February 15, 2011 – 1 Corinthians 7:17 - 8:13

There have been a few postings on my comments about the celibacy of priest.  Here we have Saint Paul saying again that it is a good thing for a person not to be married. 

I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.  1 Cor 7:32-34.

What does this mean if not that a person who is working for God, for the Church, needs to have their entire focus on the Church and God.  That a person who is married cannot have that focus because their focus is divided, which it is suppose to be, on their family.  But an unmarried person does not have to be divided.  They can be solely focused on God. 

Before you start this just know that I went back and forth with whether I could actually respond to things in here, but the more I actually read it, and looked into who he sites, I feel I am required to.  I don’t have answers to everything he says, but I will do my best to point to things that don’t follow at all what the Church actually teaches.  I feel a lot of this is him using information that he got from somewhere from somebody that got it from somewhere.

One comment pointed to this article, which I am going to try and respond to. 

http://johnshuster.com/thirtynine_popes.htm

The first thing I would respond to, and this is true for almost all things on the internet, including my little blog, is that the citations leave a bit to be desired.  One example is where he writes, “Pope John Paul II recognized this in 1993 when he said publicly that celibacy is not essential to the priesthood.”  He cites Time Magazine of July 1993.  It says that the Pope said this publically, but there are no quotes.  There is no mention of the article or what this was about.  And most importantly, the Pope does not change Church teaching or infallibly pronounce anything through Time Magazine.  Even if this is an accurate statement, it is not a changing of Catholic Church teaching, which is what the writer was leaning it towards.

Another one, and I am just picking them up as I see them because I want to actually know where he is getting his info, is “In 494 women’s participation in the leadership of small communities came to an end when Pope Gelasius decreed that women could no longer be ordained to the priesthood.”  Cited as Padovano, A. Power, Sex, and Church Structures. A lecture presented at Call To Action, Chicago. 1994.  First, Call to Action is a group that names themselves Catholic in word alone.  Their mission statement says nothing about following Catholic teachings and they hold views that are anti-Catholic.  More can be said on groups like this when we talk about the 8^th Chapter in 1 Cor.  He sites from this lecture many times throughout, but I couldn’t find the actually lecture anywhere, so I don’t know where he gets his information.  I would look up the person, but all we get is an initial and a last name, so we are really limited on what we can track down.   

“No one was excluded from receiving Communion. The strangers soon became friends, joined the young Church, and brought others to hear the good news of Jesus.”

This doesn’t have any citations at all, yet boldly sets out exactly how things were in the early church.  And it doesn’t appear biblical.  “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.”  1 Cor 11:27 (We haven’t quite gotten there yet.)  But if anyone can come and partake, how can a person be unworthy. 

“it was during this period [12^th century] of Church history that marriage after divorce was declared to be a sin. Those who were divorced and remarried were no longer permitted to receive the Blessed Sacrament. Up to this time, marriages were adjudicated, consensually dissolved, and individuals were free to marry again, and free to receive Holy Communion.”  Also citing the speech.  This is what kept me going because I was about to scrap this whole response.  Christ made it a sin to get married after a divorce or to get divorced at all.  Wherever the speaker got this, which we don’t know, appears to be rubbish or at least misunderstood. 

It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.' But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.  Matthew 5:31-32  The tone in which this is written seems to suggest that people should be allowed to get divorced and remarried to their hearts content.  But that is exactly what Christ says is wrong. 

“In the year 1075, Pope Gregory VII declared … that everyone must obey the pope, and that all popes are saints by virtue of their association with St. Peter.  Also citing the lecture.  Although this is not the case.  The first 35 Popes are considered saints.  After that there is another streak were only a few aren’t, up into the mid 50’s.  But after that it is pretty inconsistent as to whether a pope is a saint or not. 

“70 percent of Catholics want their priests who have married to resume their work as married priests in the Roman Catholic Church.”

“Recently, a Gallup poll was taken on Catholic attitudes toward Holy Communion. The poll showed serious confusion among Catholics about one of the most basic beliefs of the Church.

Only 30 percent of those surveyed believe they are actually receiving the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. 29 percent think they are receiving bread and wine which symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus and, in so doing, are expressing their attachment to His person and words. 10 percent understand their action to be receiving bread and wine in which Jesus is present. and 23 percent hold that they are receiving what has become the Body and Blood of Christ because of their personal belief.”  http://www.cfpeople.org/Apologetics/page51a044.html

So, what he is saying is that if enough Catholics believe something should change in the church, it should change.  Then we wouldn’t have the Eucharist anymore either. 

On one hand I think this writer has good intentions.  He see a decline in Catholic Churches and feels he has a way to solve it.  On the other hand, many of the reasons the Catholic Church is in decline is because many are not in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and disagree with what it teaches.  Because of this they try to shape rules and change teachings in order to better fit what they feel is correct.  What this watered down Catholicism is doing is creating people who are not taught properly what the Church teaches, are convinced that their way is better, choose to believe their own opinions and stay Catholic, or leave the Church.  We don’t need to water down the faith and change the rules to make people feel better about it.  We don’t need to change Catholic teaching in order to bump up our numbers.  The Catholic Church has the Truth and it needs to stand firm against this type of wave.  People will either come back or they won’t.  The Catholic Church is not an all inclusive thing and not an easy belief to have, but Christ said that it would be this way. 

Chapter 8 talks about scandal and the fact that even though you know you are not doing anything wrong, if it appears to someone else as though you are and because they are influenced by you, you are guilty of scandal, even though you may not have done anything wrong.  A group like Call to Action may have good intentions, to want to help people, but by not following Church teaching and actually promoting things that are against Church teaching, they confuse and lead away many people from the true teaching of the Church.  For that, they are a scandalous group.  This writer, as I said, appears to have good intentions, but leads people astray by citing things that are either misleading or incorrect.  Every person that reads his writing and is pulled away from the True teaching of the Church is a soul that he is on the hook for, regardless of his intentions.  This is scandal.