Believe It or Not

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Pope defends priestly celibacy in letter to seminarians

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Pope Benedict XVI defended celibacy for priests and said the cases of sexual abuse within the church cannot discredit their mission.

In a letter sent today from the Vatican to seminarians considering joining the priesthood, Benedict encouraged them in their faith and study and also brought up how sexuality affects their vocation.

He wrote:






Full text of the lettersent in honor of the feast day of St. Luke the Evangelist–is available on the Vatican’s website.

Categories: Catholicism
Kate Shellnutt

14 Responses

  1. Proverbs3130 says:

    The letter is so much more than just discussing celibacy – I found it to be encouraging that our seminarians are receiving this inspiration.

  2. Juan says:

    and that is why you fail

  3. GeorgeRafael says:

    I wasn’t in the plans because my Dad was a priest in his native Spain. He had to leave because he couldn’t bear being lonely.

    He would say to me that secretly many priests were against the celibacy requirement stating that it was established by the Church years later. That is probably still the case today.

    If God wanted us to never ever have sexual relationships we would not have reproductive organs at all.

  4. deaconknowgood says:

    Get Real!

  5. Charlie says:

    Brilliant. Go ahead and keep your heads buried in the sand. This is just as stupid as not allowing birth control.

  6. Jerry Martin says:

    No one is forbidden to marry if they want to.

    Thats from the Bible.

    Just another sham by the fake RCC.

  7. whitt says:

    “sexuality becomes banal and destructive”

    Indeed. Yet the church frowns on birth control by its followers. Have to keep those legions of believers coming!

    Way to once again be completely out of touch with mankind.

  8. bETTY TODD says:

    How one man can control the lives of many is beyond me. MAYBE there would be less bad sex stuff going on if they could get married, but what do I know.

  9. Just__A__Thought says:

    I’m not catholic and certainly not a priest. However, I understand what he’s talking about from a sociology stand-point.

    Sex is one of mankinds instincts and is as much a part of being human as is breathing. It’s primal. To deny it, control it, and eventually conquer it to the point that it becomes an unnecessary and unwelcome thought and act, is only done by promoting something else above it. That something else may be God or Love of another.

    There are many couples and singles who have embraced celibacy for many individual reasons, but the bottom line is that they put something else above a primal instinct. Something else became more important to them. Being able to do that is more difficult than one can imagine and each individual takes a different amount of time to accomplish and has to make their own path to that point.

    Real Celibacy cannot be dictated by the constraints of seminary and the scheduled appointment of priest. Faith in God has less to do with embracing celibacy than you might think.

    It took me over 10 years to make the choice, stop questioning the choice, get past self-pity and tears, and truly embrace what I put above “sex” in my life. I’ve been married 25 years and yes, I know, I can be a bit of a snob about it, but having reached this point I do feel that my marriage is in some ways, elevated from the standard marriage where couples fight and squabble and sometimes divorce over sex.

  10. Brazil says:

    Imposing celibacy on priests is wrong! Please do away with this restriction and you’ll find yourself with such a vastly larger pool of candidates for priesthood, and perhaps some who are more qualified for this vocation than some of those currently. Women should also be allowed to be priests.

  11. Diogenes says:

    Priests were not celibate until the 6th-7th century. Then, the “Church” realized that married priests were leaving their earthly possessions to their wives and children instead of the church. Whereupon, it was decided that priests should be celibate (to better serve the church, of course). And then the “Church” would inherite their earthly goods upon their deaths. Which explains the immense wealth held by the Vatican 1400 years later…

  12. Mickey Williams says:

    Participation in and membership in the Roman Catholic Church and the Priesthood are totally voluntary. If y’all don’t like the RCC, don’t join and stop criticizing. All y’all sound like a bunch of whiny babies crying about something you don’t understand and have no connection with.

  13. FloLake says:

    Celibacy is outmoded for today’s clergy. It’s a relic of the past and I suspect it forces many to tell lies rather than admit being human.

  14. Debra says:

    I suppose it is ignorance that speaks because so many do not understand the concept of the bridegroom and the bride, the priest “in persona Christi” and his bride, the Church. Our society is so animalistic and banal they have no idea what it means to be faithful to one spouse and the term “sacrifice”.