djohnson@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( DOUG JOHNSON - GEOGRAPHY ) (08/26/89)
It has been written: > >The Church has decreed that its priests are indeed morally superior to >the common man, and are capable of such self control that they are >expected to maintain the unnatural state of forced celibacy for the rest >of their chuch careers. > Could someone in-the-know clarify this. Do RC priests vow to be celibate (i.e., not to marry) or do they vow to be chaste (i.e., refrain from intercourse). Or is it all or the above? (I sure hope I've got my i.e.,'s right on this one (:-). DJ
tony@yunexus.UUCP (Tony Wallis) (08/26/89)
djohnson@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( DOUG JOHNSON - GEOGRAPHY ) posted : | [.. about celibacy for the Roman Catholic priesthood ..] | Could someone in-the-know clarify this. | Do RC priests vow to be celibate (i.e., not to marry) or do | they vow to be chaste (i.e., refrain from intercourse) ? Since for orthodox Christians, intercourse outside marriage is forbidden, a vow not to marry implies a vow to abstain from (heterosexual) intercourse. (Homosexuality is forbidden anyway.) According to doctrine, the celibate (unmarried) priesthood is not primarily a simple sexual-activity issue, but follows from a complex of concerns including contentious (outside the Roman church, anyway) interpretations of scripture. There have been and are married RC priests. Typically they were married and ordained in a non-Roman church whose episcopal (bishops) apostolic succession is "recognised" as "valid" by Rome - e.g. the Anglican Communion* - before they converted to Rome. (*The consecration of a female bishop (gasp!) in the US undermines this.) Disclaimer : I am an Anglican, I might not have it totally correct. A reminder : Catholic should not imply Roman Catholic. Personal note : If you think the Catholic (RC, Anglican, ..) and other (fundamentalist, conservative, ..) churches screwed-up approach to sexuality is keeping Jesus-loving people away from their doors, I agree with you. -- Tony Wallis tony@yunexus.UUCP (York U. Toronto Canada)
clewis@eci386.UUCP (08/29/89)
In article <3424@yunexus.UUCP> tony@yunexus.UUCP (Tony Wallis) writes: >... There have been and are married RC priests. Celibacy is a (relatively!) recent requirement in the RC church. During the middle ages even the popes were married (um, er, well, perhaps "married" isn't the right word for the carryings on...) >A reminder : Catholic should not imply Roman Catholic. True. >Personal note : If you think the Catholic (RC, Anglican, ..) and other >(fundamentalist, conservative, ..) churches screwed-up approach to >sexuality is keeping Jesus-loving people away from their doors, I agree >with you. In some senses, "Anglican" (I'm obstensibly one) is "More Catholic than the Roman Catholics", for the ritual (communion etc.) is *just* as strong, if not more so in some cases. Even so, I'd very much hesitate to include Anglican in the above list of "screwed-up" simply because in some sense they're "Catholic" (per your definition). In spite of the ritual, the Anglican church is *far* more tolerant than some of the RC dogma. Not quite so much "permissive", as much as being realistic and human-oriented (not quite "humanistic"). For example, ordination of women has been going on for quite some time. Birth control is okay. You should meet the minister that married us! (He has been known to moon-light in beer commercials!) In constrast, official RC dogma includes such things as: marriage is only for procreation - AND [believe it or not] where one partner is unable to perform their role in procreation, they *cannot* be married in the RC Church. I'd have a tendancy to add "centralized *strong* authority figure" to your definition of Catholic. Nor would I consider Anglican to be fundamentalist (or even particularly conservative for that matter). Sort of a capsule synopsis of my impression of the Anglican Church - strong on the basic beliefs, strong on ritual, strong on caring for others, no emphasis on literal bible interpretation... They tell good jokes too. -- Chris Lewis, R.H. Lathwell & Associates: Elegant Communications Inc. UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis Phone: (416)-595-5425