Cafeteriagurl said...
I am a Cafeteria Catholic myself by choice of course because of my own convictions,conscience, and prayer. I do attend mass every week and I pray alot. I am only a cafeteria Catholic because I don't see how using condoms is evil, I don't have a problem with women priests, married priests, and I don't believe divorce is always a sin since I know people who have left abused spouses. I don't believe for better or worse means you have to stay with your husband when he tries to pound you physically to pieces or when he tries to abuse your children. Its hard for people to understand my view on this when they grew up with families where such conflicts never took place.Maybe I am just too accepting to prone to Western thing, but what I do know is that I do love Jesus with all of my heart, he's got me through hard times in my life, and whether or not I agree with the Church I will never abandon God and my faith and relationship with Christ. The world does need more Christ. And the number one solution to end abortion is not to have sex before your married or to use the lesser of two evils contraception. I believe if people want to abort their babies then atleast they should put a condom on so they don't kill any babies.Most people I know who have had abortions did not use protection and thought protection was stupid. They believe condoms take the pleasure away from sex, yet they believe that killing babies that result from unprotected sex is okay and they are fundamentally flawed people. Abortion is murder and should not be used as a form of contraception.
(I hope you don't mind me quoting you Cafeteriagirl)
Well, lets see if I can answer any of this, first of all, I would like to point out that it is great you follow your conscience so closely, but ill-formed conscienced are still required to be followed but the actions may be sins. That is why it is SO important to form it correctly. Anyways, lets see, condoms are not actually evil (correct me if I am wrong, and I am going to verify all this with my Theology Teacher) it is the sex outside of marriage. Condoms are not needed if you are married
because it is fine to have sex and babies. And for me, how I have explained why the Church does not allow girl priests (and I am sure It has a better reason) is because if Jesus wanted girl priests, He would have made girl Apostles and made them Bishops too. Or Jesus might have been a girl IF He wanted girl priests. But He wasn't and He didn't, so why should we. Now, to the topic of married priests. First, taking a vocation is GIVING UP THEIR LIVES for a life OF SERVICE. The reason they where black is because it show that they are dead; their personal life has ended. They are living as a complete servant of Christ. Again, back to my theory of if Jesus had then we would too. He didn't get married apostles and He wasn't married himself (the perfect example for priests {and the rest of us too}) so why should we change our views and allow married priests. But if a priest is protestant and converts, is married, and wishes to continue in the priesthood, he can be pardoned by the Bishop and allowed. Divorce is wrong if they get remarried or start dating again, because it may take away the legal part, but it doesn't take away the spiritual. Thats where annulments come in. They do take care of the spiritual and they come from the Bishop only if they have a good reason to stop the marriage. I am sure that abuse in the family would be validation for an annulment. And again, you mention condoms are not evil and you are correct, it is having sex outside of marriage. If you can't (not married) or don'r want a baby (married) than DO NOT HAVE SEX. Simple logic, come on world.
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I'm a teenager just like you, and I certainly don't have all the answers. But here is what I have learned about the subjects you discussed.
Contraception: The church holds that all sexual actions must be open to child birth and unite two people. That explains the churches position on gay marriage, masturbation, contraception, sex before marriage, pornography, prostitution, oral sex, rape... ext. Contraception does not allow child birth, thus it is an incorrect use of man and women's sexual ability. So, condemns and other forms of conception are evil and a grave sin.
Interestingly, most protestant denominations held that contraception was evil too, until the Anglican Church’s Seventh Lambeth Conference, where they allowed contraception. The pope at the time, Pius XI published Castii Cannubii, which means “On Chaste Marriage”. It served as a direct response defending the catholic position that protestants had held up to that time. Pope Paul VI wrote “Humane Vitae” in the late 1960s which discuss contraception and family planning. Pope Paul says that not having sex during times of the month that the woman could become pregnant is not a sin. Thus abstinence is the only way a married couple are allowed to avoid child birth. Contraception is a grave sin.
The Male Priesthood: You already offered an explanation for why there are only male priests, but I will contribute one that I have also heard. In life there are two forces, the masculine and the feminine forces. That isn't to say woman and man, because a man has elements of the feminine also. If you aren't familiar with this idea I can flesh it out in a post on my blog. At any rate, we think of God as "father", even though he has no gender, or body. We think of Jesus as "son". When we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving that intrinsically masculine element, and those receiving (regardless of their gender) assume the role of the feminine. You could not have a female priest assume the role of the masculine, and a confusing reversal of roles would take place. That is a very academic literary explanation. I had to think about it for a while before it made sense.
