“The time has come to abolish the requirement of celibacy,” he told the newspaper, saying that it is a “symbol no longer understood by society.”
His Excellency should be reminded that the Church and all her members through various ways and vocations, including celibate priests, are to be signs of contradiction in this world. "And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it."
Reminds me of certain activists in England who were calling for the age of consent to be abolished or drastically lowered. That should eliminate paedophilia.....
Never let a crisis go to waste...use it to your advantage to advance your agenda.
I see in all these negative situations the idea of "der Wille zur Macht" (Nietzsche's Will to Power), rather than the idea of service to all. It's a sign, I guess of our fallen condition. Now, more than ever, we need to focus on our dependency to the Lord, and to trust in His ways.
The comment I typed up before reading the article:
Forgive me if I'm being facetious here, but isn't this EXACTLY what has happened with Der Synodale Weg? A legitimate wrong in the Church is being used as justification to push the Church to institute heterodox wishes upon the Church?
Within the article:
"The distance of the German synodal way has put between its conclusions and the sexual abuse crisis there is now as great as the gap between its process and true synodality. In place of both, the country’s Catholic leaders have taken to offering a more sweeping vision for ecclesiastical reform, one which embraces a new sacramental theology, a new sexual morality, and a new, explicitly democratic and decentralized approach to Church governance. "
And the result is the largest drop in membership the Catholic Church in Germany has experienced since they instituted the church tax. If it's no longer the Catholic Church why give it money?
Could a more plausible explanation for Pope Francis not reining in those that would change doctrine or discipline be that he wants those positions to be defeated via the synod rather than himself? If he acts visibly heavy-handed against "progressive" views before the synod and then they don't prevail, then those positions continue to be seen as legitimately open questions that can't ever get a fair consideration.
It's interesting that Bishop Gmur believes that a married clergy is the answer to the sex abuse crisis, since a vast majority are homosexual in nature. Progressives are calling for a lowering of the age of consent, and tell us how beneficial these relationships are to children.
I guess when he says we have to change the Catholic view of sexual morality, the more things we allow, the homosexual lifestyle, promiscuity, pedophilia, open marriages, pornography, the more we dismantle marriage and the family, the very bedrock of any flourishing civilization.
There's also always this implication that seems to come with it that these guys acted out because they were basically tortured without sex. As if some woman needs to step up to the plate and be a sexual outlet for these poor guys because otherwise they'll harm children. All the while saying that women need to be priests because they're effectively powerless in the Church.
I'm sorry but you don't get to talk about women being powerless when you're also promoting something that effectively makes us into sacrificial lambs for a man's sexual appetite, to say nothing of how grossly offensive that should be to men in regards to their sex drives.
Bishop Gmur obviously has not checked out the Church of England which has allowed married clergy for centuries and is still plagued with abusers and adulterers. You get married vicars who fancy other ladies and you get bishops, like Peter Ball, who are not the marrying kind.
The sexual ethics of the Church are based on the ethics of love. The practice of genital and sexual relations not in agreement with these ethics are not based in love (please, leave sentimentality out of sexual ethics). The practice of the clergy using other persons for sexual gratification, especially those persons who are "vulnerable" to the power of said clergy, is the opposite of loving others (i.e., evil). Using evil practices to justify changing sexual ethics is bizarre.
I have noticed that women already have been subordinated to disordered men (Pavone; Rupnik; I forget who it was in Ohio; etc) and the Church doesn't seem to know what to do about that since they were not at the time minors.
"But as bishops and other Church figures continue to call for major doctrinal and disciplinary changes in response to clerical sexual abuse, there remains no demonstrated link to the problems they would purport to address."
That's because relaxing rules to allow priests to marry and ordaining women priests - which are two entirely different matters by the way - don't address the primary issue, which is homosexual behavior in the clergy. Gay clergy are as unlikely to marry in the Roman Catholic Church as they are to a marry a woman. Offering ordination to women does little or nothing to stem the tide, if the Anglican Church is any barometer. The Anglicans now have a worse clergy shortage that does the Roman Catholic Church. And, look at the Anglican Church itself...it is in absolute and utter tatters doctrinally and in numbers.
