Airing Dirty Family Laundry

Regnum Schmegnum

There is a "crisis" brewing in the Catholic church they say. Another one? It has again to do with the secretive sexual dalliances of an esteemed leader, and founder of an entire order who sired a daughter and was long believed to have sexual encounters with males. It was reported recently in the New York Times that this founder and leader indeed had a mistress, had a daughter while leading this order masquarading as a celibate. The Catholic world is spinning, canon laws mobilizing, and calls for the healing to begin as people try to make sense of this and recover from the deception and illusions.

Two scripture verses come to mind- I will leave it to you to find them.

Paul ripped up a congregation once in one of his letters for people calling themselves disciples or followers of the Apostles. He said basically--why are you calling yourselves Peter's disciples (Cephas' disciples) or John's disciples, etc... Did Peter or John die for you on the cross? Call yourselves Jesus' disciples.

This is a good lesson today- keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Jesus will manifest in a body when two or more are gathered in his name, in spite of the sins of the fathers- and there are many. Priests are just people in collars with more training and hopefully earnestness in seeking G0d. Jesus, however, is your salvation- not any religious order by itself.
Seek the Lord while he may be found. Who cares about a dodgy incontinent preacher too charismatic for his shirt who is dead already. Just take him off your litany of saints list and start praying to Jesus.

The second verse is 1 Timothy 4.
There is indeed something not biblical about any religious order forbidding marriage. Re-read Timothy 4. Forbidding marriage means making celibacy, regardless of the actual gifting of a person toward celibacy or not, mandatory. That is flatly anti-biblical and I would argue evil.
It is done as an institutional "discipline" or accommodation. The scriptural approach however is that some "choose" eunich-hood for the kingdom when so called--not that it is imposed by a castrating religious authority. However, all are more or less called to try to continue to preach and teach. So the gifting or calling by God to preaching and teaching and the gifting or calling by God to celibacy are not mutually co-existent definitionally. JPII made it clear that celibacy is not an essential qualification of the priesthood- were that so the entire byzantine rite and eastern orders would have no priests.
Thus, those who forbid marriage to clergy, even when they may have no such special gifting of celibacy by God, will frustrate them into sin. It is totally predictable. We now have more than enough empiricle evidence to support if not prove it and it is folly to ignore it.
This is why it is such an evil doctrine. It is not just biblical error- it is flatly evil. It's the devil's work.

This is why the entire Christian world, outside the Roman variety of Catholicism has long rejected it. This is why it only came into the Catholic church after centuries of allowing clergy to marry only after internal persecution by the church of itself and the wives of priests.

This doctrine needs to be modified. It subverts the purposes of God and tends some toward sin.

Note that it will not cause huge numbers of priests to all of a sudden want to marry if changed any more than legalizing homosexual marriage will all of a sudden cause heterosexuals to want to become gay to marry their same sex. There are huge numbers, probably by far the majority of priests who are indeed gifted by the Holy Spirit to a life of celibacy, contemplation, prayer and service. But there are others who are amazingly good preachers and teachers who can be wonderful priests and be married. One might argue that a world of wierdness in pastoral relations with women would be made much holier for some awkward priests if allowed to marry one of them.

A married monogamous priest is by far a more honorable truthful person than a wag- about run- around adulterous ac/dc filandering incontinent priest. A Presbyterian minister and a married teacher of Sunday school is a far more honorable truthful person than a wag-about run-around adulterous AC/DC filandering Priest.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. The author and finisher of your Faith. The Source of your Salvation. And do not be misled by false teachings or teachers and those who would forbid marriage.