mjpb - "...I agree with Veronika to a point that continence is the theologically important thing."

But you can't dismiss out of hand the historical facts of Church policy on continence or celibacy. It's not a theological issue at all - it's a governance and organisational issue. This is a man-made rule which God would probably find very strange.

As for your practical spin on the issue, I'm afraid Fractelle has got you by the short and curlies. Am I to be denied the joy of sex and having children because my partner is often required to attend emergencies of his profession?

Really funny how those who hate the catholic church so much want to tell the Vatican how to run the show. I suspect we have more child molesters among doctors, nurses, teachers and sports coaches than among Catholic Priests. The Catholic Priests obviously get 20 times the coverage of others (thanks to our 'unbiased media). They are also expected to pay compensation when the other deviants don't.

The fact is that Priests know what they are signing up for and do it willfully. If they don't agree they can join the Anglicans or not join at all.

People outside of the Catholic church telling them how they should run the show is pure arrogance. I disagree with some major things in the Catholic church. I left, end of story. Why should they listen to me or you?

Fractelle,

You are correct that I didn’t think about it a lot. Small town doctors have the dubious distinction of potentially also being continually on call but as a Christian serving Christian spiritual needs has a special importance to me. Hence from a clearly different perspective I consider that worthy of consideration.

Spikey,

”But you can't dismiss out of hand the historical facts of Church policy on continence or celibacy. It's not a theological issue at all ...”

Celibacy is certainly a man-made rule. Sexual continence's history is less clear. The history will probably emerge slowly as, since the swinging sixties, most people have considered any type of sexual continence absurd and few historians will probably take the ball.

19th Century historical research looking at sexual continence in the Church ceased when the writings of an early historian Socrates were discovered. In consequence subsequent research took the perspective of celibate versus married with early married clergy assumed to have sex until continence was established developing during the 4th Century.

Socrates established that continence was not universally an issue as late as 325 at the Council of Nicea. He recorded the actions of Paphnutius who he described as a Bishop of Upper Thebes. Other Bishops at the Council of Nicea wanted to introduce a law that consecrated men were forbidden to have sex with the wives they married prior to their conversion. Paphnutius spoke up. He argued that it was unreasonable, undesirable, would tempt cleric’s spouses to be unfaithful and that tradition (presumably from Paul) only forbids subsequent marriage.

Noone was looking for earlier continence because historians all knew that it was not required as late as the Council of Nicea. The Council of Nicea had been a useful landmark because unlike the Council of Elvira it was the first Ecumenical Council and thus applied to the whole Church.

The Paphnutius story was established to be a fraud only in 1968 by Winkelmann. Historians like Cochini and Heid are now re-exploring the issue of early continence. But as I said I expect slow progress.

runner,

"Really funny how those who hate the catholic church so much want to tell the Vatican how to run the show."

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't hate the Church, just the deviant practice that sometimes happens.

"I suspect we have more child molesters among doctors, nurses, teachers and sports coaches than among Catholic Priests."

Probably true.

"The Catholic Priests obviously get 20 times the coverage of others (thanks to our 'unbiased media). They are also expected to pay compensation when the other deviants don't."

That's because the Church, at an institutional level, has always acted so piously. The level of criticism of it will be in proportion to how good they make themselves look. As for compensation, IMO they can start paying back what they've fleeced off the rest of society by getting into bed with authorities over the centuries.

"People outside of the Catholic church telling them how they should run the show is pure arrogance."

It depends on the reason why. If you're trying to straighten out a warped view of the world, I reckon it's quite reasonable and fair to put a contrary view.

"Why should they listen to me or you?"

Of course, they normally just ignore it. But if enough people start saying it, they won't be able to just sweep the problem under the carpet.

Hi Foxy,

Absolutely! I know, as friends, at least two Church of England ministers, two guys whom attended Moore College but act only in a lait capacity and one Seventh Day Adventice pastor. All these fathers, in a secular sense, are married, have wives and great families. All are well adjusted and seemingly handle the their religious activities very capably.

On Larry King, in the US, I saw a segment, where Larry asked a Catholic Church historian about this matter. His reply was there were times that priests wre allowed to marry and that at some time in the future it might be again allowed. The priest historian said he believed the real reason was that with families would come dynasties within the Church. Something the Church would be trying to avoid.

Should married women be priests or bishops. Again, yes.

Albeit, I am not committed to religion for hisorical and scientific reasons, if churches are to exist and present their ethical and moral side; then I feel it is the individual clergy member's choice, not that of their Church and Vocation.

If memory serves, vestal virgins could retire and later have sex in marriage. Likewise, some first century groups [Essenes?] treated abstance like Lent. They were times were they could have relief with sacred prostitutes outside of marriage.

Sin in "thought" was a real problem in the early Centuries CE, in some groups because of the presence of erotic dreams [Mack]. Hard to escape that one.

I've just recently went out and bought a
copy of the book by Paul Collins, "Believers:
Does Australian Catholicism Have a Future."
I read a review of it in Saturday's,The Age,
19th July 2008.

Paul Collins is described as one of Australia's
most controversial and respected commentators
on the Catholic Church. A graduate of Harvard
Divinity School and the Australian National
University, he is a former priest and a historian
and broadcaster.

Collins tells us that "... the Catholic church can be
an extraordinarily frustrating institution.
Many of its problems are completely self-inflicted.

For instance, while there is overwhelming evidence in
Australia and elsewhere of a desperate shortage of
priestly pastoral leadership in parishes and other
ministries, a shortage that in Latin America is
leading to the defection of literally millions of
Catholics to fundamentalist Protestanism, church
authorities still hang onto the requirements of
celibacy as a precondition for ordination."

This requirement Collins emphasizes was imposed on
the clergy of the western church in the 11th century for
reasons that make absolutely no sense today.

Collins explains that, "Even then it had nothing to do with
improving the spiritual or moral life of priests.
Celibacy was used in the 11th century as a way of maintaining
a primitive form of ritual purity, and of preventing the
alienation of church property by laity and stopping
priest-fathers from passing on their parishes to their
priest-sons.

Nowadays the requirement of celibacy is seen for what it is:
a requirement of church law that could be changed today."

What is interesting is that despite the massive shortage of
priests and the fact that a large majority of the
Australian bishops would ordain properly trained married men
immediately. Collins says that they are stopped by popes and Roman authorities who solidly refuse to face up to the problem
of the shortage of clergy.

That's not logical.