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Comments Concerns Objections Dear Heather, Mother Superior misunderstands the point of allowing priests to marry. It is true the preferred state is being unmarried, as St. Paul asserts, but as the following three quotes from 1st Corinthians makes clear, there are reasons for marriage and approval has been given for priests to marry by authorized Scripture that no pope has the authority to change. The Bible (Sacred Scripture) has the full authority of God and can not be terminated or diminished nor may it change direction.
While I have no intention of getting married I believe that the hypocrisy of allowing so many Latin Rite bishops and priests to live in the married state in Africa and in Central and South America without being disciplined demonstrates the falseness of the celibacy rule. Mother Superior should also be aware that in the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church married priests are allowed. In my own diocese two former married Episcopalian priests with children have been ordained into the Church with the permission of the Vatican without giving up their wives or natural relations. Dear Father Trosch, Document received: February 2003 Father, Here is my perspective on the question of clerical marriage: The Greek text of the New Testament and the earliest Latin versions make it quite clear that the clergy have the right granted by God to marry (even after ordination) and to take their wives around with them:
'Are we not allowed to eat and drink? Are we not allowed to take a sister (=catholic woman, as opposed to a non-believer) around as a wife, as do the both the rest of the apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas? Or am I alone and Barnabas not allowed to do this? This passage was rendered by St Jerome in his (Latin) Vulgate, thus: numquid non habemus potestatem manducandi et bibendi numquid non habemus potestatem sororem mulierem circumducendi sicut et ceteri apostoli et fratres Domini et Cephas aut solus ego et Barnabas non habemus potestatem hoc operandi The Latin is a direct translation from the Greek. The English is therefore the same for both. That it is correctly understood that the above passages refer to the apostolic right of the clergy to marry is shown from the church fathers: Tertullian, oldest witness to this text, says in De exhortatione castitatis 8: Licebat apostolis nubere et uxores circumducere... 'It was permitted the apostles to marry and take their wives with them.' Clement of Alexandria, in his Paedogogos II,1,9, places the 'being accompanied by a wife', on the same basis as 'eating and drinking' (i.e. what we today call a NATURAL right). In his Stromateis III,6,52, he even thinks it possible to infer from Philippians 4:3 that Paul himself was married, but unaccompanied by a wife. He cites the above passage from Corinthians as an indication of this. Although we know St Paul was not married, St Clement's writing is useful, because it shows how in the second century it was understood by I Cor IX 5 that the apostles were married men who took their wives on their journeys from the Holy Land to evangelize the world. Eusebius of Caesarea in his Historia Ecclesiastica III,31,2-3 tells us that the apostle St Philip had three daughters, and in III,20,1-5 tells us that the grandsons of Judas Thaddeus were sent to Rome for martyrdom, but sent back when the judges saw their calloused hands. St Hilary of Poitiers refers to the above passage of Corinthians as evidence that the apostles were married in his Tractatus in Psalmos. A much later witness to the church's conviction that the apostles were married is found in Pope Leo IX in his letter to Abbot Niketas 1054, found in the Decretum Gratiani D.32c11 in which he admits that priests have the right to marry: 'Episcopus vel presbiter uxorem propriam a sua cura non abiciat...' (Let a bishop or priest not thrust away his own wife from his responsibility to her) in which he quotes the passage from Corinthians above as proof that the apostles were able to marry: Sic et sanctos apostolos legimus egisse, B. Paulo apostolo dicente: 'Numquid non habemus potestatem...' (Thus also we read the holy apostles to have done, since the Blessed apostle Paul says, 'Are we not permitted...'). Vide, insipiens, quia non dixit: numquid non habemus potestatem sororem mulierem 'amplectendi'? sed 'circumducendi'... (See, idiot, that he does not say: are we not permitted to have sex [amplectendi] with a catholic woman as a wife? but 'to go around with her' [circumducendi]. Thus, the evidence of Scripture and the infallible ordinary magisterium of the church is that the clergy certainly have an apostolic right to marry. Now, the preface to the New Code of Canon Law expressly states: Officium episcoporum cum potestatibus adnexis est iuris divini. (The office of bishop together with the powers attached to it are of divine right). Misrepresentation of scripture is a major, major issue. It shows the lack of good faith involved. If there were such a strong case in favour of compulsory priestly celibacy in Divine Revelation, why resort to deceit?? No amount of arguing that a certain thing might be 'appropriate' can prove that something else is thereby compulsorily prohibited. It is an illogical progression of argument. It is for God, not men, to decide what is appropriate for his priesthood. Since He permits clerical marriage, He expects that men obey His will and not obstruct it. To prohibit clerical celibacy amounts to human legislators playing God. Such an attitude is absolutely impermissible. God in His infinite wisdom saw that clerical marriage would benefit the vast majority of those He called to the priesthood, and He therefore saw fit to permit, not forbid it. So, when human legislators seek to make compulsory and universal by law that which God himself makes voluntary and particular by a special, individually granted grace, those legislators are daring to usurp the Divine Prerogative. Either way they do wrong: they end up excluding from the