I hope I don't unduly belabor the matter, and those who think I do can hit the delete button and rest assured I won't prolong it in future messages (absent some unexpected expression of demand). As Michael Newsom well explains, the rule of celibacy for Catholic priests is a rule of discipline that has never been universal in time or place for the Catholic Church, while the determination that priests must be male is doctrine grounded in tradition and scripture. The Church's teaching about Men and Women and the unique gifts that each brings to life is far more complex and nuanced than can be captured in the simple observation that all priests are male, although some unfortunately are quick to cite that as a nutshell description of the Church and its attitude toward women. Moreover, the reservation of priestly ordination to men primarily is a reflection of humility on the part of the Church, which observes that all of the apostles who stood at the beginning of the apostolic succession were male and that God has not revealed to the Church any basis for presuming on its own to depart from Christ's example. Again, the question of ordination, and its meaning for equality of the genders, raises matters of Catholic Church teaching and theology beyond what most of the members of list undoubtedly wish to explore on a list reserved to law and religion.
I also would add that, contrary to a suggestion made on this list, the dispensation for former Episcopal (and, for that matter, Lutheran) clergy who were married before conversion to Catholicism involved no bending of the rules as such because their situation was not comparable to other Catholic priests of the Latin Order and because their treatment is fully in accord with that for Catholic priests of the Eastern Rite. Catholic priests of the Latin Rite, which account for the vast majority of the Catholic priesthood, especially in the United States, knowingly take an oath of celibacy upon their ordination. By contrast, former Episcopal and Lutheran clergy who were married during their ordained lives in their prior denomination did not take such an oath. Thus expecting them to abandon their spouses in order to continue ordained ministry in full communion with Rome would be inappropriate and unfair. When they converted to the Catholic Church and sought to have their prior ordination renewed in a manner that the Catholic Church regards as genuinely in line with apostolic succession, the Church generously has accepted that those who were married cannot take the same oath of celibacy. However, former Episcopal and Lutheran clergy who were not married indeed are required to take that oath, and married Catholic priests whose spouses die before them are not permitted to remarry. In addition, this understanding for converting clergy is similar to that for priests of the Eastern Rite, that is, the Byzantine Catholic Church. The Eastern Rite is present primarily in that part of the world in which the Orthodox Church prevails, and thus Byzantine Catholics follow many of the same religious customs as the Orthodox Church. However, Eastern Rite Catholics have maintained communion with Rome and accept the Pope as head of the Church. Men who married before ordination may become priests in the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church (at least in those nations where the Latin Rite does not prevail), although men who were not married before ordination may not marry and those whose spouses precede them in death may not remarry. In the Eastern Rite, all bishops are selected from among the monks, who do take an oath of celibacy. Thus, throughout the world, in all rites and all circumstances, bishops in the Catholic Church are celibate and married only to God. Because celibacy is a disciplinary rule rather than a doctrine, the argument is made from time to time from certain quarters that it should be changed to accommodate to cultural trends or the difficulty in recruiting sufficient numbers of priests. The opposing argument is not only one of tradition but that, especially today, the powerful message of celibacy is a needed antidote to the sex-obsessed society in which we live. It also spares the Catholic Church the scandal that various denominations have experienced of divorce among the clergy, including notorious cases of serial divorces. Interestingly, polls of Catholic priests finds that the older generation are somewhat more likely to support a rollback of celibacy, while younger priests ordained during the papacy of John Paul II accept the discipline of celibacy as an integral part of their vocation. Greg Sisk -----Original Message----- From: Newsom Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 6:31 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Harm to Others as a Factor in Accommodation Doctrine Actually, there is a considerable difference between, for want of a better term, the squabbling and accommodation between Catholics and Anglicans and the permissible gender of priests. The differences are rooted both in Scripture and in the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. (This explanation, if necessary, will have to take place off list.) For what it is worth, in Orthodoxy (and in the first 1000 years or so of Catholicism) priests -- male priests, that is -- could be married. Although, as I best understand it, the rule was that the marriage had to take place before ordination. Put differently, no ordained priest could marry. Also, there was -- and is -- a rule in both Orthodoxy and Catholicism that bishops could not be married. Neither Church has ever formally accepted women priests, married or not. The rule in Western Christianity regarding married priests was, at first, a rule of discipline. Thus quite different than the rule against women priests. Pope John Paul II has sought, perhaps successfully (I leave the question to canon lawyers) to change the rule of discipline to a rule of doctrine (with, of course, the exception for married Anglican priests who become Catholics). _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
