Pope, curial cardinals affirm value of priestly celibacy

Exactly what they did with Latin in the Mass. Re affirmed it as special and then listed the circumstances where it no longer served it's purpose because it was not the mother tongue of (anyone).

Have you heard about the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments's recent statments on Latin in the Mass? Francis Cardinal Arinze was at the Gateway Liturgical Conference and reaffirmed the necessity of Latin, and suggested that the Mass should be said in Latin, in every parish, on a regualr basis. Also of not in this speech is a reference to an Apostolic Constitution (equal in rank to the pronouncements of the Council) penned by John XXIII, just prior to calling the Council. Veterum Sapientia calls for the importance of Latin, and the neccesity to fortify the existing teaching of Latin, particularly for those called to serve as priests and theologians.

I reccommend reading both documents, they explain that Latin is essential BECAUSE it is no one's mother tongue.

The arguments for excluding the ordination of married men border on the absurd. First of all, there is a clear warrant from scripture and tradition for such ordinations. Secondly, we have an urgent need to supply an adequate number of priests so that people may actually exercise their right to live in a community in which the Eucharistic celebration may shape and form their lives.

It is an insult to committed professionals of all kinds to suggest that some priests could not be married and serve well as priests at the same time. If we began the practice of ordaining married men with mature permanent deacons, they wouldn't have to live in rectories. They would continue to live in their own homes. We're talking about a potential of at least hundreds of men who've been married a minimum of 30 years, most of whom are living comfortably on retirement incomes. There are few parishes that could not afford to provide whatever income supplement might be needed for such married priests.

We need not make any critical comments about celibate priests or oppose them in any way to married priests. They could serve side by side in the same dioceses. The Catholic people are ready and willing to welcome them and think it absurd that this option isn't even being discussed.

I am embarrassed as a priest serving in an institution which intimidates its clergy and laity from even talking about this. It's 2006 for heaven's sake.

I am going through your post in somewhat reverse order, please forgive me.

"It's 2006..." So? If someone asks you the weather, do you look outside, or at a clock? If someone asks you if the water's running, do you look in the sink or at the calendar? Clocks and calendars tell us only one truth (and that is realitive even if they are 'correct'), that is , Time. To speak of truth from a watch is what is absurd.

"The Catholic people..." Really? I don't recall being asked. We all presume that we are in the "mainstream" of the Church, at least from time to time. We all want to believe that we are in agreement with the 'true' sensus fidelis, but there is wide variety of opinion, how do we know who is really right? (Yes, I do believe that it is entirely possible to decide who's in the right).

"It is an insult..."It is not half the insult to professionals as the opposite is to the Priesthood of Jesus. (For Catholic priests so not possess their own order of priesthoos, but that of Christ, Himself). The priest, (IIRC Archbishop Sheen correctly), is not his own. Indeed, as St Paul likened it, they are on the Cross, and live no longer, rather it is Christ who should live in them. The priest at the moment of ordination, must began to live as Christ, for they stand as 'alter Christus', not only in the Sacraments, but in their lives and ministry. To suggest that those who are 'called apart' should serve another master (money) or two (wife and family) in addition to serving God, would throw us against the warning of Christ, "no man can serve two masters".

There is a disconnect whenever we have priests moving out of rectories. The church stands as a visible sign, and people in need of the Lord should be able to approach. Those who come to the rectory seeking a priest should not be met with silence, or told that Father has moved across town. The parish priest belongs with the church, as the Bishop with the Cathedral.

While there is warrant in Scripture (indeed, they are considered illicit, but very much valid ordinations). There is also historical evidence that it caused difficulties for the Church (nothing like the family of a deceased priest claiming the parish as their inheritence).

I'm also embarrassed to be part of a Church which is willing to sacrifice it's original Mandate for the sake of it's concept of priesthood. But I'm a cynic too. I want to know the real reason behind this reaffirmation of celibacy. Who really sees a celibate priesthood as necessary to their agenda?

I don't get any of the latest promulgations from Rome or Baltimore, and I think it's time we searched elsewhere. When the pronouncements are this out of touch with the lived reality of the Faithful something else maybe going on.