Latin Rite priesthood men God has undoubtedly called to it, but also to the sacrament of marriage, or they cause men who enter the priesthood to bear a burden which requires a grace which is absent in the case of the majority of the clergy. Further, if they are aware that they do wrong, they sin. How the Clementine Vulgate, with its scandalous alterations of 1598 could have been produced without at least its editors, if not the Pope himself, committing mortal sin, I do not know. Thankfully, it is not my task to know. But what about all the popes up to the present? Well, I think that the majority were probably not even aware of it, so were clean of conscience. It is interesting that the only pope canonized since Pius V, namely, St Pius X, in so far as he had to deal with the question of priestly celibacy at all decided in favour of clerical marriage (there was a crisis in the Eastern churches over it during his reign - many, many curial officials and latin-rite diocesan bishops were creating trouble for the Eastern churches over their married clergy, and trying to get the Pope to absolutely prohibit it. If fact, if I remember correctly, it was commonly believed in the latin church before that time that the married clergy of the east were sinners, whore mongers etc. The saintly pope ruled in favour of clerical marriage in the east, to the horror of many latin catholics. After he died, the curia tried to put about the idea that Pius X's permission for clerical marriage was a concession purely limited to his own reign, and now celibacy had to be enforced now that he had died... (I don't have the scholarly articles at hand to provide a reference for this particular episode, I think I've lost them. You'll just have to accept that I've written the above in good faith, actually having read the source material.) Lest anyone doubt my credentials, I am by no means a modernist. In fact I am a supporter of a traditionalist association of clergy, and my position on this point has caused me some painful differences with some of their priests and at least one of their bishops - but the truth is the truth. However, I'm glad to report that the concept of clerical marriage has its supporters among some traditionalists, including one of their formerly high-ranking members, a district superior and seminary rector (a professional philosopher by training). So, it's like Palm Sunday, when Our Lord said 'I say to you, if these shall hold their peace, the stones shall cry out.' St Luke XIX:40. The malice of Satan combined with (usually) the ignorance or (sometimes) the malice of men cannot stop the truth from asserting itself. It might be that, by the operation of Providence, tradionalists may restore the latin-rite priesthood to its full integrity - including the re-institution of clerical marriage - notwithstanding a high ranking member's earlier reservations about the practice. In fact, his opposition to clerical marriage eschewed most of the false practical arguments that are usually enumerated - he noted in his writings that he did not consider them viable arguments. He merely relied on the argument of 'fittingness' (disposed of above). An interesting point that has not been mentioned in this discussion so far: The Clementine version of the Vulgate (1592, named after Pope Clement VIII) changed the word order of the original Vulgate to read 'mulierem sororem' (a woman as a sister), rather than 'sororem mulierem' (a [christian] woman as a wife). This piece of dishonesty, hitherto the sort of thing only associated with heretics who mistranslated scripture because the original vulgate/ greek/ hebrew/ aramaic supported catholicism and not their errors, shows how aware the highest reaches of the catholic hierarchy really were that the secular clergy have the right to marry, and that the 'law' of celibacy is groundless and unfair. In view of all of the above, it can only be said with truth and justice that the 'triumph' of compulsory clerical celibacy in the latin church for the last 400 years is the result of a fundamental and radical failure in its spirituality. The current situation, whether the 'paedophile' (i.e., rather the homosexual) scandal, abuses of authority (both before and after the Council) - the most visible and notorious lately being the concoction of the rite of Paul VI and forcing it upon the Western Church, misbelief/ disbelief/ institutionalized immorality amongst clergy and laity alike, all trace their most profound causes back to the abusive neo-platonic spirituality which made compulsory celibacy a possibility in the late 16th/early 17th C and the punishment of God upon latin rite church by depriving it incrementally of grace as time passes as a result of hardened, persistent and institutionalized disobedience to God on the score of the so-called 'Counter-Reformation' with all its 'pomp and empty promises' i.e., the extent to which it represented an innovation, and victory of a spirit formerly associated with heretics (Albigensians, Cathars etc). Granting that the above represents the true state of canonical and theological affairs with regards to clerical marriage, how is it that there is so much opposition to it? The earliest opposition recorded not to clerical marriage per se, but to sexual activity between priests and their wives and deacons and their wives, appears to be contained in a decree from Pope (St) Siricius to Bishop Himericus of Tarragona in 385: '...Plurimos enim sacerdotes Christi atque levitas, post longa consecrationis suae tempora, tam de coniugiis propriis, quam etiam de turpi coitu sobolem didicimus procreasse et crimen suum hac praescriptione defendere, quia in Veteri Testamento sacerdotibus ac ministris generandi facultas legitur attributa...' [Enchiridion Symbolorum, Denzinger-Schoenmetzer, XXXVI ed, 185(89). It is worth noting that intellectual dishonesty raises its ugly head somewhat when the editors insert a heading over paragraph 185(89), DE CAELIBATU CLERICORUM ('On the celibacy of the clergy') when it is contextually obvious that the clergy were