Pope Francis considers dropping
celibacy requirements for some priests
USA Today,
by
John Bacon
Original Article
Posted By: NorthernDog,
10/8/2019 3:18:29 PM
Pope Francis urged South American bishops gathered at the Vatican on Monday to "speak with courage" as they address a severe priest shortage in remote areas of the region that could result in the church dropping celibacy requirements for some priests. The three-week Synod of Bishops for the Amazon also will address crucial regional topics ranging from protection of rainforests and local cultures to climate change, migration and clean water. "We have not come here to invent programs of social development or custody of cultures," the pope said. "We come to contemplate, to understand, to serve the peoples." Cardinal Claudio
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Northcross 10/8/2019 3:23:16 PM (No. 201437)
Since there is no New Testament basis for either priests or celibacy, it hardly matters.
16 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
GW_Rider 10/8/2019 3:32:10 PM (No. 201449)
Our coprophagic pope strikes again.
5 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
defcon1 10/8/2019 3:41:20 PM (No. 201455)
The New Testament does indeed include a basis for consecrated celibacy. It’s for the sake of the kingdom. See Matt 19:12 and 1 Cor 7:32-38.
5 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
David Key 10/8/2019 3:43:37 PM (No. 201457)
I am hesitant to comment on this simply because I am not a Catholic. As a Protestant I have no problem with married clergy. At the same time I know enough of Catholic theology to understand the reason and purpose of celibate clergy. This has been a basic tenet of Catholicism for over a thousand years. I am inclined to think that if Catholic church and its leadership would reform its homosexual tendency and perhaps get a Pope who is more a Catholic and less a liberal, to my understanding. Perhaps if the Catholic church got back to its foundational beliefs and practiced what has made it strong institution for over 1500 years, they would have more applicants for the priesthood.
11 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Nevadadad46 10/8/2019 3:47:20 PM (No. 201461)
Nonsense! Partial measures will not work at all. It will have to be all or nothing! And that will change the Catholic Church forever.
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Enoch Powell 10/8/2019 3:53:17 PM (No. 201468)
If I'm not mistaken, the celibacy rule was instituted in the Middle Ages for no other reason than, as Omar would say... the Benjamins... money. Single priests would give their money to the Church. Wives tend to spend money... You see the point. On a practical note, I doubt this will have much effect. Gay priests don't tend to marry women.
12 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
anniebc 10/8/2019 3:55:33 PM (No. 201471)
Even though I personally don't agree with the celibacy rule, for this Pope, it's a slippery slope to same sex marriage.
"We have not come here to invent programs of social development or custody of cultures," the pope said. "We come to contemplate, to understand, to serve the peoples."
Huh?
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
jimincalif 10/8/2019 4:31:20 PM (No. 201485)
There are already married Catholic priests - exceptions exist for priest who converted to Catholic from Anglican, for example. So it's not an article of the faith, or this wouldn't be allowed. Having this conversation within the church makes a lot more sense than the pope spouting nonsense about capitalism and climate change.
17 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
lisa belanger 10/8/2019 4:33:04 PM (No. 201486)
getting worse
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
49 Ford 10/8/2019 4:41:43 PM (No. 201490)
As a Catholic I agree with the Protestant poster at # 4. I have no problem with married priests per se, but the problem comes (as it always does) with an aggressive Left which would use that foothold to pollute the entire Church doctrine.
7 people like this.
I'm Catholic, and for the first time, I agree with this Pope.
Let them be married. Let women serve in leadership roles. Let women even become priests.
Christianity needs anyone with a sincere heart and virtuous spirit to keep the faith alive.
I say; Just Do It! My late father never, ever would have agreed to that.
6 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
TexaTucky 10/8/2019 4:59:20 PM (No. 201495)
Mmmm . . . one basis for both priests AND celibacy that can be found in the New Testament is that celibate high priest himself, Jesus Christ. Protestant preachers can emulate whomever they like, but Catholic priests are supposed to model themselves after Christ. They fall short constantly, as all men do, but Christ is still the model. Why lower the standard?
It's worth noting that there are lots of things that are not found in the Bible, yet Protestants believe them. The notion of 'sola Scriptura', ironically, is one of them. There's no biblical basis for “altar calls” or “sinner’s prayer” or church buildings. Nothing there about the Trinity or having a “personal relationship with Jesus.” It doesn't teach that grape juice is an appropriate Communion substitute for the wine Jesus clearly said was His blood. Nothing there about "asking Jesus into your heart". No mention of denominations, either . . . only of "one church".
