http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172300,00.html

The Roman Catholic church apparently allows married Episcopal priests to receive the sacrament of holy orders, so it would seem prudent, or practical, to open up a bit, let go of some old-fashioned Vatican control, and make celibacy optional. But then, when you're trying to control the latex industry and inseminate the third world under the auspicies of institutional chastity, I guess it doesn't matter that St. Peter was married.

Good topic, w.c., but for the Lounge? OK to move it to the theology and morality forum?

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FWIW, Episcopal priests don't receive Orders so much as have their ordination blessed, or accepted. They are allowed to transfer in because it's possible that Apostolic succession is alive and well in their tradition, and so their ordination is considered licit.

"They are allowed to transfer in because it's possible that Apostolic succession is alive and well in their tradition, and so their ordination is considered licit."


So . . . if the episcopate in the Episcopal Church is considered legitimate, why not extend Holy Communion to Episcopalians as they do the Orthodox?

I think first of all we need to ask, Why does it matter if priest are married, if they remain celibate? It's tradition now. Changing it would be just changing traditions, right?, one tradition being as good as the other.

Take a gander at Shame, Beauty, and the
Ambivalence of the Flesh. In it is expressed many off-topic things, but included is the idea of both the immanent nature of things and the transcendent. If we cling exclusively to one or the other we not only get out of balance but we miss half the story. If we believe in only the former we tend toward hedonism, if the latter then to asceticism.

I'm reminded of the life of St. Francis. He's best know for his denial of body and thus the saintliness that seem to naturally follow, but if you put his life as a whole into context you might see that there was a phase of utter earthly debauchery followed by an equally pendulum-swinging phase of asceticism, of worldly denial. We tend to call the latter "good" and denounce the former, and not always without some reason. But in doing so we deny the world and, although we may not understand why the world exists, it does exist and it is a HUGE part of our experience of life. To deny it, then, is perhaps to deny God and to court imbalance. That is why I think it's quite silly, even destructive, that priests be required to be celibate. (Surely it could be voluntary.)

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
[qb]
So . . . if the episcopate in the Episcopal Church is considered legitimate, why not extend Holy Communion to Episcopalians as they do the Orthodox? [/qb]

w.c., we had a big discussion on this earlier. The exclusion has to do with the Episcopalian Church not being in communion with Rome.

- Moving thread to theology and morality forum.

Just to note, here, that the RCC could have married priests tomorrow if they wanted to. This is an issue pertaining to Church practice rather moreso than any kind of moral, spiritual or theological doctrine. We had them for over a thousand years, after all, including most of Jesus' Apostles.

My own view is that we're dealing with two different calls, here -- one to celibacy, and another to ordained ministry. Some people feel called to the latter but not the former, present company included. Some the former but not the latter, and they join a religious community to become a nun or brother, or go through life as a single person. I think we'd have a healthier Church if we had married priests . . . and a lot more priests as well (including, here, the thousands who were ordained, but left to become married).

Will it happen in our lifetime?

Who knows!

Preserving the male, celibate clergy is the linchpin/addiction at the heart of institutional dysfunctionality in the Catholic Church, according to Michael Crosby, a very well-respected Franciscan. See this interview with Crosby to sample his thinking.