Tea at Trianon: Married priests....

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Married priests....

Are not the answer.... Share

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: I don't know why people make such an issue about celibacy in the RC church.
It is really not the business of lay people who are not priests. Obviously men who become priests do not see it as a problem or they would not become priests. If it becomes a problem then they should quit and get married. Like St. Paul said, he found it better to not be married, but if it was as problem for a person, then by all means get married! Worst of all, Protestants chime in and think anyone cares about their opinion. Why they think they need to add their two cents is beyond me.; January 20, 2007 at 6:47:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: I know priests in some branches of Orthodoxy are allowed to marry although with conditions.; January 21, 2007 at 6:39:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, Elisa, and in the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church, married men can be ordained, at least in Europe and Asia they can. Some people think that changing the traditional discipline of the Latin rite by ordaining married men will bring in more vocations, but thge article I linked to says that churches where there are married clergy are having a vocation crisis, too. If the Pope someday changes the discipline of clerical celibacy in the Latin rite for the good of the Church, then that for him to decide. And in the early church and in the eastern rites, it was usually the practice to ordain men who were already married, rather than men marrying after they already became priests. That was, among other things, to keep a clergyman from courting the women in his parish. A priest would be hampered in his pastoral duties if he were to become involved in the ups and downs of romance.; January 21, 2007 at 7:00:00 PM EST