I realize this is not a PC statement, but gay clergy who target boys are the clearly the main problem. Or, at least 90% of the problem of an on-going sex abuse problem that has cost the Church billions of dollars and worse, untold defections of good and holy people from the flock of Christ.
Not to mention the problem of the hierarchy refusing to deal with the problem of sexual abuse by those under them unless and until it makes the news. Thank you so much for all you do, Pillar.
I think it might be worth adding the information that there were 510 ordinations in the Church of England in 2021 (380 in 2022, but that is because of the impact of the pandemic). To compare, there were 21 Roman Catholic ordinations in 2021. I don't know the statistics on numbers of churchgoers in each denomination, but from personal experience, I'd say that Anglicans could optimistically assume to have twice the number of attendees as Catholics. There certainly are issues with shortages of clergy among the Anglicans, but that is actually through a lack of job security, rather than a lack of vocations: due to constraints on finances, there is less money for clergy than would be needed to pay for all the priests the church wants. In the UK, the RCs have a far worse shortage than the Anglicans.
Though the Church of England is struggling just as much as the Catholics to retain congregations, there is no serious issue with ordinations. The target at the moment is to increase ordinations to 630 a year, mainly by opening up the coffers to pay for more curacies and first incumbencies.
As for the issue with congregations, the guard is changing in the CofE. There is a mini-boom in Anglo-Catholicism, while Anglican Evangelicals are also thriving - yet at the same time numbers of churchgoers are dropping off a cliff. How so? The main difficulty is that the parish system is catering to a way of life that no longer exists apart from among the elderly - that of the village community centred around the local church, where the assumption is that everyone turns up on Sundays. As long as the majority of the Anglican Church is serving those older demographics, it is unsurprising to find that 'Anglicans are getting older' and 'churchgoing in steep decline', as newspaper headlines proclaim.
The Anglicans don't actually lend themselves very well to a case study of why a celibate, male priesthood should be maintained. There are very good reasons to maintain it, but the 'disaster' that is the Anglican Church isn't one of them. The Church of England is a muddle, a strangely mutated limb of the Catholic Church that was cut off by an unpleasant monarch in the 16th C, but still works reasonably well.
And the lack of handling of the Legion of Christ’s founder’s scandal, too. No one in leadership held accountable. Good thing our Mother the Church has gone through lots of stuff or I’d be really angry or despairing. Ora et Labora. Mother Mary, please keep cleaning out the muck.
"Francis has also listened without response as senior prelates like Cardinal Robert McElroy have insisted that settled doctrinal matters, like the ordination of women, are up for debate at the synod."
Francis has promoted prelates like Cardinal Bishop Robert McElroy in contravention of normal practice, without explanation, while said Bishop was saying those things to which Francis has listened without answer.
Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you; consider how their lives ended, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching.
They covered up sex abuse and moved abusers around, and most (70%+) of the victims were male. Yeah, marriage to a woman is definitely the solution.
I read the PA grand jury report and found three separate groups of priests who shared victims (all male victims, of course). Those are Epstein levels of corruption by people who were merely sick perverts and not in any way billionaires. The gaslighting gets old, but one sees why they don't want to be honest about the real issues which run very deep.
“The time has come to abolish the requirement of celibacy,” he told the newspaper, saying that it is a “symbol no longer understood by society.”
His Excellency should be reminded that the Church and all her members through various ways and vocations, including celibate priests, are to be signs of contradiction in this world. "And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it."
Yeah, I guess one way to eliminate sexual misconduct and sexual abuse is to stop calling it abuse or misconduct. That'll work well.
Reminds me of certain activists in England who were calling for the age of consent to be abolished or drastically lowered. That should eliminate paedophilia.....
Never let a crisis go to waste...use it to your advantage to advance your agenda.
