In light of the recent news from Miami I thought I would bring up why our priests are required to remain celibate.
Fr. Cutie was found to be 'with' a woman on a local beach. Photographers captured this on camera and from there rose the most recent scandal.
I started to read the 'opinions' of AOL readers listed below the article and it seriously made me feel sick. There was so many slams against the church mainly highlighting the 'ridiculousness' of celibacy. There were many erroneous claims and it got me thinking about how much the faithful actually knows about why our priests don't marry.
Here are a few points that may be helpful when talking to those who aren't aware of why:
1. The tradition in the Western or Latin-Rite Church has been for priests as well as bishops to take vows of celibacy, a rule that has been firmly in place since the early Middle Ages. (This is different then the Eastern rite where some priests are married. There are rules bound to this priesthood and marriage as well). www.catholicanswers.com
2. Some believe that celibacy is unbiblical, or even "unnatural." "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28); Paul commands that "each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (1 Cor. 7:2). It is even argued that celibacy somehow "causes," or at least correlates with higher incidence of, illicit sexual behavior or perversion. www.catholicanswer.com
- All of this is false. Although most people are at some point in their lives called to the married state, the vocation of celibacy is explicitly advocated—as well as practiced—by both Jesus and Paul. www.catholicanswers.com
-Celibacy is neither unnatural nor unbiblical. "Be fruitful and multiply" is not binding upon every individual; rather, it is a general precept for the human race. (This is not to be confused with the calling of married couples... they are to be fruitful and multiply. But that is for another post). Otherwise, every unmarried man and woman of marrying age would be in a state of sin by remaining single, and Jesus and Paul would be guilty of advocating sin as well as committing it. www.catholicanswers.com
3. The Catholic Church forbids no one to marry. If a priest decides to become a priest he does so with the voluntary notion that he will remain celibant. www.catholicanswers.com
4. Pope John Paul II spoke about priestly celibacy during a general audience in 1993. He spoke of the Scripture:
"I will make you Fishers of Men" (Mt 4:19, Mk 1:17, Lk 5:10)
It is followed by "they left everything and followed him". (Lk 5:11, Mt 4:20, Mk 1:18,20)
JP II writes "This did not only mean renouncing material possessions, such as "house" or "lands," but also being separated from loved ones: "brothers or sisters or mother or father or children," according to Matthew and Mark, and "wife or brothers or parents or children," according to Luke (18:29)."
5. The Second Vatican Council gave the reasons for this "inner consonance" of celibacy and the priesthood: "Through virginity, then, or celibacy observed for the kingdom of heaven, priests are consecrated to Christ by a new and exceptional reason. They adhere to him more easily with an undivided heart; they dedicate themselves more freely in him and through him to the service of God and men, and they more expeditiously minister to his kingdom and the work of heavenly regeneration, and thus they are apt to accept, in a broad sense, paternity in Christ." They "evoke the mysterious marriage established by Christ, and fully to be manifested in the future, in which the Church has Christ as her only spouse. They give, moreover, a living sign of the world to come, by a faith and charity already made present, in which the children of the resurrection neither marry nor take wives" (PO 16; cf. PDV 29, 50; CCC 1579).
6. These lofty, noble spiritual reasons can be summarized in the following essential point: a more complete adherence to Christ, loved and served with an undivided heart (cf. 1 Cor 7:32-33); greater availability to serve Christ's kingdom and to carry out their own tasks in the Church; the most exclusive choice of a spiritual fruitfulness (cf. 1 Cor 4:15); leading a life more like that definitive one in the world to come, and therefore, more exemplary for life here below. Above taken from Vatican-General Audience
It's important for Catholics to be able to explain why the Church asks its priests to be celibate. There are so many misconceptions, many which might be right in our own families. Let us continue to pray for priests and their celibacy as it is a great gift to God.
Showing posts with label Catechism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catechism. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Most influential person
I was about to check my email when an article caught my eye on aol.com. It reads:
Surprises Abound on Most Influential List
AOL
comments: 197
(April 27) - Who's the World's Most Influential Person? The answer is moot.
No, really. Time Magazine asked readers to vote online for the most influential person, and the winner was "moot" -- aka Christopher Poole. He's the founder of 4chan.org, an image-based bulletin board that averages 13 million page views a day and 5.6 million visitors a month. 4chan has spawned other wildly popular sites, such as Lolcats.
So, naturally I naively click on the site to check its content out and wouldn't you know the worlds most influential person has spearheaded a porn site.
How ridiculously sad. He is 21 years old and contributing to the destruction of our families. He has created a site that averages 13 MILLION page views a day. Husbands, sons, brothers, grandfathers and surely some women are all able to access pure filth because of the worlds most influential persons creation. And furthermore, if you didnt know about the site before, you will surely know now due to his new title.
My heart literally aches thinking that this is what we are dealing with. I guess that choosing an individual who has created a pornography site as the worlds most influential person definitely confirms where our society's priorities are.
What scares me the most is that pornography is literally at our fingertips. I was talking with a friend who provided this great visual. She said,
'I cant imagine what it would be like if every time I sat down at the computer it offered me chocolate. Chocolate is my favorite treat and Iets say I should never eat it. The thought of it being continually offered to me over and over is too much to comprehend. It is possible to think that every time your spouse or significant sits down to open his inbox he is probably being greeted with porn. At first he would say, No way and delete it. But time after time may lead to opening one. And another, etc.'
