sanctifying himself in sacred celibacy, he would not have married.
I never said the opposite
of course, but the Church no longer says that even for married persons, perfect chastity is in the continence mutually accepted by the spouses to give themselves totally to God.
But if in a couple a person is not willing to live in continence, the other must not impose continence
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Mboo
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All that I have said (except an error that would have escaped me) the Church has clearly taught it once, and sometimes even using its highest authority (Dogma, Encyclical)
Only today our pastors do not teach that anymore.
If you want to give me a single point that I would have said and which disturbs you, I will seek the authority of the Church who said it.
Tell me what I have said and that would not be reasonable, I will strive to be as clear as possible.
In other words, I find myself in a situation where the holy scriptures, the tradition of the Church, the magisterium in its highest degree of authority, and finally common sense tell a truth, and today it is implicitly denied or relativized slyly by using arguments that are not reasonable.
The Church does still teach it.
But you don’t understand the Church’s teaching. The Church has not taught half of the stuff you’ve come out with. It certainly does not teach that celibacy is better for everyone.
It also specifically teaches that discernment is up to the individual.
If you were really in a polygamous situation then it seems like you’ve gone from one extreme to the other.
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Mboo
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Give me a single teaching of the Church on marriage or chastity since 1954 where she speaks of the excellence of celibacy and virginity over marriage, only one.
Not only does the Church hide this truth today in her teaching on marriage, but when she speaks about it it is just to negate it implicitly. The CCC conceals this truth, AL there implicitly denies, everyone can verify it.
As the Church has opted for an overvalued marriage, showing the excellence of celibacy clearly goes against this overvaluation. So the Church is hiding it now.
Not only does the Church hide this truth today in her teaching on marriage, but when she speaks about it it is just to negate it implicitly. The CCC conceals this truth, AL there implicitly denies, everyone can verify it.
As the Church has opted for an overvalued marriage, showing the excellence of celibacy clearly goes against this overvaluation. So the Church is hiding it now.
Do you think that the pre 1954 teachings are invalid? You really have such a simplistic view of this. The Church teaching is the same as it always was. There is a greater focus on marriage today because the Church is responding to attacks on marriage and the family…it’s never retracted previous teachings.
Your whole arguement is pointless because the Church never stopped teaching that Celibacy for the kingdom is objectively superior to marriage. You just want the teaching to be in line with the riducolous ideas you have picked up on this topic.
Nobody is actually arguing that celibacy isn’t superior. They’re just arguing against the rubbish you’re talking.
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Claidheamh-mor
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Such cases are very rare and only for exceptional circumstances. Mary and Joseph are probably the most well known example, but their situation was an exceptional one which we would not really see in the modern day, not exactly a typical marriage that we would have now.
Look at the example of Louis and Zélie Martin (the parents of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux). After being rejected from religious life, they had initially decided to live in perpetual continence. However, they changed their lifestyle after their confessor discouraged this (back in 1858). Would you say that their confessor was wrong?
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Mboo
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Why did their spiritual director advise them against continence? I do not know. But Louis has always preferred celibacy, he is married to please his mother who worried about his long celibacy, so the motive for which he is married is not an example to imitate, indeed he There are examples of saints, whose merit has been precisely to have resisted to the parental pressures, and social that pushed them to marriage when they had already consecrated their chastity to God. He then wanted to make his marriage a cover to live in celibacy, in short he wanted to contract a white marriage without objective necessity. So myself in place of his spiritual director I would have asked him to assume until the end his choice …
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Mboo
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The case of the Martin spouses is very revealing, and illustrates very well the pastoral care of the Church, which is at least ambiguous about the overvaluation of marriage.
Zelia confessed, she told her virgin daughters to rejoice because they will have a white dress in Heaven, while she will have a pink dress.
As for Louis, who had already been a widower since, he once confessed to his daughters that his life so far had been too comfortable to deserve Heaven and that he was asking God to give him the cross. it will merit him from Heaven. It was then that he experienced the humiliation of a degenerating disease, and that his business failed.
So Louis is indeed sanctified in widowhood (and not in marriage as propaganda would have us believe), and for having desired and obtained to share the cross of Christ! but the current propaganda on marriage does not present this truth about the sanctification of Louis, and the Martin couple.
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You clearly have some chip on your shoulder regarding marriage. I can’t think of any other reason you’d come on here attacking Church teaching on marriage. I dunno whether you were passed over in the dating game or what but you definitely are not here out of pure interest in theology
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Mboo
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My greatest wish is that I am wrong. All I ask is that I be shown clearly and reasonably where the error is. Another said that I go to see a spiritual director or something like that, Well, if he has the address of a theologian of the current pastoral on marriage, I would be happy to discuss with him privately if possible.
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TechieGuy
Guest
For what it’s worth, I’m perfectly happy to concede that you might be right and that my life as a married guy who enjoys the martial embrace with my wife is not as close to spiritual perfection as that of a celibate layman or a couple in a vowed Josephite marriage.
But so what? It isn’t a competition. So a bunch of virgin guys will have some crowns in Heaven that you and I won’t, what’s that to us?
I have all eternity to be celibate in heaven - why should I not enjoy licit sexual relations now with my lawfully wedded wife?
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Mboo
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My concern is not the choice that each and other can do
You know if I find a parent who does not encourage his children to social and professional excellence, telling him that even if he does not look for what is great he can still succeed, and goes to 'actively encourage to choose what is the least excellent, I will find that suspicious, there is something wrong.
This is what the Church does today, she no longer exalts what she has most excellent (sacred virgnity) but make propaganda on what is already naturally loved by the world. When some say it’s because the marriage is attacked, it makes me laugh. Naturally, the human loves the life in couple, and the natural ideal of human is to have a life of monogamous, procreative couple, and that will last as long as possible, the divorce is always seen as a failure.
And today with AL, the Church is almost in perfect harmony with the “world”. She understands very well the situation of some divorced-remarried so that they can take communion, Francis even says that there are some who live in concubinage and who have certainly received the grace of the sacrament of marriage without knowing it etc.
So not only does the Church cease to exalt sacred virginity, but it is itself that attacks, and destroys, marriage, and in the most official manner possible.
All this makes me very angry
You know if I find a parent who does not encourage his children to social and professional excellence, telling him that even if he does not look for what is great he can still succeed, and goes to 'actively encourage to choose what is the least excellent, I will find that suspicious, there is something wrong.
This is what the Church does today, she no longer exalts what she has most excellent (sacred virgnity) but make propaganda on what is already naturally loved by the world. When some say it’s because the marriage is attacked, it makes me laugh. Naturally, the human loves the life in couple, and the natural ideal of human is to have a life of monogamous, procreative couple, and that will last as long as possible, the divorce is always seen as a failure.
And today with AL, the Church is almost in perfect harmony with the “world”. She understands very well the situation of some divorced-remarried so that they can take communion, Francis even says that there are some who live in concubinage and who have certainly received the grace of the sacrament of marriage without knowing it etc.
So not only does the Church cease to exalt sacred virginity, but it is itself that attacks, and destroys, marriage, and in the most official manner possible.
All this makes me very angry
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