Married Priests.... Is this the future?

[Sister Mary]

Dear Rev.


No, I do not see Priests getting married in the future because our new POPE Benedict is conversative. It just would not feel right after all these years having priests celibate.

God bless all.

Sister Mary

Edited May 15, 2005 by Sister Mary

[the_rev]

Should we apply political titles to our Pope. The only word that should be affiliated with B-16, is orthodoxy, orthodoxy to the faith.

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='the_rev' date='May 15 2005, 07:45 AM'] Married Priests.... Is this the future? [/quote]
No.

[Mrvoll]

I personally think that priests should be married. I myself is hoping to be a priest with the Diocese of Hamilton in Ontario.

If you were to look, before Vatican II there was a great number of priests and after there was hardly any.

Vatican II changed the church and they went to far.

[benedictaj]

I have no desire to be a priest and I don't see the need for women to be priest.
For married priests? No, they are married to the Church.

[Noel's angel]

Mrvoll, so what if after Vatican II there were less priests? Now we can be more sure that our priests are in it for the 'right reasons'. We have priests who are wholly devoted to the Church. It happened in the 5th Century in Ireland that when people heard about the Desert Fathers, most of the Irish population went to become nuns or monks. But many of them weren't in it for the right reasons. It offered women and slaves security, a place to stay, it offered people education, that's why so many were there, not because they really wanted to serve God in that way, but because of what it offered them. Yes, there are fewer priests, but would you rather have lots of married priests who also have their families to think about and possibly aren't meant for the priesthood, or a few who really thought about what they were being called to do and went even though they knew they couldn't have a family? Quality, not quantity

[Apotheoun]

There are a few things that need to be clarified about married clergy:

(1) The Church has never allowed a man who has received Sacred Orders to get married. If a man is unmarried when he is ordained he is required to remain celibate, and this practice is universally followed in both the East and the West.

(2) The Western Church in the past has ordained married men to the presbyterate and the diaconate, and the Eastern Churches continue to follow this practice in the present day. But it should be noted that although the Western Church has ordained married men in the past, the man ordained was required to abstain from any further sexual relations with his wife; and as a consequence of this requirement, the man's wife had to agree to his ordination. If she agreed she would then become a consecrated woman, and would live the rest of her life in a convent. This was the standard practice in the West during the first millennium.

(3) In both the Eastern and the Western Churches ordination (consecration) to the episcopate has been reserved to celibate males only.

Finally, I think it is important to point out that there is a shortage of clergy even in the Eastern Churches, which of course allow the ordination of married men, and so I don't believe that celibacy itself is the main cause of the lack of vocations in the Church at the present time. Instead, I believe that the shortage of vocations is related to the hedonistic materialism of Western culture, since the number of vocations in the newly evangelized regions of the Third World is rather high, and has continued to increase over the past 40 years.

[Cam42]

A great resource for this, in the West is [url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html"]Ordinatio Sacerdotalis[/url]
and
[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V2MINIS.HTM"]PRESBYTERORUM ORDINIS[/url].

God Bless