I like to think that porn is someone elses problem. But looking at our most influential person right now I can see that pornography is a community problem. The Catechism states that our political entities should be the ones in charge of monitoring and should prevent the production and distribution of pornography. So I started to think about where porn lurks in America.
First I thought about my time in Europe. I can remember being in Austria and there being awful porn pictures out in public. There are no laws concerning pornography there and pictures are everywhere. Talk about disgusting. But here in America the porn is sneaky. It literally lurks right in our laps when we are on the computer. It is quietly hidden in the programs of television. It use to exist only in the movie channels but now it sits right out in the open on prime time television. It sits on the shelves in our grocery stores on magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Slowly we are becoming desensitized to the overt porn lurking in our society.
How do we combat it?
What can we do to protect our loved ones?
Suggestions:
1. We have basic cable and will not buy movie channels.
2. We never buy magazines like Cosmo or Vogue.
3. We are conscious of lewd jokes and never respond to them in a positive manner.
4. We are conscious of the dangers of porn on the Internet and will take necessary measures to protect the family when our daughter is old enough to use the computer.
5. Prayer prayer and more prayer!
What do you do? How can we come together as a community and combat lewd and offensive material?
The catechism reads:
2354
Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.
Even more interesting:
2211
The political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially:
- the freedom to establish a family, have children, and bring them up in keeping with the family's own moral and religious convictions;
- the protection of the stability of the marriage bond and the institution of the family;
- the freedom to profess one's faith, to hand it on, and raise one's children in it, with the necessary means and institutions;
- the right to private property, to free enterprise, to obtain work and housing, and the right to emigrate;
- in keeping with the country's institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits;
- the protection of security and health, especially with respect to dangers like drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc.;
- the freedom to form associations with other families and so to have representation before civil authority.
We pray for an end to pornography. We pray that our loved ones eyes and hearts be protected. We pray that we are always catalysts of truth and promote the highest level of human dignity. Mary Mother Most Pure, Pray for us.
Surprises Abound on Most Influential List
AOL
comments: 197
(April 27) - Who's the World's Most Influential Person? The answer is moot.
No, really. Time Magazine asked readers to vote online for the most influential person, and the winner was "moot" -- aka Christopher Poole. He's the founder of 4chan.org, an image-based bulletin board that averages 13 million page views a day and 5.6 million visitors a month. 4chan has spawned other wildly popular sites, such as Lolcats.
So, naturally I naively click on the site to check its content out and wouldn't you know the worlds most influential person has spearheaded a porn site.
How ridiculously sad. He is 21 years old and contributing to the destruction of our families. He has created a site that averages 13 MILLION page views a day. Husbands, sons, brothers, grandfathers and surely some women are all able to access pure filth because of the worlds most influential persons creation. And furthermore, if you didnt know about the site before, you will surely know now due to his new title.
My heart literally aches thinking that this is what we are dealing with. I guess that choosing an individual who has created a pornography site as the worlds most influential person definitely confirms where our society's priorities are.
What scares me the most is that pornography is literally at our fingertips. I was talking with a friend who provided this great visual. She said,
'I cant imagine what it would be like if every time I sat down at the computer it offered me chocolate. Chocolate is my favorite treat and Iets say I should never eat it. The thought of it being continually offered to me over and over is too much to comprehend. It is possible to think that every time your spouse or significant sits down to open his inbox he is probably being greeted with porn. At first he would say, No way and delete it. But time after time may lead to opening one. And another, etc.'
I like to think that porn is someone elses problem. But looking at our most influential person right now I can see that pornography is a community problem. The Catechism states that our political entities should be the ones in charge of monitoring and should prevent the production and distribution of pornography. So I started to think about where porn lurks in America.
First I thought about my time in Europe. I can remember being in Austria and there being awful porn pictures out in public. There are no laws concerning pornography there and pictures are everywhere. Talk about disgusting. But here in America the porn is sneaky. It literally lurks right in our laps when we are on the computer. It is quietly hidden in the programs of television. It use to exist only in the movie channels but now it sits right out in the open on prime time television. It sits on the shelves in our grocery stores on magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Slowly we are becoming desensitized to the overt porn lurking in our society.
How do we combat it?
What can we do to protect our loved ones?
Suggestions:
1. We have basic cable and will not buy movie channels.
2. We never buy magazines like Cosmo or Vogue.
3. We are conscious of lewd jokes and never respond to them in a positive manner.
4. We are conscious of the dangers of porn on the Internet and will take necessary measures to protect the family when our daughter is old enough to use the computer.
5. Prayer prayer and more prayer!
What do you do? How can we come together as a community and combat lewd and offensive material?
The catechism reads:
2354
Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.
Even more interesting:
2211
The political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially:
- the freedom to establish a family, have children, and bring them up in keeping with the family's own moral and religious convictions;
- the protection of the stability of the marriage bond and the institution of the family;
- the freedom to profess one's faith, to hand it on, and raise one's children in it, with the necessary means and institutions;
- the right to private property, to free enterprise, to obtain work and housing, and the right to emigrate;
- in keeping with the country's institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits;
- the protection of security and health, especially with respect to dangers like drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc.;
- the freedom to form associations with other families and so to have representation before civil authority.
We pray for an end to pornography. We pray that our loved ones eyes and hearts be protected. We pray that we are always catalysts of truth and promote the highest level of human dignity. Mary Mother Most Pure, Pray for us.
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