The Catholic Church, being nearly 2,000 years old, still follows many of the same rules and guidelines established in the early church. One item that many Catholics are surprised to learn is that the tradition of priests and other clergy members remaining celibate has not always been present in the church. There are many Catholics, in and out of the clergy, who believe that priests should have the ability to get married and raise a family. In fact, priestly celibacy is not a church law, but, as Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone says it is a "positive tradition," and not "untouchable" (France-Pressez). However, some critics of the practice would argue that celibacy is not a positive tradition, and that in fact it is responsible for many of the pedophilia scandals that are present in today’s church. They say that repressing sexual instincts is not healthy. The Vatican needs to consider effects of celibacy on the mental health of priests and stop requiring that they take the vow.
The first pope that Jesus chose to lead his new church, Peter, was a married man. Throughout the second and third century priests were married.
Ending priestly celibacy could also help with another of the church’s major problems: the shortage of new priests. The amount of Catholics in the world is rising, but the amount of ordained priests is dropping. In the United States in 1965 there were 58,632 Catholic priests. In 2009 there were 40,666 (Frequently). The world population of Catholics has grown from 653,500,000 in 1970 to 1,045,000,000 in 2000 (Is There). In his book The Catholic Myth, Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest, says that many of his fellow priests have given up on trying to recruit young men to the priesthood until the c...
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...nd His Father, the Priest." The New York Times. 15 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 May 2010. .
Greeley, Andrew M. Catholic Myth: the Behavior and Beliefs of. [S.l.]: Macmillan, 1990. Print.
"Is There a Priest Shortage? Worldwide & U.S. Statistics." Beliefnet. Beliefnet, Inc. Web. 23 May 2010. .
Levy, Clifford J. "A Flock Grows Right at Home for a Priest in Ukraine." The New York Times. 22 Mar. 2010. Web. 23 May 2010. .
Perko, F. Michael. Catholic & American: a Popular History. Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Pub. Division, 1989. Print.
Moore, R. Laurence. Touchdown Jesus: The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003. Print.
Of course, as a Catholic, I am not opposed to the Church’s traditions, nor do I see them as inadequate. Since the Church is a human institution meant to represent the divine and is not divine itself, however, I feel that there must be room for improvement. For example, I recently became curious as to why women were still not allowed to become priests, so I decided to find out. I questioned two priests, my religion teacher, and numerous other practicing Catholics, and the best answer anyone could give me was, “That’s just the way we’ve always done it.” While traditions provide stability and unity within a group of people, to be unquestionably planted in tradition can restrict growth. How often do traditions that once held deep meaning fade to become mundane tasks too difficult to let go? Too often, I see the congregation of a church monotonously reciting the Lord’s prayer, a prayer which Catholics believe was spoken directly from the mouth of God, with little regard for its meaning, or singing a joyful song such as the “Alleluia” with a positively depressing expression. No fault lies within these traditions themselves, but only in the way we view them. The Church must remind its members of the purpose of every prayer, every symbol, and every law so that Catholics do not lose the meaning of their religion.
The goal of this paper is to determine if the Catholic religion has continued to modernize since Vatican II. In order to help analyze the modernization of Catholicism, this paper will examine the immigration of Catholics to America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Throughout this paper, I will reference Dr. Julie Byrne’s commentary, a professor in American religious history at Duke University, as a means of explaining how Catholicism has assimilated into American culture. Next, this paper suggests three challenges that Catholics are presently facing in the 21st century. Finally, this paper will elaborate on the growth in “irreligious Catholics” and its potential dangers. Although Catholicism assimilated into American culture during the 19th and 20th centuries, research and the rise in “irreligious Catholics” in the 21st century suggests it is possible that Catholicism has not continued to modernize.
Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001. Print
Lippy, Charles H., and Peter W. Williams. Encyclopedia of the American religious experience: studies of traditions and movements. New York: Scribner, 1988. Print.
The marianismo gender role beliefs vary depending on where one is located. Marianismo beliefs influence what women see as “appropriate female behavior” (Craske, 1999, p. 12). Stereotypes of women are created which have stuck to what is ‘appropriate’ for what women can and cannot do. It is out of the normalcy for women to not follow these marianismo beliefs. It is obvious that motherhood is found as the ultimate role for women. Though it would make sense that men have fatherhood is not the ultimate role for men (even though both man and woman are needed to create a child) this is not the case at all. Another key marianismo belief Craske (2002) found was that women are “dominant in the private world of domestic organization,” while men are dominant in the public sector (p. 11). This is important to know because women lived very secluded lifestyles. This exclusive lifestyle connects to how Catholic women in Latin America had greater transgressions than men when it came...
Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-
Towards Understanding, (1999). Towards Understanding: A study of factors specific to the Catholic Church which might lead to sexual abuse by priests and religious (National Committee for Professional Standards, Sydney).
In the early 1990s, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) became the first episcopal conference worldwide to adopt guidelines against sexual abuse (Kokesch, 2006). Priests were believed to be the first connection towards God, but people began to feel a distrust toward priests after sexual abuses against children was discovered. Male dominance is the structure of all religion, yet, the film is a celebration of female empowerment using nuns as the symbol. The priest becomes
A topic long debated within the contexts of the Catholic Church and even outside the Catholic Church is the policy of an all male priesthood. There are many other churches within the Christian faith that have women clergy, and so the debate as to whether or not the Catholics should include the opposite sex in the clergy is a very hot topic. One person that has a fascinating view of the topic is a man by the name, Paul E. Dinter, the author of the article, “Christ’s Body as Male and Female.” In this article Dinter, a former man of the cloth, presents his take on the issue attempting to show his audience that the policy of the Church in indeed flawed. However before any member of Dinters audience can formulate an educated opinion on the topic three aspects of the article must be questioned: credibility, logic and reason, and how the article appeals to emotion.
As these variations and exceptions indicate, priestly celibacy is not an unchangeable dogma but a disciplinary rule. The fact that Peter was married is no more contrary to the Catholic faith than the fact that the pastor of the nearest Maronite Catholic church is married.
Maloney, David, M., The Church cannot ordain Women to the Priesthood: Declaration Of the Congregation fro Doctrine of the Faith (Franciscan Herald Press: Chicago, IL, 1978)
of the science and he never betrayed the catholic. Frankly speaking, he is a qualified Catholic.
Turner, William. (March 1, 1907) The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I, online edition. Retrieved February 2, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01713a.htm
Priests from post to post in the hope that they would discontinue the activities they were involved in. The failure of bishops to act on unfavourable reports was inexplicable, and represented a wholly inappropriate and inadequate response.