Does their absence make you a bad Protestant if you practice them anyway?
The notion that there must be explicit biblical proof for every doctrine (or else it's some kind of heresy or Catholic money-grubbing scheme) is simply not found in the Bible. ANYwhere. Such a belief, in fact, is a mere tradition of men.
One trap of opining on other people's religious traditions is that it sometimes exposes your own hypocrisy.
10 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
beancounter 10/8/2019 5:04:06 PM (No. 201498)
This really has nothing to do with the Amazon and everything to do with far left German clerics. There is no shortage of Spanish speaking priests (indigenous language speaking priests wouldn't increase if they remove celibacy). The working document for this synod has all sorts of other "progressive" garbage in it.
3 people like this.
"We come to serve the people". Who knew? Here I thought the Church was there to serve God. My mistake. This Pope is a communist through and through no matter how much he pretends he is not and his ultimate goal is to destroy the Church. I agree that the celibacy laws can be changed but this Pope is not changing them to focus on God he is changing them to focus on man and the Climate which seems to be the focus of all his thoughts and prayers. I am surprised the Vatican hasn't painted over the Sistine and gotten rid of all the statues. I hope that the Cardinals that still believe in God are planning to remove this heretic from office to save what is left of the Roman Catholic Church.
They of course are not the only ones to leave God as an afterthought; the Protestant Churches seem to be way ahead of them. I never hear them talk of God or prayer or punishment, just good times and utopian schemes of redistribution. Shame on them and shame on us for allowing this to happen to what used to be a God fearing nation.
3 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
MFM 10/8/2019 5:11:29 PM (No. 201501)
Joke of a pope has made a shambles of church doctrine..Hey why not make abortion any time nancy pelosi a priest Mr.fake pope?
2 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
MSUDoc 10/8/2019 5:31:02 PM (No. 201516)
Amen, #13.
The Roman Catholic Church bases doctrine on Scripture and Church Tradition. So whether some tenet is “in the Bible,” is to some degree irrelevant here.
Protestants, on the other hand can opine about “sola scriptura” (which is not in “scriptura”) and since they see themselves as a “priesthood of all believers,” interpret Scripture however they see fit, and as a result you get the disintegrating United Methodist Church, ELCA, Episcopal Church, amongst many other of their 44,000 different denominations, all interpreting “Scriptura” differently.
In short, keep your own porch swept clean before pointing out the dust on the Cathedral.
7 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Mad Dog 10/8/2019 5:31:09 PM (No. 201517)
I don't know if marriage will be the cure for perversion.
4 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
MickTurn 10/8/2019 5:54:52 PM (No. 201541)
Does this include pervert priests that want to marry each other?
4 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
LadyHen 10/8/2019 6:02:43 PM (No. 201552)
Being an Orthodox Christian we have married parish priests, which we feel is a blessing, and celibate monks, nuns, and bishops, which are also a blessing. Having married parish priests has worked for us just fine for 2000 years. A married priest, and most have children, does have a bit of an advantage when it comes to advising those in similar circumstances. Married life is not less holy nor less spiritually challenging.
3 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
lakerman1 10/8/2019 6:11:19 PM (No. 201565)
To clarify #9's post, if an Anglican priest who is married, leaves the Anglicans because he is against abortion, the Anglican priest may be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest, but if his wife dies, he may not remarry to remain a Roman Catholic priest.
If the Roman Catholics allow married men to become priests, or allow priests to marry, the homosexual molesters will no longer have a safe haven as priests.
The male homosexuals who enter the seminary surely know that they are homosexuals, and most of them go on to molest boys.
Those priests who molest little girls most likely knew what floated their boat, at the time, or shortly thereafter, in the seminary.
Allowing the ordination of married priests, or allowing priests to marry, will not solve all of the problems of the Roman Catholic church, but it will go a long way in doing so, in the area of sexual predation.
I say that as an ELCA Lutheran, but former Roman Catholic.
3 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 10/8/2019 6:52:00 PM (No. 201609)
For gosh sake the Disciple and later Apostle Peter was married! Jesus even cured his M-I-L.
2 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Salt5792 10/8/2019 7:29:31 PM (No. 201641)
Steps to expand the clergy are OK. Saying that human beings affect global climate is absurd.
