http://orthocath.wordpress.com/2012/05/1...brace-celibacy/

Is this a way to eliminate Eastern Catholics from Catholicism?

Christ is Risen!
Carson,
I wrote elsewhere that if one simply thinks of the phrase that Eastern Catholics should embrace celibacy, one would have no fears about the health and vitality of our churches. While I lament the lack of ordinations to the presbyterate for married men, I also lament the lack of flourishing monastic vocations. There are exceptions within Eastern Catholics in this country, to be sure, but the fact that those are exceptions is notable. God help us to live the fullness of the Eastern Christian Tradition, which yes does include married priests, but also includes passionate monastics who live the angelic life on earth.

God help us.

J. Andrew

The only acceptable reply to this is a resounding "No." Unanimous among EC churches ideally.

This is an excellent opportunity for Metropolitan William to assert some clearly needed leadership. I truly hope he does.

There will always be stuff like this from Rome. Our relationship with it and with the Orthodox will be defined by our response to stuff like this.

If this speculation were true then who better than Sayendna Nicholas to lead the necessary push-back?

I wonder what kinds of statistics made their way into the "Ad Limina" reports. When Bishop Takach became bishop of Pittsburgh for the Rusyns, Hungarians, and Croats in 1924, he had a flock of 255,000. Bishop Bohachesvsky had 244,000 in the Ukrainian Diocese in Philadelphia. As of 2010, the numbers for both Metropolias, according to the Annuario Pontificio, are 87,000 and 58,00 respectively. (Source: http://www.cnewa.us/source-images/Roberson-eastcath-statistics/eastcatholic-stat10.pdf)

EMBRACE celibacy?? NOOOOO. Tolerate it? We have been.

For those passionate about marriage before ordination I suggest that we all increase tremendously our donations to the seminaries. How can someone with $30-70,000 debt afford to support a family on $25,000? income?

We need some rich benefactors to pay off the education costs debts upon ordination. I would guess that this would make it easier for seminary rectors and bishops to justify married seminarians.

Do you have more problems/expenses than Orthodox priests or Protestant pastors?

I don't want to offend the hospitality offered by this forum to the Orthodox, but when I read stuff like that it reminds me that a tiger can never change its stripes.

Rome is Rome. I will continue to pray that all of us, Eastern Catholic and Orthodox alike, remain true to our eastern heritage and that Rome honor her commitments made to the eastern churches in union with her. That is the ONLY way she can begin to convince any Orthodox of her true intentions.

If my grandparents and parents were still living, they would unambiguously say 'YES.'

I understand your point, but you are continuing the status quo, we need a fairly radical change in mindset, recent tradition, and some additional incentive. Let's say if someone made a bequest or donation of $250K with the stipulation that it be used only for education of married seminarians, don't you think it would be seriously considered?

I found this quote from Cardinal Sandri, as found in the original CNS article, quite interesting:

"You, dear Eastern bishops, as representatives of the diverse Eastern churches in the Catholic Church, are living symbols of the apostles who set out in all directions from Jerusalem to establish Christian communities. Like them you have encountered opposition, indifference and ignorance along the way."

Ironically in the same speech ...

Perhaps a dumb question on my part, but why is the Congregation for the Eastern Churches led by a Latin prelate? Why not an Eastern Catholic hierarch who is also a Cardinal (as had been the case with Cardinal Sandri's predecessor)?

Excellent question! Some others perhaps: How much homemwork did Cardinal Sandri to acquire an understanding the historical experience of the Eastern churches in the US? What must our Orthodox friends be thinking: "Roma locuta; causa finita."? Does Cardinal Sandri know that 25% (13 out of 52) of the priests in the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia are married?

This development is really troubling to those of us Orthodox who have tried, with limited success, to defend the Eastern Catholic Churches on other online forums. Is this a 'redux' of 'Ea Semper' in modern language.

I wonder how the many married priests in the BCC and the UGCC who have, in recent years, come here from Europe feel upon reading this news? I often remind my fellow Orthodox that Father Toth was an educated and well-placed Greek Catholic priest who was well aware of the terms of the unions of Uzghorod and Brest. Formerly the prefect of the Presov Seminary, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he might have been a Greek Catholic bishop there, or in America at some point had he not migrated as a widower to minister the faithful in North America and run into the hostility and arrogance of Archbishop Ireland.

In my mind's eye, this reinforces my understanding of the rallying call of my grandparents' time - "Ani do Rim, ani do Moskvi!" (neither to Rome nor to Moscow!) sigh....