'Singleness'

[BarbTherese]

I apologise to you bardegaulois If I have offended you or anyone else in any way.  I apologise too if I have confused anyone or caused them upset.   I will try to do better in the future.   I am just back from Vigil Mass and I think I got a nudge and a 'pull up' and deserved.

Regards...........Barb

Edited May 9, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[Maggyie]

I have no theological expertise but I too have felt dissatisfaction with our traditional parceling out of Gods call. Priesthood, marriage, or consecrated life of some kind - you must pick one, or it means you have "missed" your vocation somehow. Three neat categories into which our souls are herded like cats (meow).

It seems very much to have grown out of the concept of the Three Estates (clergy, nobility, commons). It reminds me (and this is a weird analogy) of Harry Potter where the sorting hat "discerns" a person belongs in one of 4 houses, and only those 4. Impossible to not belong in one of them. 

It may be helpful to this discussion to realize that marriage as a specific  vocational call is a relatively recent understanding. A medieval peasant woman would not have considered herself "called" to marriage, she would have thought herself "not called" to religious life. The Church's understanding of God grows deeper all the time.

 

[Amppax]

Barb, I really don't think that your quotes support your position as clearly as you think they do. There's been a lot of debate among theologians on this point, whether the single life can be a vocation. Many don't think it can, and their just as familiar with the documents you're quoting as you are, if not more so! So your constant claim that you're merely "upholding what the Church teaches" (with the undertone that those who disagree with you disagree with the Church) is both misleading and uncharitable. 

It could be that you're right, and I'm not sure one way or the other personally. But either way, it's not a settled issue, and you shouldn't present it as such. 

[Maggyie]

Barb, I really don't think that your quotes support your position as clearly as you think they do. There's been a lot of debate among theologians on this point, whether the single life can be a vocation. Many don't think it can, and their just as familiar with the documents you're quoting as you are, if not more so! So your constant claim that you're merely "upholding what the Church teaches" (with the undertone that those who disagree with you disagree with the Church) is both misleading and uncharitable. 

It could be that you're right, and I'm not sure one way or the other personally. But either way, it's not a settled issue, and you shouldn't present it as such. 

Well that's the thing, these theologians are speculating and arguing, if you have noticed you will rarely find 2 who entirely agree with each other. And they all present it quite firmly as Barb has. 

I don't think this is really a good question to ask, "can single life be a vocation" why must man always be trying to tie God's hands. Since it is He who does the calling perhaps it's not a good plan to try to pronounce whether he can or can't call to something. I mean this would probably make Jesus laugh and laugh. 

[Norseman82]

Priesthood, marriage, or consecrated life of some kind - you must pick one, or it means you have "missed" your vocation somehow.

Not necessarily.  I believe Mary Beth Bonacci nailed it squarely on the head when she observed that most people are indeed called to marriage, but may not be able to achieve it because they cannot find a suitable spouse due to the poisoning of the dating pool. 

http://catholicexchange.com/is-the-single-life-a-vocation

Addiitonally, considering how hard it is to find a suitable spouse (or get priestly/religious vocations), what in the world would possess anyone to encourage people to make themselves unavailable during a shortage by creating a made-up vocation that serves no purpose other than to give people feel-good fuzzy-wuzzies about not being able to find suitable spouses (which is an improper diagnosis)? We need people to make themselves more available, not less!  This so-called "vocation to be single" (outside of consecrated life) is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - you can't find a spouse, therefore, being single must be your vocation, but you probably would have found a spouse if those who would have made suitable spouses hadn't taken themselves "off the market" in the first place because they were duped by the so-called "single vocation".

[Maggyie]

To be honest there are not a lot of people pursuing the single life as a vocation. the number of people who have "taken themselves off the market" for this reason is incredibly small. And if they have discerned correctly that they are not called to marriage, you wouldnt want them in the pool anyway.

I don't believe at all in a poisoned dating pool, if anything the marriage market has grown more efficient. If Mary Beth is honest with herself, most Catholic people she knows have found spouses in spite of the alleged poison. However as in all markets, people who over value or under value the goods, encounter difficulty.

From a statistical perspective the vast majority of people will marry at some point (approaching 90% for white women for instance) and in that roughly 10-15% who don't, there are many who are in priesthood/religious life, don't believe in the institution of marriage, or just never felt the desire to marry. Being religious, college educated and white are all advantages in the market. Being an atheist, poor, or minority are disadvantages.

If the dating pool was truly poisoned inefficiencies would be much greater. 

now you can make your marriage market much smaller by refusing to date outside your race, or outside your social/educational class. If you are older you must expand your search to include people who already have kids or who have been previously married (annulled that is).

but anyway my point is there is no vast problem with singles not interested in marriage. Given how large the current pool is, if you are encountering problems, the nature of the problem means it will probably not be resolved by making the dating pool a tiny bit bigger by warning people off the single vocation.

 

[BarbTherese]

Barb, I really don't think that your quotes support your position as clearly as you think they do. There's been a lot of debate among theologians on this point, whether the single life can be a vocation. Many don't think it can, and their just as familiar with the documents you're quoting as you are, if not more so! So your constant claim that you're merely "upholding what the Church teaches" (with the undertone that those who disagree with you disagree with the Church) is both misleading and uncharitable. 