You are a little over-the-top. Is there really some other Church you would be happy in? I figure, if you get to the point that you no longer wish to be part of the RC Church,why would you put so much effort trying to follow someone else's re-invention of religion. The only reason for attending another church would be to hear more sermons on Faith, Hope and Charity. These seems to have been replaced, in our Church, by modern day re-re-re-interpretations of what Christ really ment by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
... the greatest of these ...

I'm intrigued by your comment which I confess I really don't understand. I mean specifically the distinction between sermons on faith, hope and charity and the 'modern day re-re-re-interpretations of what Christ really meant by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".'
Would you take a few moments to explain what you mean? Thanks.

Hmmm... I think the dynamic is not quite so simple as "there are x dollars available and y priests and a limit to the x/y ratio". Protestants have similar issues but much higher minister-to-parishioner ratios, and don't give that much more to their churches despite the moaning you may hear on the subject from clergy. (And while Protestants do have unmarried ministerial types, it's a small minority.)

Here are some questions that occur to me as to support of clergy:

Do Protestants ask for clergy support money more? Do they see their money going more directly to support ministerial activity that is important to them? Is tithing just generally a stronger part of Protestant culture? Does seeing the family of the minister in church encourage Protestants to support them with more giving? Do the bishops somehow discourage giving rather than encouraging it by an apparently high money-appeals to ministerial-activity ratio? (My own wife once commented to me that it had seemed to her from childhood that the bishop's one purpose was to appeal for money, which has improved now with a better bishop.)

I truly don't know the answer to any of these questions, they just occur to me as things to be looked at. My own guess is that the requirement for priestly celibacy (and it's obviously non-apostolic nature) is a deterrent to more men than the number of those who look at it as an excellent and gift-fulfilling challenge, but that it is not the one final barrier to having the number of needed priests. There are a lot of cultural and philosophical barriers too, beginning with a lack of much sense of desperately needing the sacraments, and bishops and priests (and faithful parishioners) not making much of a case for the sacraments being powerful and necessary. Just my $0.02.

Another thing in regard to the dynamics of support... there is a long list of families at the parish where my wife and I go to mass who want to cook fresh and frozen meals for the priest. He refuses all offers, and (at least by what he says, maybe he's joking) eats donuts and orange juice for breakfast as he rushes out the door in the morning, and doesn't take good care of his nutritional needs. I don't know if he's desperate to reduce the number of priests in the area or what. But acceptance of non-$$, alternate modes of provision might help defray clergy expenses.

In a rural parish, there could be little need to supply food if the parishioners did so, and land for a rectory would generally be cheap. It might well be cheaper money-wise to support a rural married priest than a celibate priest in the city.

If there were ever, ever a time, in the entire history of the Latin Rite, *not* to introduce such an earthshaking and potentially destabilizing change as the viri probatis, I humbly suggest that this would be it.

I thank God that Papa Benedict apparently agrees.

Maybe in fifty or a hundred years.

Notnow.

What do you think would happen?

More disorientation, at the precise moment it is most emphatically not needed.

I recall that a Cardinal Ottaviani said something very similar:

The recent reforms have amply demonstrated that new changes ... could not be made without leading to complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful, who already show signs of restiveness and an indubitable lessening of their faith.

I think that's a fair summary of what you've said.

A lot of this would depend on whether the diocese would contribute to parishes for the maintenance of a priest.

In the real world corporations don't make adjustments for singles vs employees with families, and married deacons already successfully juggle ministry with outside occupations.

A non celibate clergy need not be more of an adimistrative issue for Catholicism than it is for any other religion. Unless we insist on making it so.

Ouch! Does truth sting or what?

It might be hard for them to think of it that way. After all, they never miss daily mass.

It just occurred to me that, sure - Christ called men who were married to be His Apostles .. but how does that become an argument for married clergy? Being married part of the culture. Perhaps there really isn't a "fear of sex in Rome" .. perhaps Christ - being single and celibate - WAS what He eventually intended. (Did Paul not preach on the side of remaining single, but to marry if you must???) It could be we are the ones living 'in the world' and hung up on sex and the Holy Spirit's had it right with the Church all along.