I see in all these negative situations the idea of "der Wille zur Macht" (Nietzsche's Will to Power), rather than the idea of service to all. It's a sign, I guess of our fallen condition. Now, more than ever, we need to focus on our dependency to the Lord, and to trust in His ways.
The comment I typed up before reading the article:
Forgive me if I'm being facetious here, but isn't this EXACTLY what has happened with Der Synodale Weg? A legitimate wrong in the Church is being used as justification to push the Church to institute heterodox wishes upon the Church?
Within the article:
"The distance of the German synodal way has put between its conclusions and the sexual abuse crisis there is now as great as the gap between its process and true synodality. In place of both, the country’s Catholic leaders have taken to offering a more sweeping vision for ecclesiastical reform, one which embraces a new sacramental theology, a new sexual morality, and a new, explicitly democratic and decentralized approach to Church governance. "
And there it is. Le sigh. How long Lord?
And the result is the largest drop in membership the Catholic Church in Germany has experienced since they instituted the church tax. If it's no longer the Catholic Church why give it money?
“I am at odds [with the Vatican] here because we are embedded in the universal Church, which has its rules that we also have to adhere to,” he said.
So, when should we be expecting an apostolic visitation?
Bueller?...Bueller?...Bueller?...(no answer)
Could a more plausible explanation for Pope Francis not reining in those that would change doctrine or discipline be that he wants those positions to be defeated via the synod rather than himself? If he acts visibly heavy-handed against "progressive" views before the synod and then they don't prevail, then those positions continue to be seen as legitimately open questions that can't ever get a fair consideration.
A fair, Jesuitical point.
It's interesting that Bishop Gmur believes that a married clergy is the answer to the sex abuse crisis, since a vast majority are homosexual in nature. Progressives are calling for a lowering of the age of consent, and tell us how beneficial these relationships are to children.
I guess when he says we have to change the Catholic view of sexual morality, the more things we allow, the homosexual lifestyle, promiscuity, pedophilia, open marriages, pornography, the more we dismantle marriage and the family, the very bedrock of any flourishing civilization.
There's also always this implication that seems to come with it that these guys acted out because they were basically tortured without sex. As if some woman needs to step up to the plate and be a sexual outlet for these poor guys because otherwise they'll harm children. All the while saying that women need to be priests because they're effectively powerless in the Church.
I'm sorry but you don't get to talk about women being powerless when you're also promoting something that effectively makes us into sacrificial lambs for a man's sexual appetite, to say nothing of how grossly offensive that should be to men in regards to their sex drives.
Exactly! These bishops want women to marry men with disordered sexual appetites. Grrrr!
Excellent point Theresa. I make a similar point you do a little later in the comments section.
Bishop Gmur obviously has not checked out the Church of England which has allowed married clergy for centuries and is still plagued with abusers and adulterers. You get married vicars who fancy other ladies and you get bishops, like Peter Ball, who are not the marrying kind.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bishop-who-convinced-men-strip-894662
The sexual ethics of the Church are based on the ethics of love. The practice of genital and sexual relations not in agreement with these ethics are not based in love (please, leave sentimentality out of sexual ethics). The practice of the clergy using other persons for sexual gratification, especially those persons who are "vulnerable" to the power of said clergy, is the opposite of loving others (i.e., evil). Using evil practices to justify changing sexual ethics is bizarre.
And so popular in our culture and lately our Church.
> "The subordination of women in the Catholic Church is incomprehensible to me."
Something is incomprehensible (which we have discussed on other articles), certainly, but I'm not sure subordination is the precise word for it.
I will ask St. Maria Goretti and St. Rita of Cascia to pray for him.
Yet he wants to subordinate women to disordered men.
I have noticed that women already have been subordinated to disordered men (Pavone; Rupnik; I forget who it was in Ohio; etc) and the Church doesn't seem to know what to do about that since they were not at the time minors.
It's a tough one. These men are experts at identifying needy women.
Yet these women are adults so they bear some responsibility.
"But as bishops and other Church figures continue to call for major doctrinal and disciplinary changes in response to clerical sexual abuse, there remains no demonstrated link to the problems they would purport to address."
