All that Glitters Isn't Gold.

Not even Gold Plated Veneer.
And the Pope's move on Anglicans in the Church is not an Endorsement of a Married Clergy

I knew it was too good to be true. This Zenit article http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-27352 makes clear that the Pope will provide through the ordinate mechanism married Episcopalian/Anglican clergy means by which they can enter into the catholic priesthood. Anyone already in Seminary and married doesn't have to get a divorce (nice of him.) But ALL FUTURE SEMINARIANS of this new Anglican/Episcopalian fold have to enter CATHOLIC seminaries and be celibate. They have to fill the rosters of that new enormous 8-12 million dollar Dominican House extension somehow. And by the way, married Episcopalian/Anglican clergy already have this vehicle to enter the catholic priesthood.

It's not like the Pope is finally agreeing now that the state of married clergy is as holy as the celibate one- this "institutional discipline" which serves an estimated 30 percent latent repressed gay men who are responsible for over 2 Billion in damages for sodomistic sexual assault and other crimes against children , it's just that they are biting the bullet and allowing a few wives in to cover the bills for the temporary being, and anyone going forward has to be free of any conjugal attachment to women. Because that is holier than the emotional polygamous philandering tolerated now.

My take on it is that this is a whole lot less about getting it theologically right than about the bucks. After all, how many diocese can afford to go belly up without people wondering if it is as morally bankrupt as the coffers.

And a sad spectacle appeared on the evening news last night when coverage of the debate in DC City Counsel chambers regarding whether in the "same sex marriage" bills there should be allowed a referendum vote of all DC's citizens, Susan Gibbs, the PR Director of the Archdiocese launches into the speculation (paraphrased) 'What if gay people getting married want to rent our Halls? Can we be sued for discrimination if we don't let them?" As the mouthpiece of an organization that insists upon it's ENTIRE clergy living together in de facto committed same sex marriages under threat of defamation regarding their character and immediate termination from their jobs if they wake up to the hypocrisy and perversion of it, I thought to myself "at least someone wants to get married and call it what it is!"

They will probably find a way to build in a 'religious exemption' so religions can do their thing. The buildings are private, they can reserve the right to let whomever they want in or not. It wouldn't be any more discriminatory than kicking someone out of the Dominican House for wearing garments deemed too immodest (showing more arm than a habit) or being a "distraction" or having the unmitigated audacity of being female while praying- all of which they have done. (It's part of their Formation to beat up on anyone tempting them to be healthy heterosexuals-and they have no idea how sick this is.) They get away with TONS of completely ignorant institutional discrimination. I am sure they will find a way to buy another random exemption for gay weddings.

Oh, and those Presbyterians? They aren't even asking to be catholic so don't bother. That President of Princeton John Witherspoon would rather rot in a Scottish castle prison than side with Jacobians to make England Catholic again, and he did before being exiled to America.

POSTSCRIPT:
If you are wondering how this will all play out, you are not alone- see the America mag. editor's comments: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11963

Note that this entire issue has caused more than a bit of hostility with motives questioned as fiercely as implementing mechanisms and dissenting theologians like Hans Kung getting formally (what's news) castigated.
Some see it as the spirit of ecumenicism it appears and others see it rather as a kick in the pants to the doctrine of married clergy, viewed as more puristically what Jesus intended in appointing Peter, a clearly married man, as the head of his church- a doctrine embraced by all of Christendom outside the Roman rite. Byzantine, Eastern Orthodox, and all Protestant churches acknowledge this Petrine Fact: Peter was a Married Man- to a flesh and blood woman. While some in the Catholic world like to view those who hold this belief as anti-catholic, nothing could be further than the truth, because "catholic" means universal and the Roman Rite is in the minority in holding that only unmarried men qualify as Priests.