Roman Catholic bishops propose opening priesthood to married deacons in the Amazon region

[New World Explorer]

ROME — Roman Catholic bishops from across the Amazon recommended Saturday to allow married deacons to become priests — a proposal intended to address a severe shortage in the region, but also one that breaks from centuries of church tradition.

The document by the Vatican gathering — which needs to be affirmed by Pope Francis — offers a significant shift in church views and could potentially signal a new strategy to modernize key tenets of Catholic tradition, such as priestly celibacy, as the church faces a worldwide decline in vocations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/roman-catholic-bishops-propose-opening-priesthood-to-married-deacons-in-the-amazon-region/2019/10/26/671b9ae2-f6a0-11e9-b2d2-1f37c9d82dbb_story.html

[Lee49]

Their waters are drying up! 👏👏👏

[carlos]

3 hours ago, New World Explorer said:

The document by the Vatican gathering — which needs to be affirmed by Pope Francis — offers a significant shift in church views and could potentially signal a new strategy to modernize key tenets of Catholic tradition, such as priestly celibacy, as the church faces a worldwide decline in vocations.

Actually, celibacy of priests is not a doctrine of the Catholic church. They know it's not wrong for priests to get married. It's rather an organizational rule that was adopted for certain reasons but can be changed or cancelled at any time.

 

A bit like the organizational rules we have for brothers at Bethel or travelling overseers. If a Bethelite gets married, in most cases he has to leave Bethel. Or if a CO has a baby, he can't go on serving as a CO. Those are just organizational rules made for practical reasons. It doesn't mean we are against marriage or parenthood, just that in those situations they are not practical. In fact there was a time when travelling overseers had children, but it simply was not practical.

 

On the other hand, it's meaningful that so few people want to be priests anymore.

[Bek]

2 hours ago, carlos said:

Actually, celibacy of priests is not a doctrine of the Catholic church. They know it's not wrong for priests to get married. It's rather an organizational rule that was adopted for certain reasons but can be changed or cancelled at any time.

Yes, that is correct. The rule was introduced in the 11th century for financial reasons. The church did not want the assets of their priests to go to their wives and children. So it came up with this greed-driven rule to keep the assets for itself. 

[JennyM]

8 hours ago, Bek said:

Yes, that is correct. The rule was introduced in the 11th century for financial reasons. The church did not want the assets of their priests to go to their wives and children. So it came up with this greed-driven rule to keep the assets for itself. 

I never thought about that before. poor priests.

11 hours ago, carlos said:

A bit like the organizational rules we have for brothers at Bethel or travelling overseers. If a Bethelite gets married, in most cases he has to leave Bethel. 

There are bethelites who married but stayed in Bethel.