It could be that you're right, and I'm not sure one way or the other personally. But either way, it's not a settled issue, and you shouldn't present it as such. 

​Thank you for the comments.  Your last paragraph would be valid if I were not convinced that The Church has settled the issue, if theologians have not.  Theologians down through the ages have argued and argued and do today and will continue to do so hopefully.  If you read the first few posts in this thread, you will read that I stated that there is much theological debate ongoing and unsettled and that I did not think that this thread would resolve anything if our theologians could not.  I think this is being proved correct.  Nevertheless, I tried to put forward my own thoughts that chaste celibacy in the Laity can indeed be a call from God and vocation and it remains my thinking -  in support I have quoted Vatican Documents.  Certainly, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on The Church) actually states "single people" alongside the married and widows as groups in the Laity.  And continually in many Documents, She is stating that the Laity is a vocation in which there are three groups: married, widows and single people.  This is just as there are groups in Holy Orders and in the Consecrated State.  The common bond in the Laity is baptism.

I do think that I have the right to hold my concepts forcefully and with conviction as I continue to do.  I don't see why at all theologians have the right to argue and disagree, hold their concepts with force and conviction and with quite some force, but not the faithful on certain matters.

I'll put this into the mix too:

Matthew 19:12
For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mother' s womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it. (comments alongside in Douay Rheims translation "[12] There are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs, for the kingdom of heaven: This text is not to be taken in the literal sense; but means, that there are such, who have taken a firm and commendable resolution of leading a single and chaste life, in order to serve God in a more perfect state than those who marry: as St. Paul clearly shews. 1 Cor. 7. 37, 38. "[38] Therefore, both he that giveth his virgin in marriage, doth well; and he that giveth her not, doth better. [39] A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband die, she is at liberty: let her marry to whom she will; only in the Lord. [40] But more blessed shall she be, if she so remain, according to my counsel; and I think that I also have the spirit of God.

 

Edited May 9, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

I think probably that all theological debate and even debates in general on the subject might all boil down to "What exactly IS a vocation? What criteria applies to qualify as vocation per se?"

Sunday and Mother's Day here and I'm being taken out to lunch and then tomorrow is a day of voluntary work.  I'm not abandoning the thread, just committed elsewhere.

[BarbTherese]

Maggie wrote:

It may be helpful to this discussion to realize that marriage as a specific  vocational call is a relatively recent understanding. A medieval peasant woman would not have considered herself "called" to marriage, she would have thought herself "not called" to religious life. The Church's understanding of God grows deeper all the time.

 

No theologian am I for sure. 

Very good point.  For generations only Holy Orders and Religious Life per se (not Consecrated Life and the various groups therein) were regarded as vocations.  Later, marriage arrived.  Certainly, in my pre VII Catholic education by nuns, we were told only priesthood or religious life were vocations.  They were "the king and queen" on the chessboard of life as it were.

My conviction is that the call to chaste celibacy in the Laity still struggles to be recognised as vocation - but only sometimes in some places.  Most all diocesan websites state that the single state is a potential vocation - besides other sound sources.

[BarbTherese]

Before I go, I'll re quote this into the mix also:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p4.htm#898

Catholic Catechism

898 "By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will. . . . It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and maybe to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer."⁴³¹

^-----------

The following was published after our last Code of Canon Law was made final.  In that Code, secular institutes were included.

  Fr. Hardon was a major contributor to the new Catholic Catechism post VII and is regarded as a major theologian of the 20/21st centuries :

http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Religious_Life/Religious_Life_033.htm

"There is a fourth category contemplated by the Holy See in anticipation of the new Code of Canon Law, so that something may be done for the thousands of women who seem not to want religious life yet seem to want to live especially dedicated lives in the Church. The secular institutes are a recent development of the Catholic Church. If there would be a fourth category, it would be some form of what we now call “secular institutes,” but the implications still have to be worked out."

Why it should only be women it seems, I do not know.  Perhaps women are by far in the majority sufficient to consider that it is a "movement in the faithful".

 

Edited May 10, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

Here is a document published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).   I found it a particularly sound and comprehensive explanation.

Page 19 Unit One Lesson 4 " "Vocation to The Single Life"

[PhuturePriest]

This is becoming uncharitable.

Thus meaning this thread is finally legitimate in the Debate Table. Good work.

Onward and forwards. Keep your minds closed and your mouths open.

Edited May 10, 2015 by PhuturePriest

[bardegaulois]

Barb, I accept your apology and ask your pardon if you have been offended. However, as much as there are matters here worth exploring, I'm going to bow out of this conversation. I'm sorry, but I just don't think you're willing to listen to what anyone else here is saying, and this conversation will sadly be fruitless in the end.

Good luck to you.

[Amppax]

Well Barb we're going to have to disagree about that. I think I misspoke in that second paragraph, so I apologize for that. I think I'm also going to bow out of this conversation. 

[PhuturePriest]

There's such civility.

If only Kujo were here to see what Phatmass has become.