That's because relaxing rules to allow priests to marry and ordaining women priests - which are two entirely different matters by the way - don't address the primary issue, which is homosexual behavior in the clergy. Gay clergy are as unlikely to marry in the Roman Catholic Church as they are to a marry a woman. Offering ordination to women does little or nothing to stem the tide, if the Anglican Church is any barometer. The Anglicans now have a worse clergy shortage that does the Roman Catholic Church. And, look at the Anglican Church itself...it is in absolute and utter tatters doctrinally and in numbers.
I realize this is not a PC statement, but gay clergy who target boys are the clearly the main problem. Or, at least 90% of the problem of an on-going sex abuse problem that has cost the Church billions of dollars and worse, untold defections of good and holy people from the flock of Christ.
Not to mention the problem of the hierarchy refusing to deal with the problem of sexual abuse by those under them unless and until it makes the news. Thank you so much for all you do, Pillar.
I think it might be worth adding the information that there were 510 ordinations in the Church of England in 2021 (380 in 2022, but that is because of the impact of the pandemic). To compare, there were 21 Roman Catholic ordinations in 2021. I don't know the statistics on numbers of churchgoers in each denomination, but from personal experience, I'd say that Anglicans could optimistically assume to have twice the number of attendees as Catholics. There certainly are issues with shortages of clergy among the Anglicans, but that is actually through a lack of job security, rather than a lack of vocations: due to constraints on finances, there is less money for clergy than would be needed to pay for all the priests the church wants. In the UK, the RCs have a far worse shortage than the Anglicans.
Though the Church of England is struggling just as much as the Catholics to retain congregations, there is no serious issue with ordinations. The target at the moment is to increase ordinations to 630 a year, mainly by opening up the coffers to pay for more curacies and first incumbencies.
As for the issue with congregations, the guard is changing in the CofE. There is a mini-boom in Anglo-Catholicism, while Anglican Evangelicals are also thriving - yet at the same time numbers of churchgoers are dropping off a cliff. How so? The main difficulty is that the parish system is catering to a way of life that no longer exists apart from among the elderly - that of the village community centred around the local church, where the assumption is that everyone turns up on Sundays. As long as the majority of the Anglican Church is serving those older demographics, it is unsurprising to find that 'Anglicans are getting older' and 'churchgoing in steep decline', as newspaper headlines proclaim.
The Anglicans don't actually lend themselves very well to a case study of why a celibate, male priesthood should be maintained. There are very good reasons to maintain it, but the 'disaster' that is the Anglican Church isn't one of them. The Church of England is a muddle, a strangely mutated limb of the Catholic Church that was cut off by an unpleasant monarch in the 16th C, but still works reasonably well.
I’ve said it before and here I go again-these priests and bishops that want this can leave and become Protestant.
And the lack of handling of the Legion of Christ’s founder’s scandal, too. No one in leadership held accountable. Good thing our Mother the Church has gone through lots of stuff or I’d be really angry or despairing. Ora et Labora. Mother Mary, please keep cleaning out the muck.
"Francis has also listened without response as senior prelates like Cardinal Robert McElroy have insisted that settled doctrinal matters, like the ordination of women, are up for debate at the synod."
Francis has promoted prelates like Cardinal Bishop Robert McElroy in contravention of normal practice, without explanation, while said Bishop was saying those things to which Francis has listened without answer.
Utterly bizarre absent ulterior motives.
Celibacy as a “symbol no longer understood by society” is actually something I agree with. But the solution is education, not abrogation.
From today’s Liturgy of the Hours Morning
Prayer
READING
Hebrews 13:7-9a
Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you; consider how their lives ended, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching.
They covered up sex abuse and moved abusers around, and most (70%+) of the victims were male. Yeah, marriage to a woman is definitely the solution.
I read the PA grand jury report and found three separate groups of priests who shared victims (all male victims, of course). Those are Epstein levels of corruption by people who were merely sick perverts and not in any way billionaires. The gaslighting gets old, but one sees why they don't want to be honest about the real issues which run very deep.