tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post7015317009980163386..comments2024-02-22T22:14:28.796-06:00Comments on The Wild Reed: Celibacy and the Roman Catholic PriesthoodMichael J. Baylyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03087458490602152648noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-8939067225944338012007-12-22T19:12:00.000-06:002007-12-22T19:12:00.000-06:00Celibacy was a monastic requirement, as required b...Celibacy was a monastic requirement, as required by the monastic movement, one understands why celibacy is necessary in a monastic community. That type of celibacy is mandatory by the very nature of the beast.<BR/><BR/>Diocesan priests were not required to be celibate until the eleventh century, and the mandatory decision had nothing "spiritual" about it. Wives, yes, plural, and offspring, made claims on bishopric's property and support, especially if the male priest died before spouse and children. To keep the "bury" in the bishopric's domain, rather than the lay's domain, caused the bishopric to crumble as society moved out of feudalism.<BR/><BR/>In Eastern Orthodoxy, the celibacy rule applies only to candidates for the episcopacy. Married men may be ordained priests, but unmarried priests may not marry after ordination. Deacons could always marry. For similar reasons.<BR/><BR/>By the 16th century, many monasteries had become "depositories" for those unsuited for marriage. Families "bequeathed" their unmarriable male/female progeny to the church's monasteries, where their only hope was that their heirs could do the world some good behind cloistered walls, praying all day. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross repudiated this practice, as part of their Carmelite reforms. Reading Teresa's petty comments about "sniffling nuns gossiping during Matins" is quite amusing, since she's hardly a paragon of non-scrupulosity. O.C.D. is not a mental disorder, but a religiously reformed Order.<BR/><BR/>Presumably, the Church proposes, the faithful disposes, according to the sensus fidelium. But as Constantine made Christianity the Roman Empire's religion, Christianity made the Roman Empire its earthly mandate, where bishops appointed kings, and inheritance laws put church property at risk unless Rome made those options impossible by mandated celibacy. <BR/><BR/>One is never sure whether Henry VIII, a staunch Catholic till his death, broke from the Church over his serial wives, or over the fact that Benedictines OWNED Britain, as well as RULED it, subverting Henry's taxation. Frankly, I suspect the latter was far more influential than the former. When the king must bow to the abbot, why not a role reversal? At least, his progeny liberated Brits from Benedictine overlords.<BR/><BR/>But, then, Benedictines are the fulcrum of Western monasticism, and every "bury" was simply a lay extension of the Abbot's dominion in all things monastic and lay, particularly the petty. Jocelin of Brakeland chronicles life in the Bury of Saint Edmunds, an amusing tale of a men's monastery in medieval Britain, where it seems unmarried men found lots of things to keep themselves occupied, including the Office/Mass nine times a day, spies, murders, and other things more pedestrian.<BR/><BR/>It's those medieval "times" that papal garments still appeal, when the Church was the Holy Roman Empire, and Charlemagne the toast of Europe, for reigning at the Pope's feet. The Church has not advanced very far in 1400 years, lest the light of knowledge disrupt the rhythm of medieval life in the 21st century. In the <I>Song of Roland,</I> one sees the medieval mind delighting in killing "Moors" for Jesus and Holy Mother Church. From that conquest, Saints Dominic and Francis became mendicants, and Inquisitions followed, lest anyone deviate from orthodoxy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com