Paul Iby, Reformist Bishop, Pushes Vatican To End Celibacy Requirement For Priests

[onehandle]

Source: AP, Huffington Post

VIENNA — An Austrian bishop who has pushed the Vatican for reforms said in an interview published Wednesday that the Catholic church should drop its celibacy requirement for priests.

Eisenstadt Bishop Paul Iby told the Die Presse daily that it should be up to priests to decide whether they want to live a celibate life and that he would welcome it if married men could be ordained.

"It should be at the discretion of every priest whether to live in voluntary celibacy or in a family," Die Presse quoted Iby as saying.

Iby, who offered to retire when he turned 75 in January, also said that eventually the ordination of women should be considered.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/paul-iby-reformist-bishop_n_573536.html

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As a Catholic, I fully endorse this. I believe it is an eventuality.

I rarely participate. Something like this would return my interest.

[damntexdem]

1. Maybe if they also dropped the male-gender requirement.

But none of this is likely with an old hierarchy that has a special devotion to San Testosterone and Santa Bureaucracia.

[Wapsie B]

2. Do you think priests being able to marry and the ordination of women would forever split the RCC?

I agree that both should happen. Whether I'd ever live long enough to see it is doubtful.

[No Elephants]

7. Ask Mel Gibson.

[midnight]

10. As a catholic women I'm counting on seeing women

resume their former positions as priests, bishops, cardinals and yes pope.... Darn those uppity Irish Catholic Women.....

[Xithras]

3. I agree completely for diocesan priests.

One of the original reasons for the ban was that priests were required to take a vow of poverty and were unpaid. They generally lived in housing provided by the church, and took no salary. If the priests were married and had children, they would be unable to care for those children or that wife. The result was a LOT of orphans with priestly fathers.

There was also a monetary reason for it as well. When priests who HAD money also had children, they often held ownership of their money to pass on to those children. This was seen as a violation of their vow of poverty, and also removed money from the church that was usually handed over when the vow was taken.

Diocesan priests and other members of the secular clergy haven't been required to take poverty vows of for over 800 years, and today all take paychecks (around here in California, the average Catholic priest makes about $75k a year). They live in their own homes and are fully capable of raising a family. There is no longer any reason for the Catholic Church to prohibit them from doing so.

I do, however, still think that the ban should remain on regular clergy who are members of monastic or other religious orders. They still take the vow of poverty, take no paychecks, and generally live in church owned homes or monastaries. For obvious reasons, none of them are in a position to marry and potentially raise a family. They should, of course, have the option of leaving their order and joining the secular priesthood if they wanted to marry.

[No Elephants]

If the vow of celibacy can be abolished as to an entire class of priest, why

can't the vow of poverty be modified? Why can't you live in a church owned home with your family and make a modest salary that provides your family with food, clothing, etc?

If you chose to live in a monastery, though, celibacy and poverty are exactly what you are seeking and you should be held to it until you choose tto leave. I agree with that.

[No Elephants]

8. If the vow of celibacy can be abolished as to an entire class of priest, why

can't the vow of poverty be modified? Why can't you live in a church owned home with your family and make a modest salary that provides your family with food, clothing, etc?

If you chose to live in a monastery, though, celibacy and poverty are exactly what you are seeking and you should be held to it until you choose tto leave. I agree with that.

[bulloney]

4. I'll tell you one big reason why the Vatican wants only single men in the priesthood: Money.

If they allow priests to marry, each parish will have to come up with an income that sustains a family, instead of a single man.

And if the priests follow the Vatican's rules against birth control, every priest will likely have a lot of kids for the parish to support.

So, in the mean time, the Catholic Church will continue to hide behind this interpretation of Jesus' teachings and peddle its minutia about priests having to be male and single because they're married to the church, which is female according to Vatican interpretations. Sounds kinda kinky, but that's what they're telling us.

[Dulcinea]

5. I've known several men who would have entered the priesthood...

...if priests were allowed to marry and have families. Protestant, Jewish and (I believe) Muslim clergy are allowed to marry. Why not Catholic priests?

I bet it would cut down on the number of sexual deviants in the priesthood who seem to think the vow of celibacy will save them from the urge to molest children.

[whereaminow]

6. The Catholic Church is a club, with rules

If you don't like those rules, you don't have to join. But they probably "need" the money...

They and all other institutions like them should lose their tax exempt status however.