Eh, I'm not sure it's that simple either. There was a time when priests abounded, and most of them were crummy priests, some utterly illiterate without the ability to say a "Pater Noster" in full or have more than the vaguest idea of the basics of the faith, much less act as shepherd. Centuries of that led to various local attempts at reformation eventually leading to "the" reformation and counter-reformation and all sorts of nastiness in Europe. A devoted, well-educated clergy thinly spread over the church is still better than a slathering heap of crap dumped on it.

Although, counter-productively, I suspect that the lack of priests and sacraments may be convincing more people that they can live life, "and life more abundant", without. Which obviously would diminish the number of men considering priesthood.

And yet among those illiterate country bumpkin priest we find St Joseph of Cupertino. As he was told by his superior, the Church does not need learned priests, she needs HOLY priests. So much more is this true today!

It's not a bad point, but if he was representative of them he wouldn't be a saint.

I never said that he was a typical example, but in fact he was atypical in his low education. But the point remains that we do not need more learned and worldly priests, but holier ones.

I agree that education and holiness aren't correlated, and that this has been obvious over a very long history. Also that selecting a man to serve as a priest because of his holiness has been a sadly rare event.

How would you increase holiness, or select for it? The only way I can see is to stop considering men for the priesthood until they are at least fifty years old and you can look back at their lives and see what they're really made of. That's not going to help with a shortage of priests. I guess it wouldn't really keep the priesthood particularly celibate either.

I don't think it would hurt to stop screening out POD (pious-over devotional) seminarians, as has happened at some seminaries. Confession, spiritual direction, observation over 6+ years of formation should give some idea as to the character of an individual seminarian, and whether they should indeed be ordained. I do think that fidelity of the Church and her teachings (including Humanae Vitae and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) should be considered, although that does not guarantee holiness. Devotion to prayer, willingness to be a victim with Christ, revernce in praying the Office and of the Eucharist. There are many little signs that someone is maturing in Catholic spirituality, that may help find holier priests.

Of course the best wasy is for the laity to seek foremost to be holy, and a few holy priests to help guide those who are called to the priesthood or convent, or to discern whom they should marry.

POD, eh? :-) I'd never heard that one before. Does that term apply to (some) people looking to be DRE's or lectors too?

One other facet to consider is -- how many parents encourage their sons to even CONSIDER a religious vocation? The ".. time when priests abounded..", parents/grandparents encouraged the idea of religious vocation - to both sons and daughters. There are two seminarians studying for our diocese right now who are doing so without the support of their parents .. emotional, financial, etc.

We have only one son and should he decide to pursue the priesthood, I'd be very proud. I'm not hung up on having the family named passed on or wanting to brag to my friends how successful (in the eyes of the world) my son is or whatever other reason that would cause a parent to discourage their son or daughter from religious life.

I often hear young people (and I work with 17-22 y/o) give me a laundry list of reasons why they do not feel they could be a priest, brother or sister .. yet are quick to say they would marry. If they put as much logical thought into marriage (and not come to it from such an emotional level), then perhaps consideration of religious life might not get such a bad rap.

That is an exellent point!! Used to be it was an honor to have one of your family members serve the Church as a Priest or Religious... I have a friend who got great opposition when she moved into the Convent... family support was not there... "Marriage" seems to be the preferred Vocation of American Catholics these days... if you are other than that... Hmmmmmmm.... its really kinda sad, dont you think??

Of all many blessings our dear Lord has poured out on me as a father, without question the greatest is that, of my two sons, ages 12 and 14, one is openly talking about becoming a priest,and the other is the kind of rock ribbed Catholic who makes his father look like a weak kneed compromiser :-)

May God Bless your Sons !! And may they be true to all that God has called them to be!!! :-)

Paz

Pax

Peace,

We look forward to comments from your rock-ribbed son in this forum with fear and trembling.

:-)