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• Friday, June 19, 2009

  Christie311

  “I think some of these demands are exceeding what human beings can really commit to.”

  And that is where grace comes in.

  I’m not sure what you mean by demands but these are grown men and women that freely choose to answer a call from God. They do not bond themselves to another man or woman so that they can be espoused to the Lord. Their entire life is for God’s people and their spiritual needs. I think it is beautiful!
  I love the way you express the relationship of a married couple and the purpose it serves. It reminds me very much of pope John Paul II. Some Catholics have a vocation to the priesthood or religious life which is just as powerful as the vocation to the married life. God’s grace is what makes this type of celibate life possible. Nothing else.
  Some of the happiest and beautiful people I know have taken a vow of celibicy and it’s because they are living out their vocation.
  There are healthy and unhealthy ways to handle your marraige as well as there are healthy and unhealthy ways to handle the priesthood. I don’t judge these priests nor am I surprised when I hear a story like the above. The same way I am not surprised or judgemental when I hear that marriage vows are broken or betrayed.
  There is such a beauty to the priesthood including all that surounds their celibacy. Do not feel sorry for them rather try to understand it more. Although stories like this happen consider that overall it is not the norm and doing away with celibacy is not the answer.

• Friday, June 19, 2009

  Grizzly Bear Mom

  Although Priests do not make vows to a woman, they do make voluntary ones to God and the church.  And Scripture tells us it is better not to make a vow, than to break one.   
      According to the Old and New Testaments, sex between unmarried partners is immoral regardless of whether one has taken vows or not.  God designed sex to give us marital joy, and asks us to hold it precious until we wed so we have physical joy in marriage, and escape heart break, sexually transmitted diseases, illegitimate children, increased divorce rates, etc. 
    Many laypeople are currently chaste because there is no appropriate mate for them.  But chastity doesn’t just happen.  You have to live in an intentionally chase way.     
      Whenever one notices inappropriate behavior one changes the behavior or leaves the relationship.  Evidently this was not the intention of Father Cutie or his girlfriend.  He should have asked to be released from his vows if it was not his intention to fulfill them.  Instead he set a bad example of a “Godly man” which gives God and his people a black eye.

• Tuesday, June 23, 2009

  TwelveLead

  The Catholic Church’s stance on clerical celibacy is the main reason I chose to leave this religion. I was raised in a Catholic household and have many family members who are priests, none of whom ever seemed happy to me. Even as a child, this didn’t seem right to me.  I agree with Rabbi Shmuley that celibacy is not a natural state of being. I see the Catholic Church’s insistence on celibacy as part of an overall repression of human sexuality. It has been my experience that people who see clerical celibacy as “beautiful” or “Godly” rarely have experienced mandatory celibacy, although I have met many who practice voluntary celibacy, because they see sex as something dirty or somehow against God.

  It was easy for the Catholic church to use this mentality to introduce celibacy during the Middle Ages, when clergy, who had been allowed to marry and even have mistresses, were leaving all their money to their families, instead of the church. Clerical celibacy was originally promoted for the bottom line, not because of its spiritual superiority.

  Furthermore, one of the most important tasks performed by Catholic clergy is the marital counseling of parishioners. I find it unrealistic to think that an entire group of clergymen are providing advice on a topic that not a single one of them has experienced. That’s not to say that one *must* have been married to offer counseling in this area (I’m sure there are some single professional marriage counselors), but it certainly helps. I remember thinking it was laughable, when I was receiving pre-marital counseling (at my parents’ request—we were not permitted to participate in formal Pre-Cana because my fiance was Jewish), that the priest was giving me advice about not going to bed angry and staying together in hard times. All good advice, but what did he know about it? He had entered the seminary at such a young age, I don’t think he ever even had a girlfriend.

  If celibacy were a reasonable requirement for Catholic clergy, I don’t think we’d see the high incidence of breaking vows that we do today. In fact, I don’t think the statistics on breaking vows has really changed all that much through the centuries; it’s just being reported more now, and more clergy feel free to come forward about it.  (I am referring here to priests and nuns who entertain consensual adult relationships—not pedophilia, which I don’t think is a result of imposed celibacy, more that the priesthood became a good hiding place for men with that proclivity.)

• Thursday, June 25, 2009

  Grizzly Bear Mom

  TwelveLead, although I am not Catholic, I know that most of that church’s requirements are based on God’s laws and have not been tried and found lacking.  They have been found difficult and left untried. 

  For example, were your families’ preists unhappy because they were required to be celibate or for some other reason?  If celibacy made them unhappy, why did they choose a profession that demanded it, and remain there? 

  And although I heard of one actual woman who thought sex was dirty, many people are chaste against their own will but in accordance with God’s requirements because there are no acceptable mates, not because they see sex as against God. 

  I don’t undertand how the Catholic Church cound have it easy to require married priests or those with mistresses to remain celeibate.  It seems to me that it would have been more difficult to insist people stop doing something pleasurable. 

  I’ve heard that the church wanted to inherit the priests’ money before, but where would priests who are required to take a vow of poverty have acquired any?  Their families of origin wouldn’t leave priests money to leave to the church.  If families wanted the church to have their money they would have donated it themselves.  Additionally prescribing the church’s insistence on priestly celibacy to greed is an unchristian motivation.  Are you sure it wasn’t because the church found wives and families to be an imposition to clergy performance?

  First you refer to today’s’ “high incidences of breaking vows” than you say there is little difference through the centuries.  If so, why is Father Cutie news?  You also said that clergy “just feel free to come forward about consensual adult relationships” today.  All sex outside of marriage violates Christian and most religions’ morals, not just that of Catholic clergy.       

  Additionally priests live with other priests, and have conflicts, like all humans do.  The only way they are dissimilar is that they don’t have sex and children.  The few priests I knew had prior romantic history. 

  You appear to have little knowledge about Catholicism and Christianity and hold a very low position of their principles.  I’m glad you chose to leave.

• Thursday, June 25, 2009

  JMK1959

  Rabbi, Why do you you persist in validating Christianity, it beliefs and practices? Explain? Do you think the New Testament is true? Historically accurate? Christian use of the Hebrew Bible always by the way through the Septuagint valid? Do you think that Jesus ever existed? Can you expain and support any of your contentions? I have you know that there is over 250 years of scholarship that defines christianity as something other than you orthodox christian understanding? Is this some professional courtesy or standard business practice? To be a Rabbi is to be an intellectual but you fail to understand or even read the scholarship. Christianity is fiction. The apostasy of Shabbatai Tzvi is that far away?

• Friday, June 26, 2009

  Christie311

  JMK1959 -

  I am taking it as if he is presenting what Christianity teaches not that he necessarily agrees with it all but it’s that he understands why they believe what they do, even if he doesn’t agree - he knows why. That is just how I take it anyway I could be misunderstanding

• Friday, June 26, 2009

  JMK1959

  Christie311

  ...to agree that Jesus existed as a historical personality despite zero evidence and thousands of examples and explanations otherwise of the complete fictional basis for the history is complete stupidity and ignorance. Where does this Rabbi know from Jesus, what rumor mill, what piece of proven fiction does this Rabbi cite? ...Rambam well then prove how Rambam knows? This Rabbi’ understanding is incestuous and based upon nothing but following the crowd of sheep to the slaughter.

• Friday, June 26, 2009

  Christie311

  JMK1959

  Maybe I am misunderstanding then. I was seeing it as Rabbi knows that Christian’s believe in Jesus and such but I didn’t see him saying that he himself did. He just said he respected them and even called himself an outsider. I didnt’ see agreement anywhere. I don’t want to speak for Rabbi that was just my perception!

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