PEACE ON EARTH

GOODWILL TOWARD ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BORN AND UNBORN

Saturday, October 24, 2009

It's Still A Man's World

Married Priests Model Biblical Honor

When one reads the qualifications for "Bishop" in the New Testament, one of the first qualifications out of the Box is that the person must be "married to one wife." Not a polygamous harem of church basement ladies, not none. ONE. Why? Because this models an essential character trait of honor. It speaks to loyalty, faithfulness, moral sexual integrity and respect for women. It means a Bishop cannot be a trifler with emotions, a dallier with hearts, an emotional con man snagging and snaring a bunch of women. He can't be pimped out for the Gospel.
He has one wife. He has a house in order. It is the first listed qualification. Top of the list of qualifications. Key-integral and essential to the proper functioning of a healthy church.

A person who does not know how to keep a wife in a marriage has little experience with the emotional needs of a woman or the demands of family. If a man has not dealt with family issues he does not have street cred on issues touching on families, which includes family planning and contraceptive issues as well as the abortion dialogue.
When you have an all male hierarchy it is too easy to ignore a woman's emotional or mental health and be disrespectful if not outright harmful. With all the new rules admitting congregations of Anglicans into the Catholic Fold with their married clergy what you rarely if ever hear concerning the married priesthood debate is "how do the women feel." In the Catholic world it is considered almost "holy" to persecute women who get too entangled emotionally with priests, or who create by the mere fact of their attractive existence a litigation threat according to those monitoring the abuse litigation. This causes a sort of spiritual cannibalism where people are getting paid to persecute other people in the fold for fear that the abuse will generate inevitable litigation.
Gayness in the priesthood is tolerated. Sex scandals with minors have completely bankrupted entire diocese in America, with Wilmington, Delaware being the latest, and over 2 Billion dollars paid to settle these disputes (which have involved things like people actually being so distraught at their abuse by their trusted clergy that they literally kill themselves).

God is Wise beyond our understanding. He gave us a pretty clear plan for his church. It involves a married clergy hierarchy.

It involves respect for women.
It is a-bloody-bout time that the Pope recognized that married clergy are in God's plan for his church.

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