Celibacy, Shmelibacy. Pope Benedict XVI this week reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's traditional stance on celibacy for priests — of the Western Rite. You see, priests of the Eastern Rite, Uniate churches, integral parts of the reunited Catholic Church, are allowed to marry. So much for celibacy being a doctrinal requirement of the faith.
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You see, once upon a time, a number of churches in various parts of the world broke away or wandered away from Rome. They then returned to the fold and accepted the authority of the Pope and the unity of the church, but retained separate forms of worship and standards for the priesthood. And they permitted priests to marry. The Pope accepts that married priests of the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome are validly ordained and can serve priestly functions. So why can't priests of the Latin Church marry?
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There is no basis in the teachings of Jesus for forbidding priests to marry — or no Christian church could allow priests to marry. The Latin Church's stance on this is costing it dearly. For one thing, the number of men willing to serve as priests and deprive themselves of sexual companionship for life has dwindled so low that the Church finds it hard to keep some of its churches open, and it cannot compete with Protestant churches in missionary activities in the Third World.
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For another, a lot of homosexual men who don't want to answer embarrassing questions about why they haven't married (a woman) flee to the camouflage of priestly celibacy. Some are deeply troubled about their orientation and try with all their will to suppress their sexual desires. But fail. Sometimes they get out of line with members of the parish, including altar boys, and get the Church in deep, expensive trouble.
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None of this need happen. The Church of Rome needs to grow up, renounce the antisexual nonsense of "Saint" "Paul" (Saul of Tarsus) who intruded alien ideas into the early church, and accept that when Jesus talked of love being a good thing, he included sexual love. Even, indeed, homosexual love.
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It is very hard for the Church to counsel married and dating couples from utter ignorance of what marriage, even dating, is all about. It is even harder for them to help with advice about raising children and settling family problems when they have absolutely no experience in those areas. The Church's insistence on celibacy is dysfunctional in the extreme and must end.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,876 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:15 PM