married. Why else would the pope refer to the women of the clergy concerned as 'coniugiis propriis' i.e., 'their own wives'? It is a scandal that a pope - and one who became a saint at that - could refer to the sexual act as 'filthy (obscene) coitus' - 'turpi coitu'. This is practically Manichean. No valid legislation - ecclesiastical or secular - could ever be predicated upon the assumption that the sexual act is filthy or obscene. However, this is probably due to the increasing influence of neo-Platonism upon churchmen at that time. A Jesuit, writing in 1973, refers to entire 'tradition' of such thought amongst catholics, and links its propagation in a much later era to the 'Ignatian' method of spirituality: 'Greek philosophy's systematic contempt for the body and the concomitant stressing of the ideal: liberation of the soul from the shackles and burdens of the flesh. This notion has dictated much Roman Catholic thinking about sex and marriage, and has helped build up certain inhibitions. It keeps appearing in Roman Catholic spiritual writers, even those of the highest eminence and irreproachable orthodoxy. Thus St Francis of Assisi urges mortifying the body in terms which betray their Greek provenance: 'beat brother ass into subjection'. St Ignatius of Loyola echoes a favourite neoplatonic expression when, in his meditation on sin, he describes the soul as "imprisoned in a corruptible body"'. It is no easy task for any man to educate himself to a serene, mature, balanced outlook on sex. Perhaps the constant drip of hellenization [sic] has made it still harder for Roman Catholics.' (Kenny, J.P., Roman Catholicism, Christianity and Anonymous Christianity - the Role of the Christian Today [Theology Today no. 44] Hales Corners Wis., 1973 p.59 quoted in 'The Banished Heart - Origins of Heteropraxis in the Catholic Church' Hull, G. Spes Nova League Sydney 1995 (2nd impression 1996)p.159. Likewise, the next legislation to deal with the topic at Lateran II in 1139 purported to declare clerical marriages, everywhere accepted as valid, henceforth 'void' with the purpose 'that the purity pleasing to God may be spread among those belonging to the church and those who are ordained' (ut lex continentiae et deo placens munditia in ecclesiasticis personis et sacris ordinibus dilatetur). Well, the reason for prohibiting clerical marriage, i.e., 'to spread purity', cannot validly ground any prohibition, as the sexual act cannot possibly render a validly married priest 'impure' and therefore 'polluted' and unfit to officiate at the altar. The 'law', therefore, is non-existent. Besides no-one, not even an Ecumenical Council or Pope, has the right, to dissolve valid marriages - even those of subdeacons, deacons, priests or bishops! Thankfully, the pre-reformation clergy were made of sterner stuff than their post-Tridentine and modern successors, and quite rightly refused to submit to this law. It is well known that clerical marriage was a common reality all over western Europe until the establishment of the seminary system after the Council of Trent, during which, the opponents of clerical marriage attempted to define, ex cathedra, a dogmatic statement that God would not refuse to grant the grace of chastity (in a celibate rather than marital setting), this giving little excuse to those clerics who wished to marry: all they had to do was to pray and God would give them the gift of chastity to enable them to be celibate. To wish to marry under such circumstances could only be the result of selfishness, or determined disobedience to ecclesiastical law. Unfortunately, the Holy Ghost did not see things that way, and caused the critical bit about 'God granting the gift' OUTSIDE the 'anathema sit', which denotes the limit of an infallible definition: Si quis dixerit, clericos in sacris ordinibus constitutos, vel regulares castitatem solemniter professos, posse matrimonium contrahere, contractumque validum esse, non obstante lege Ecclesiastic vel voto, et oppositum nil aliud esse, quam damnare matrimonium; posseque omnes contrahere matrimonium, qui non sentiunt se castitatis (etiamse non voverint) habere donum: anathema sit. Cum Deus id recte petentibus non deneget, 'nec patiatur, nos supra id, quod possimus, tentari.' The consequences of the Holy Ghost forcing the last sentence to be placed outside of the infallible definition are enormous: it did not happen for a reason, and that reason is that God will not just give the gift of chastity to any cleric who asks, just so that he can fulfil the requirement of the church 'law' of celibacy. In other words, the law of celibacy seeks to make compulsory in all latin rite clerics that which is only obtainable by God's free disposition - and He does not give that grace freely to all latin rite clerics, as the 'law' requires. So, the law is ultra vires, 'beyond the powers' of churchmen, in the same way that a secular law can be as regards a temporal legislature. Short of God giving a similar number of western clerics the gift of celibate chastity to those eastern clerics He gives the gift of a vocation to marriage, the only way the latin church could ensure a constant supply of celibate clergy in the west was to erect the seminary system, and take in aspirants into a monastic environment at twelve years of age, keep them separate from women, and do not inform them of the non-compulsory nature of clerical celibacy in the west...to do otherwise would result in a dearth of vocations to the priesthood, as by far the majority of men, even those summoned by God to the service of the Church, are called to marriage, and few fully realizing this would be willing to put themselves into a situation which requires a grace they do not in reality possess by joining an ecclesiastical seminary when they had enough experience of life to be sure of themselves. James McGregor please E-mail them to Father David Return to Original Document Includes Scripture based restrictions on marriage of clergy. to Undermine the Catholic Faith
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