Annulment and Divorce: Your concept of an annulment might be incorrect. An annulment is the human declaration that a marriage was never valid. So there was something that God knew (as he knows everything) at the time of the marriage, such that it was never valid in God's eyes. But humans (not knowing everything) thought the marriage was valid. And when they discover that the marriage was not valid an annulment is issued. If I can remember correctly there are 3 requirements for marriage, but I can only remember two: Full Consent and Full Knowledge. Thus, if a gun is to your head when you marry someone, it is never a valid marriage. More commonly though, if you marry somebody with an addiction, somebody who never planed to be faithful, or who has a past history of murder or sex crimes, and you never find out until after you are married an annulment could be issued. This information is intrinsic to the marriage, and your full knowledge was violated, thus the marriage was never valid. An annulment is not the church's form of divorce. It says that a marriage was never valid. If the marriage was valid, it has been, and always will be valid, and no spiritual authority can end it.
If the marriage is valid and the spouse changes, the marriage is still valid. It may be best that you no longer live with your spouse, or maybe you should have no contact with them. More likely though, some work will help the marriage. I forgot the exact statistic, but something like 80% of couples feel their marriage had greatly improved when the stuck with it, 5 years after they were about to divorce.
Sorry for the long comment. Hope it helps. Here are some good links if you want to read further.
The Chatechism on Sins Against Chastity(2531-2536):
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm
Humane Vitae: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
Castii Cannubii:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html
Yes you are correct on both accounts, which I was told I was incorrect on those things by many ppl, anyways, thanks for commenting and correcting me, if more people confronted people who are veering off of the Faith, there might not be as many denominations.
Thanks for the links too
James, good effort in answering those questions. I hope you wont find it too bold of me to add some obervations. Cafeteriagurl’s commitment and love of God and of Jesus Christ is the starting point. From her words, we know the she loves Christ deeply. But Jesus Himself says that to love him is to act out this love in a concrete way. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” – John 14:21.
So it would be good to live out that love by obeying Christ and His Church which He established and of which He is the Head, the same Church governed by the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him and the same Church which teaches the truth about love and marriage and sex and priesthood and all else. Although we can reason out all the teachings of the Church, we believe them primarily on the authority of Jesus Christ.
That priests remain celibate is a discipline in the Latin Rite of the Church. It’s a good discipline that humanly speaking, has a lot going for it. Priests can live with a lower allowance from the Church because they don’t have kids to take care of. This is important in many counties such as my own where the Church is poor and priests’ allowances are very low which they can’t possible be if priests have families to take care of. Priests can accept postings in remote places and change postings without needing to consider the effect of uprooting a wife and kids whenever they are reassigned. There is also potentially less cause of scandal and resentment because the priests’ marital relationship, if its problematic, does not overshadow his preaching and the advice he offers on marriage. And in missionary territories or in areas where the danger of persecution is high, the priest does not have to factor in the safety of his wife and kids if he is called to martyrdom.
Spiritually, the priest is called to give up wife, father and mother to follow Jesus and this full and complete giving of self is greater symbolized by a celibate priest, married to the Church and fully occupying himself with the affairs of the Lord. As St. Paul says: “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.” – 1st Cor 7:32-35. But again I stress that this is a discipline, not dogma. In the Eastern Catholic Churches, the married can be ordained (and not priests can get married because in those Churches, like deacons in the Latin Rite, you choose your state before ordination and there is no re-marriage upon the death of the spouse). Bishops in the Eastern Churches are always celibate as they are always chosen from the ranks of the monastics. Even in the Latin rite, there are exceptions as married ex-Lutheran or Anglican clergy who convert can be ordained under the Pastoral Provision established by Pope John Paul II.
AS for women priests, I guess many people today confuse dignity with function They assume women can only achieve full dignity when they can DO this or that. They associate dignity with function. This is dangerous on so many levels and is used as the justification for euthanasia and eugenics. Since old, bedridden people, mentally challenged people etc can’t function, they ought to be put to death. Function defines them. Here’s where the truly liberating message of the Church comes in. Men and Women have dignity not because of what they can or cannot do, but because as human beings, they are sons and daughters of God and their worth is intrinsic. Women do not need to DO anything to be equal in dignity with men. The Church upholds the dignity of women but differentiates their function. Men and Women share equal dignity but have different functions. The priest acts in persona Christi, in the person of Christ who is the image of the Father and who chose to take flesh as a man. So that iconic representation is important too.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Keep up the good work.
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