Sunday, May 13, 2012

A little bit of church history

Edinburgh's Father Mike Fallon is taking a quietly strong stand against the power of the Vatican by asking for a debate on two of the most dearly held principles in the Catholic Church: the vow of celibacy and the ban on ordaining women. "My fundamental disagreement would be that there is no discussion allowed on either of the issues," says Fallon, whom some might see as being at the forefront of a simmering progressive rebellion against Rome within the priesthood. "Whether there is change or not is another matter, but there has to be debate."

Sister Roseann Reddy, co-founder of Glasgow-based order the Sisters of the Gospel of Life,  believes reform is not necessary. She said: "If you are a member of the Catholic Church we are not a democracy and we have never claimed to be a democracy...I wouldn't think the answer is married priests or woman priests..."

A Roman Catholic Church with women cardinals? And priests who are not celibate? More than 1,000 lay church-goers and priests attended a meeting in Dublin to discuss these ideas and others they believe are essential to the survival of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The average age of priests in Ireland is 64, that in just 20 years there will not be enough priests to serve the country's congregations. "The flood of men that used to come forward for the vocation of priesthood is today a mere trickle," Father Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests, told NBC News. "If there are no priests, there will be no Eucharist, no Mass." The association is convinced the requirement for celibacy is to blame and says it needs to be dropped. According to a survey commissioned by the group, 90 percent of Irish Catholics support the introduction of married priests.


 There is a website for hiring married priests for various religious rituals. It also carries articles explaining the origin and introduction of celibacy into the church which makes for interesting reading for those of who seek the materialist roots of ideas.

For the first 1200 years of the church’s existence, priests, bishops and 39 popes were married. Celibacy existed in the first century among hermits and monks, but it was considered an optional, alternative lifestyle. Medieval politics brought about the discipline of mandatory celibacy for priests. St. Peter " upon this rock I will build my church" was married. There are three references in the bible about St. Peter’s wife, his mother-in-law and his family.

It all began in AD 313, when the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity within the Roman Empire. With his legislation, the early church evolved from a persecuted group of small communities to become the official faith of a world power under Emperor Theodosius in AD 380.Constantine’s intentions in adopting Christianity were not entirely spiritual. His position was being challenged by political groups; he needed to display his power. Forcing other politicians to become Christians was a test of their loyalty. Constantine used the new religion as an effective tool to weed out his enemies. It strengthened his political power. Constantine also was faced with unifying the many peoples his armies had vanquished. Christianity was the key to establishing a new Roman identity in the conquered peoples. On the surface he made them Christians to save their souls, but this new religion was his final act of conquest over them.

With Christianity now the official religion of the Roman Empire, many things changed very quickly in the church. Priests from the small communities were given special social rank among their new Roman friends. They no longer had to hide from Roman soldiers and fear for their lives. Instead, they received pay for their services as priests and enjoyed special privileges in Roman society. Bishops were given civil authority and assigned jurisdiction over the people in their area. Romans, who were members of the local ruling elite, quickly converted to Christianity as ordered by the Emperor. These were men trained in public life and skilled in city politics. They became priests and rapidly moved into positions of leadership in the church. These Roman politicians, with their newly acquired priesthood, brought the impersonal and legalistic attitudes of government to the church. The celebration of the eucharist moved from small home gatherings to what we now call "mass" involving huge numbers of people in large buildings. The celebration of the Eucharist became a highly structured ritual that imitated the ceremonies of Rome’s imperial court. This Roman influence is the source of our vestments, genuflection, kneeling, and the strict formality of mass. An institutional church structure emerged mirroring that of the Roman government. Large buildings, church tribunal courts, rulers and subjects began to replace the family-based small communities that were served by a local married priesthood. The new Roman priests worked to shift authority away from the married priests in the small communities and consolidate political power around themselves. With the assistance of the Roman Empire, church leadership became a hierarchy that moved away from its family origins and into the Roman mindset of a ruling class that was above the people in the street.

