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Christ made marriage a sacrament and not celibacy, pretty clear to me.


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Originally Posted by Fr. Deacon Lance
Christ made marriage a sacrament and not celibacy, pretty clear to me.

What exactly is pretty clear? Are you really rejecting the consensus of Scripture and the Fathers on this subject? Why?

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That one is a sacrament and one is not. One Christ made into a vehicle of sacramental grace. One is an ascetic discipline.


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What exactly is pretty clear? Are you really rejecting the consensus of Scripture and the Fathers on this subject? Why?

While some saints consider the monastic life and tonsure to it to be a sacrament it is not considered one by the Church. Don't get my wrong it has a sacramental charter to it but it isn't a sacrament. Marriage is a sacrament.

Also, The Church is clear that the monastic life and the married life are two paths to the same goal: theosis. Both are paths blessed by God for salvation. While monastic life is a lofty calling so is marriage. We damage both by trying to say one is more superior than the other.

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Just to provide something specific here, remember that St. John Chrysostom argued that celibacy surpasses marriage as heaven surpasses earth, and that the great ascetics (aka monks/nuns: NC) who were called to practice it were equal to the angels.

When you quote the saints on celibacy and the Angelic life they are referring to the monastic vocation. part of that is being celibate and also being a monk/nun in a monastery.

Celibacy is a state in life and should be lived out within monasticism if it is going to be a life long state.

I wish that the Roman Church would make their diocesan priests, who are celibate, live a semi monastic life with brother priests. (Same thing for celibate non monastic Eastern priests) celibacy was meant for the monastic and monastics need other monastics for support in the Angelic life. (Much like a husband needs his wife and the wife needs her husband)

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Oy vey. I really don't see what's hard about this. "We" don't say that one is superior to the other. Scripture and Tradition say that one is superior to the other. Let's be docile to reality here. The Christian tradition is unequivocal on this subject.

Of course, you are absolutely right that consecrated celibacy is normally lived in community, and that this is a problem in situations where priests are asked to live a celibate life with no community support. But come on. Saying that all vocations are equal is like saying everyone is the MVP or all teams are the champion. It's postmodern nonsense. Monks occupy an objectively higher state than I do, and I thank God for calling them to that state. Why is this hard? It's like acknowledging that Olympic athletes are objectively faster than we are, or that LeBron James is better at basketball. Even if I'm the best player in the rec league.

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I am saying that all true vocations, which come from God, are equal. You and I are equally called by God to our vocation to marriage as a man who is called by God to be a monk.

Now, do they require different levels of living out our common baptismal promises? Yes, they do. They are not equal in practice but they are equal in holiness and they both offer paths to salvation in Jesus Christ. Christ calls us to live the ascetical life in a radical way. True Christian marriage, not modern marriage, and monasticism are radical calls to die to oneself and to live for Christ.

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Originally Posted by Fr. Deacon Lance
That one is a sacrament and one is not. One Christ made into a vehicle of sacramental grace. One is an ascetic discipline.

But according to the fathers, marriage is a sacrament because God blessed the post-lapsarian reality of carnal desire and sexual intercourse for the propagation of the species, whereas celibacy is the natural state of man (i.e., most of the Fathers seemed to believe that there was no sexual intercourse before the fall). Celibacy requires no sacrament because it is how we are intended to be in the kingdom.

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Originally Posted by LatinTrad
Of course, as a married man, I never really understood why it was hard for other married men to acknowledge that although marriage is a holy thing, consecrated celibacy constitutes a higher level of asceticism.
You raise an interesting issue ...

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I don't think you are talking about the Eastern concept of Crowning, which the Byzantine Church pretty clearly regards as Nelson describes. From Fr Meyendorff:

"The Lord said that "in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Matthew 22:30), and St. Paul, thinking primarily of the constant expectation by Christians of the glorious day of universal resurrection, wrote, "To the unmarried and widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do" (I Corinthians 7:8). Such is also the meaning of the "eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom," mentioned by the Lord (Matthew 19:12). By remaining celibate, monks or nuns want to manifest the real presence, in the Church and in themselves, of the Kingdom of God and try to express this presence through their own lives.

"But we have seen that true Christian marriage is also an image of the union between Christ and the Church. Both monasticism and marriage are, therefore, two different ways to manifest the great Mystery of our communion with Christ, but neither of these states of life can be justified by any egoistic or individualistic motivation."

I do think that Roman Catholic theology may be more open to considering marriage an accommodation to depraved desires useful only for the propagation of children, although where all the new monks would come from if everybody took the idea seriously that being celibate was better is an interesting question.

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Originally Posted by Cavaradossi
But according to the fathers, marriage is a sacrament because God blessed the post-lapsarian reality of carnal desire and sexual intercourse for the propagation of the species, whereas celibacy is the natural state of man (i.e., most of the Fathers seemed to believe that there was no sexual intercourse before the fall). Celibacy requires no sacrament because it is how we are intended to be in the kingdom.

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." . . . and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man . . . Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Genesis 2:18-25)

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Originally Posted by jjp
I do think that Roman Catholic theology may be more open to considering marriage an accommodation to depraved desires useful only for the propagation of children

No. That's a ludicrous caricature.

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Originally Posted by jjp
I do think that Roman Catholic theology may be more open to considering marriage an accommodation to depraved desires useful only for the propagation of children,
Wouldn't satisfying depraved desires be more likely within a marriage that uses contraceptives?

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Originally Posted by LatinTrad
Originally Posted by jjp
I do think that Roman Catholic theology may be more open to considering marriage an accommodation to depraved desires useful only for the propagation of children

No. That's a ludicrous caricature.
Not really, especially in light of St. Augustine's teachings on the matter. The current emphasis on the unitive aspect of conjugal relations is not representative of much of the tradition, which has often taught things such as taking pleasure in sex is always sinful (except for pleasure in anticipation of conception) and that sex is only for procreation and the mere legitimization of unholy desires.

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My sinful .02 worth on this issue (which I have been following with interest)

It seems that the inference from the Roman Rite is that a priest cannot be holy if he is married, that somehow the conjugal act somehow is defiling to his personal in toto. This is the part that bothers me.

Also, the priest, as one who is acting in persona christi to me gives an odd view of Christ, for in the Eucharist, Christ as the Bridegroom places the life-giving Eucharist, the sum and substance, the energies and fullness of Himself, into His Bride, the people of the Church. A celibate priest is to me a somewhat odd representation of the life giving self-donative personal of the Bridegroom when he does not do the same in his private life. I am not saying that celibacy has no place in God's Kingdom. Scriptural references to that state forbid me to say that. But the imposition of celibacy as a universal good rather than a particular calling just seems an odd representation of our Lord since the Church and Her people are in many ways shadows and types of the reality of eternity (Heb. 8:5; 9: 23-24)

And I think that Augustine's profligate life did have an impact upon his writings, just as the anthropological and soteriological understandings of man were shaped by the cultures of East and West respectively and are different in certain ways.

Again, just my .02, totally open to criticism.

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Originally Posted by Fr. Deacon Lance
How can celibacy, as honorable a sacrifice it is, compare to marriage which is a sacrament?
I agree. It really is foolish to denigrate either marriage or celibacy. God is the giver of all gifts.

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