1 person likes this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 10/8/2019 7:31:51 PM (No. 201643)
As our Rose would say, ''Only for the dishy looking Vicars!''
0 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
bhkat 10/8/2019 8:00:06 PM (No. 201660)
The pope said that the current generation of priests won’t be able to get married but in the future, their children will be.
1 person likes this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 10/8/2019 8:11:42 PM (No. 201672)
A little late. That horse left the barn 1,000 or so years or so ago.
0 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
TLCary 10/8/2019 8:34:32 PM (No. 201682)
#6 It wasn't the wife spending money but rather wanting the inheritance that was a problem. It's odd to hear religious arguments against priests being married when it was a common and accepted practice for the first thousand years of Catholicism. It's like changing the law after hundreds of years because you reinterpreted the Constitution. Besides, marriage was good enough for Abraham, Moses, David, Mary, Joseph, Peter, Matthew...
2 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
bighambone 10/8/2019 9:25:26 PM (No. 201703)
Well the way the priesthood is structured today if they allow priests to marry, they would have a good percentage marrying gay men, which would result in a lot more gay men close by the church, with a percentage of them bound to be pedophiles and pederasts.
0 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 10/8/2019 9:43:57 PM (No. 201712)
I have no skin in this game but if the Church would allow married priests it would go a long way to solve the problem of these ‘chicken hawk’ homosexual priests. That’s what they are....homosexual priests preying on young men. The MSM tries to hide the gay factor but that’s exactly what’s going on. As one poster mentioned, The celibacy rule didn’t even come into use until the Middle Ages.
0 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Harlowe 10/8/2019 10:25:08 PM (No. 201742)
#3- “...a basis for consecrated celibacy...for the sake of the kingdom.”
Matthew 19:12 - Some individuals do not marry for the sake of the Kingdom; however, “according to God’s created order, the Church cannot forbid a person to marry, not even a church worker. ... The law of nature in human beings cannot be removed by vows or enactments.”
1 Corinthians 7:32-38 – St. Paul outlines two blessed estates, marriage and celibacy. There are responsibilities with marriage, and it is important for the Christian to “count the cost” of discipleship. By God’s grace, “each person is fitted to one or to the other.”
#13,#18- Pope Leo XIII condemned all those who “relying on private judgment and repudiating the divine traditions and teaching office of the Church, held the Scriptures to be the one source of revelation and the final appeal in matters of Faith.” Meaning: SOLA SCRIPTURA, Scripture alone.
TRADITION - Scripture interprets Scripture. Early church fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Trenaeus, Tertullian) appealed to oral tradition but warned against setting too high a value on it; the “Council of Trent placed tradition on a level with Scripture.”
[Continued]
1 person likes this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
Harlowe 10/8/2019 10:27:20 PM (No. 201743)
[Continued]
The fact that Jesus never married is somewhat pointless, because we cannot be like him in every way, and 'the first pope,' Peter, was married.
Often lost when attempting to defend one’s personal religious denomination is the need to consider what is written in Matthew 5 (The Sermon on the Mount) where Jesus says to call no one a fool. In all of Scripture, wisdom is equated with faith (The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom), and foolishness is equated with rejecting God (The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'). As far as is known, in Scripture 'fool' never means 'dummy' or 'ignoramus.' What Jesus was saying in Matthew 5 is, "don't you dare question the integrity of another's faith. Only God can see our hearts (Romans 14:4).
1 person likes this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
DVC 10/9/2019 12:46:01 AM (No. 201811)
Perfect for those homosexual priests who just can't keep it zipped.
0 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Smart11344 10/9/2019 1:36:39 PM (No. 202443)
What else is new? Soon, it will be the New Order of the Catholic Church. BYOB...Bring your own b****.
0 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
ussjimmycarter 10/9/2019 9:20:53 PM (No. 202812)
Nothing matters in this church now. He has stated flatly that Christ was just a man and not God! One must believe that Christ was God and Man...fully each. It's like the Trinity which I'm sure this Pope will abolish as a 15th century relic... Does he ever read God's Word? "All who have seen me have seen the Father"! Jesus Christ! The Catholic Church is an evil anti-Christ Cult today. I think it was when Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the Church Door...and before. Peter (supposedly the first Pope) was married and had children! This church is full of pedophile priests who's father is the devil!
0 people like this.
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