In 366, Pope Damasus began the assault on the married priesthood by declaring that priests could continue to marry, but that they were not allowed to express their love sexually with their wives.The priests and people alike rejected this law. In the year 385, Pope Siricius abandoned his own wife and children in order to gain his papal position. He immediately decreed that all priests could no longer be married, but he was unable to enforce compliance to his outrageous new law. In 401, St. Augustine wrote that "Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman."

 The church adopted the Roman practice of men alone holding institutional authority. There is solid historical evidence that women served as priests and pastors prior to this time. In 494 women’s participation in the leadership of small communities came to an end when Pope Gelasius decreed that women could no longer be ordained to the priesthood. This legislation is perhaps the strongest proof we have of women serving as spiritual leaders in the early church. Women’s roles in the church diminished as popes and bishops marched in lockstep with the Roman authorities.

Celibate bishops and priests put great emphasis on sin and guilt in an effort to establish uniformity and control. It was during this period of church history that marriage after divorce was declared to be a sin. Those who were divorced and remarried were no longer permitted to receive the sacrament. Up to this time, marriages were adjudicated, consensually dissolved, and individuals were free to marry again, and free to receive holy communion.

Later on in the early Middle Ages another political dynamic was at play. The medieval church hierarchy was in a power struggle with the many monarchies and royal families across Europe. With the ability to control royal marriages, Rome realized that it could influence political alliances and manipulate affairs of state. As a result of this new effort to control royal alliances, being barred from communion and the sacraments immediately punished ordinary people who divorced and re-married. They were denied full participation in the life of the church because they did not comply to the will of church authorities. Legal status replaced spirituality as the benchmark for holiness

In this growing atmosphere of power and legalism, certain medieval popes abused their authority. In the year 1075, Pope Gregory VII declared that nobody could judge a pope except God. Introducing the concept of infallibility, he was the first pope to decree that Rome can never be in error. He had statues made in his likeness and placed them in churches throughout Europe. He insisted that everyone must obey the pope, and that all popes are saints by virtue of their association with St. Peter. The hierarchy viewed married priests as an obstacle to their quest for total control of the church and focused a two pronged attack against them. They used mandatory celibacy to attack and dissolve the influential priestly families throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world. At the same time they claimed ownership of the churches and the lands owned by married priests. As landowners the medieval hierarchy knew that they would gain the political power they sought in every country in Europe. An additional benefit of land ownership was money. They now had the ability to collect taxes from the faithful and charge money for indulgences and other sacramental ministry. This practice contributed to the Protestant reformation and the splintering of the Roman Catholic church community in the sixteenth century.

In the eleventh century, the attacks against the married priesthood grew in intensity. In 1074, Pope Gregory VII legislated that anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy. Continuing his attack against women, he publicly stated that "...the Church cannot escape from the clutches of the laity unless priests first escape the clutches of their wives". Within twenty years, things took a turn for the worse.In the year 1095, there was an escalation of brutal force against married priests and their families. Pope Urban II ordered that married priests who ignored the celibacy laws be imprisoned for the good of their souls. He had the wives and children of those married priests sold into slavery, and the money went to church coffers. The effort to consolidate church power in the medieval hierarchy and to seize the land assets the married priest families saw its victory in 1139. The legislation that effectively ended optional celibacy for priests came from the Second Lateran Council under Pope Innocent II. The true motivation for these laws was the desire to acquire land throughout Europe and strengthen the papal power base. The laws demanding mandatory celibacy for priests used the language of purity and holiness, but their true intent was to solidify control over the lower clergy and eliminate any challenge to the political objectives of the medieval hierarchy.

At the time, the Italian bishop Ulric of Imola, argued that the hierarchy had no right to forbid marriage to priests and urged bishops and priests not to abandon their families. Bishop Ulrich said that, "When celibacy is imposed, priests will commit sins far worse than fornication."

1 comment:

ajohnstone said...

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/02/10/buy-your-way-to-heaven-the-catholic-church-brings-back-indulgen/

Pope Benedict has announced that his faithful can once again pay the Catholic Church to ease their way through Purgatory and into the Gates of Heaven.

even though the church officially broke with the age-old practice -- you do something good, and the Church will help absolve you -- as long ago as 1567 and again in 1960, the Pope has quietly reintroduced it.