CANON LAW CONTRADICTED INTERNALLY

OH THE PAINS OF VIOLATING GOD'S WILL COHERENTLY
Theologicus Interruptus

You didn't expect that the Canon Law of the Catholic Church should be an internally consistent document did you? Turns out that you need look no further than Canon 24 to see where it goes off track and stays there.

Can. 24 §1 stated "No custom which is contrary to divine law can acquire the force of law."

We know, however, that the mandatory celibacy rule and mandatory prohibition on marriage were first customs that did not exist for the first 1,000 years of church history after Christ- they were customs that find no origin in any rule imposed by Christ. Pope JPII admitted as much when stating definitively that celibacy is not central or the character of the priesthood. While Christ defines the spiritually superior in Matthew 25 terms, the church evolved to impose an understanding of holiness that suppressed all natural passion and heterosexual attraction. "Temptation" for all the priesthood was distortedly and perversely redefined to mean any heterosexual attraction. What God called good, indeed commanded take place, man called evil.

We know also that it is Divine Law that created Eve to be the only suitable helpmate for Adam, before there were even the ten commandments. Before there was Solomon's Temple,
before Sarah begat Isaac, before God parted the sea to deliver Moses and the Israelites from Egypt, before Jesus was born, before a 1st or a 2nd Covenant there was a pure innocent garden and man and wo-man, created to live together with the order to Be Fruitful and Multiply (the First Commandment).
That is Divine Law inscribed in the biology of parts that find their wholeness only when put together. Not only is mechanical hand- in- glove perfection achieved only through this union or making "one" but the entire emotional, hormonal balance reaches it's maximal health and all points toward the oneness, because real true love compels Total Union and a physical binding of heart, mind, body and soul. That Divine Law is so manifestly obvious and self evident from the physical creation that God didn't even have to explain it by giving Adam a book in the garden instructing him to do anything-no paint by numbers diagrams survive. It was all manifestly naturally obvious- as it still is. It is written in the human genetic code- more natural proof of God's will than any Canon code.

God never exempted any part of the priesthood from it's genetic code. He expected Jewish priests to marry and told them to marry Virgins.

When Custom took a detour from that, then Canon Law codified the detour, all Hell broke loose and Hell has kept the Church captive ever since in this area. The Canon contains the false premise that any clergy would be double minded or distracted if he were also in a marriage. This false premise is contrary to Divine Law-and as a matter of common sense is hogwash. It is directly refuted by scripture and three thousand years of the Jewish married priesthood. A few Protestant ministers would likely disagree as well (some of whom are serving God lightyears more productively and effectively than priests). The closest justification for it is found in Saint Paul's egocentric admonition that he wished everyone was single as he was. This, he is careful to state, is not the Lord talking through him in this egocentric admonition, but just his personal preference. A skinny man might wish that everyone like him was a vegetarian, that doesn't give the Church authority to ban all eating of meat upon excommunication.

There are cases or occasions where, due to the emotional disposition of a particular clergy, the only way that he would not be sexually sinning in thought or deed would be if he were actually married to one person. Not only a guard against fornication or impurity of heart and thought life, but the appendage of a wife would make such a person about a thousand percent more effective in ministerial duty. He wouldn't waste energy battling the demons of his temptation and he could put his wife to work. The bible could not be clearer in noting that Bishops and Deacons should be married to one person, with their children and households in order- because otherwise the temptation to run around and be emotional philanderers, emotional adulterers or worse, toying with and trifling with the hearts and minds of the people that they are supposed to serve, creating false hope and deceptive encouragement will undermine God's purposes. It will cause hurt and harm where God calls people to Love. Love contains within it respect. This sort of conduct is really joy-robbing. It insults the emotional intelligence of mature people.

God is Love (says John.) Thus to pervert the ability of any clergy to Love fully in mind, body and soul, really undermines their calling to fully and deeply know and love God.

This is an internal contradiction within the dogma and Canon of the Catholic Church.
It needs to be corrected. If it is not, absolutely no Unity between the larger Catholic Church and the Protestant world is realistically achievable, because Protestants view this aspect of Catholicism as worse than the practical hypocrisy and sometimes obscene perversions that it can generate, it is direct disobedience to God and his Divine Law. The church mocks itself by adhering to such a false view of sexuality.
God created man to express love physically not just platonically- platonic love is not the full measure of human love, it is just a fraction of it. Mary would not have loved God fully had she not given her entire body over to the Holy Spirit and then to house in her womb and birth Jesus. Her entire body was wrapped physically around the Lord, and her entire human being was given over to his nourishment and care. The Mary as model mother instructing us in how to love through an incarnation in human form a human life insists that we look at Love not merely as a platonic
bodyless spiritual thought or exercise of the heart alone, but through the humanness of our entire bodies. To do less is to love only in half measure. Love in the heart finds expression physically or it is not manifest in the manner Christ manifested himself and his sacrifice manifested itself in the earth.
Imagine if the Angel Gabriel said to Mary, you are blessed among women because you will cherish in your heart the notional love that has no expression in any physical expression. That's nice- Jesus would not have been manifest incarnationally- and there would be no one there to nurse upon. Jesus' love for humanity now manifesting itself in his feeding himself to the world came to him first as Mary fed herself to him in nursing him at her breast as an infant. Mary loved God/Jesus with her whole body and gave whatever he needed of her whole body to form him and feed him. She fed him through her very body. She gave him human life that he needed to survive through her body. Mary without a body is a nice idea. Mary with a body is the vehicle through which God comes to earth, the Theotokas, Mother of God who redeemed the world only through his blemishless human flesh dying the atoning death for us on the Cross. God demands that we love with our whole bodies, just as his mother did, just as he did. A non-corporeal love is a half-assed Love.
It's not half real.

Don't get me started on the Canons against trash-mouthing slander when no one gets trash-mouth slandered more than people with normal healthy heterosexual attraction anywhere near clergy....that's a book and a better mini-series than The Thornbirds.