[glinda]

9. Very unlikely. That is their main thing is celibacy of the "priest". Won't happen but should.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. a priest and a rabbi...

are sitting next to each other on a long flight. They get to talking, and the priest asks the rabbi- "have you ever eaten ham". The rabbi stops, looks down, and says "I have to admit, I have had a ham sandwich". A bit later, the rabbi asks the priest "Have you ever been with a woman". The priest blushes and says "I have to admit it. I was once with a woman". The rabbi smiles and says "sure beats ham sandwiches, doesn't it".

[Journeyman]

12. Can't do it. They'd no longer be "The Best Men in the Tribe" . . .

From a bit Lenny Bruce did during his "Religions Incorporated" schtick, wherein he discussed the church's perception of what celibacy adds to their appeal. Seems all the people in the tribe got together to boast of how much they loved God more than their fellow villagers and how much they were willing to give up to show how worthy they were. The first guy gave up a dozen cows, the next 18 pigs, the third his entire harvest. But then one guy stepped forward and said he was most worthy because he was going to give up "it" for the Lord.

"Ah, you're bullshitting us," said the others. "Nobody'd give up "it", not even for the Lord!"

"Oh, yes, I would," came the reply.

"For how long?" the villagers shouted back.

"For ever and ever."

"For ever and ever? Why, that makes you, The Best Man in the Tribe."

And yet, Lenny couldn't help but ponder, who was the true loser in the group and how alienated from the rest such a senseless sacrifice would make of someone.

[eridani]

13. Good idea, but I don't think that celibacy promotes pedophilia

--or that priests are any worse than other careers where access to children is involved. That some priests are pedophiles is a matter of statistics and human nature. What needs to be changed is the Church institutional response to pedophilia.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Yes, yes, YES! And END the Church hierarchy's fetishistic worship of guess what?

Their own dicks--in their crazy, not to mention sinful, exclusion of women from the priesthood. Sorry to put it so crudely, but they are the ones who assert that their being male makes them special to God, and other people being female makes them not so special. This HUGE error of the Catholic Church institution has a lo-o-ong history (back to 3rd to 5th Century AD) but one thing is very clear: It did NOT come from the founder of Christianity, who promoted ONE simple precept, over and over again, in every way that he could: "Love thy neighbor." Tell me how these egocentric men, swishing around in velvet robes with gold trim, and issuing edicts as if they were God, and accumulating vast properties and power, is "loving thy neighbor." What they have done, instead, is to write a prescription for abuse of power--a highly secretive, highly monolithic boys' club that can (and does) condemn people to Hell, and that can (and does) worship ITSELF, not God. Big, big, BIG error.

They need to CORRECT this error, but it is very difficult for them to do so. Their entire identity is mixed up with it. They have re-written history to defend the myth that only men were deemed worthy to perform the fetishistic acts that they turned the story of "the Last Supper" into. They equate this fetish with the Christian message itself and feel that Christianity itself is under attack when anyone points out how wrong it is. They have created an institution that CAN'T change and that creation is so not in the spirit of Jesus as to be insanely ludicrous. Jesus changed the rules of orthodox religion. He opposed priestly fetishism and power-mongering. He welcomed all. He furthermore surrounded himself with women and often chided his male followers for "not getting it." And they have convinced themselves that Jesus really said, "Upon this blockhead, I will build my church." (If he did say that, he meant it humorously.) Has there ever been a more anti-institutional teacher than Jesus?

Anyway, I see their problem. It's truly hard to give up self-puffery--an inflated idea of your own worth on the basis of something you didn't earn or choose (your biology). It's hard to reform an institution that feeds your egocentric notions of yourself. It's hard to yield power, position, authority, chosenness. Very hard. I don't think that this should be underestimated--and those who CAN do it are all the more praiseworthy. Married priests is a step in the right direction--and it takes courage for a church official to say even that. Women priests is the ultimate correction of this 1,500+ year wrong turn. The Church hierarchy has rendered itself unfit to promote Christian teaching in the modern world--out of long-standing error and sin. On the whole, they do not understand why they should held to account for child abuse. They think they are above the law, that they are special, that the peon churchgoers who are calling them to account and the victims of child abuse are less important than maintaining their power and authority as privileged male conduits to God. Where does that idea come from? It comes from their false notion that they are superior to women. That is what is at the heart of the child abuse scandal--false self-importance, false authority based on biology, false power.

Their thinly veiled contempt for marriage (despite their avowals to the contrary) and their not-at-all veiled contempt for women must end. These things have created a sick and insular institution in which some men have horribly harmed innocent children in the belief that they are superior beings, chosen by God for their biology, who cannot be held to account in human terms. THAT is the problem--a false sense of superiority--and it starts with their belief--reinforced by constant messages from the institution--that they are inherently superior to women.