TWENTY-SIX women who say they are in love with Roman Catholic priests have written to Pope Francis urging him to make celibacy optional.
The women, who all live in Italy, described the “devastating suffering” caused by the church’s ban on priests having sex and marrying.
“We love these men and they love us,” they said in their letter published on the authoritative website Vatican Insider.
“With humility, we place at your feet our suffering so that something can change, not just for us but for the good of the whole Church,” they added in the message, signed with their first names and an initial of their last names, but with several phone numbers.
Priestly celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church, while not a unchangeable dogma, is a tradition going back more than 1,000 years.
In recent decades the Vatican has come under pressure to make celibacy optional and allow priests to marry, with supporters saying that this would help ease the acute shortage of priests in many areas.
The Church teaches that a priest should dedicate himself totally to his vocation, essentially taking the Church as his spouse, in order to help fulfill its mission.
But the women told the pope that their men would be able to serve the Church “with greater passion” if they were supported by a woman who loves them and children.
Bryan Patterson's Faithworks 
Would the men consider becoming Protestant?
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There have been married Roman Catholic priests again since 1980, when the church said that Protestant clergymen who became Catholic priests could stay married to their wives.
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True. So if they are going to do that they maybe they should open up the option.
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My Mother was(is?) very Catholic and she believed that if the church would relax this policy it would help solve a lot of problems, not least of which is the drought of Catholic priests.
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??? “with supporters saying that this would help ease the acute shortage of priests in many areas.”
Are they actually suggesting married priests and their wives would be producing baby priests?
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Would that make a difference, Kate —> “Would the men consider becoming Protestant?”
I’d’ve thought the would-be wives were protesting enough for both of them.
btw….has anyone else wondered how it was established that ““We love these men and they love us,” ??
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But the word “Protestant” is politically incorrect term today, especially if the wives come from a Pentecostal background. Recently, the pope has said that the Protestant Reformation is over. Some time ago, the word “Evangelical” has been substituted for “Protestant” showing that for many Christians that were Protestant aligned, this alignment no longer exists.
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I don’t quite follow that Davinci. I always thought Protestant in this sense implies ‘pro’ eualling ‘for’ and ‘test’ equalling ‘testimony’ – so giving testament for, rather than the modern usage where it’s often perceived conversely.
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The term Protestant came from the Protest of the German Princes at the Diet of Spires in 1529 where a protest was lodged against imposing Catholic Doctrine on the masses in contradiction to the word of God.
An extract of this letter states:
“There is no true preaching or doctrine but that which conforms to the Word of God. The Lord forbids the teaching of any other faith. Each text of the holy and divine Scriptures should be explained by other texts. This Holy Book is in all things necessary for the Christian and easy to be understood. It shines clearly in its own light, and is found to enlighten the darkness. We are determined by God’s grace and aid to abide by God’s Word alone, to maintain the pure preaching of God’s only Word, as it is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, without anything added thereto. This Word alone should be preached, and nothing that is contrary to it. It is the only truth. It is the sure rule of all Christian doctrine and life and can never fail or deceive us. He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell, whilst all the vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God. We therefore reject the yoke that is imposed upon us.”
In the context of the discussion at hand, the Catholic Church must show from the Bible, its justification for forcing the priests to remain celibate. They can’t.
But under the terms of the Protestant Reformation, priests can marry because that is the position of the Bible.
At the end of the day, one faces the choice of whether to obey the Bible as the voice of God, or obey the Roman Catholic Church’s traditions.
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YesDavinci, it was a protest against something, but obviously also, or even more so, a protest for something.
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Perhaps 26 priests should think about leaving. It sounds like they are in danger of (or already have) committing a serious sin.
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yeahbut.
I’ve never been able to find an authoritative directive (ie from god or his boy) prohibiting fornication. (It’s not as though it was ‘blasphemy’ or ‘idolatory’, is it?)
In fact, just about the very first Commandment god issued was ‘Go forth and multiply’ ~ and never suggested even a hint about getting married first. (Let alone getting a licence to do so!)
Don’t forget he created Evie specifically as Adam’s ‘helpmeat’ and playmate, not as his ‘wife’…..in exactly the same way as he did the female members of all the other species. There’s no suggestion any of them should be married to ‘reproduce after their kind’ either.
There IS a difference, y’know.
I suspect ‘marriage’ was invented by some would-be kingpin in order to help keep peace in the tribe (including haggles over peternity, etc.) in order to facilitate his control. (and thus his exclusive right to levy taxes.)
(Probably even explains why the keeping of multiple wives was all the go early-on; no worries about fornication, so long as it doesn’t cause disruptive aargh- uments.)
The bottom line is almost always reckoned in dollar-terms.
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I’ve heard too that marriage was like a certificate of ownership, and he who had ownership of many wives was depriving other men of such a resource, and so monogamy was introduced in social fairness.
Paternity issues were important in considering inheritance, so on the whole it was a very materialistic set up. But there is the more spiritual side to marriage too, the caring and commitment, and/OR the life lessons.
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Where in the Bible does it say that marriage was like a certificate of ownership?
And Dabbles, have you noticed that God gave Adam one Eve, not many Eves?
Have you noticed that whenever the Bible records incidents related to polygamy, it also indirectly mentions how bad the practice is? For example Lamech had to commit murder to instigate the custom of polygamy, then continue a policy of murdering anyone who might object to it.
Abraham had to send away one of his wives because of domestic arguments between his wives.
And Solomon became disloyal to God because of his many wives.
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I’ve got five dogs here at the moment ( and two in the pipeline), and the “the caring and commitment, and/OR the life lessons.” are without limit for all of them.
Such things don’t wear out or get used up.
….and before you reckon I’m nuts, just remember that I’ve always been on the ball enough not to have one single wife. (Well, not one that belonged to me, anyway.;) )
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ps….and the (paternity) issues around the inheritance thing is not really a problem. Make sure you leave nothing but debts.
Unlike with god, human debt does NOT get visited upon one’s offspring in the secular world.
‘When the ship lifts off, all debts are settled’, as LL said.
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Where in the Bible does it say this? The Bible then is the only reliable guide to history or culture?
Certainly I can be wrong, unlike your good self Davinci, but that is what I was taught, and it still seems to me to hang together.
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Strewth!
“Where in the Bible does it say this? The Bible then is the only reliable guide to history or culture?”
Yep! The Bible is the only reliable guide to history and culture. The Bible transcends culture and history showing how things were originally, how things were perverted and how things ought to be.
In the issue of these women and priests the matter could be resolved immediately if the RCC followed what it ought to be doing instead of rejecting the standards set up by God and doing their own thi
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If the Bible were a black and white set of rules to be obeyed, all churches would have to agree, all would be one. This doesn’t happen, and there has even been actual enmity between denominations.
“Because the Bible told me so” is not a valid reason. Even the belief that the Bible is God’s word has as its source – what? The Bible!
Similarly to the children’s well known hymn, “Jesus loves me”, we can say
“The Bible is God’s word, I know,
Because the Bible tells me so.”
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Sin? Depends on where the definition of sin comes from. Is it from the RCC man made traditions or the Bible teaching?
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I would think there are more than two possibilities of origin. What about the fact that it counteracts the general humanitarian perception of goodness? What about the concept being in all other faiths? What about the concept of Original Blessing, the being made in the image of God?
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