Cardinal says priests will marry

Written on 11:45 AM by Jack B.

Cardinal O'Brien of Edinburgh that is,

and this one from the Herald: O’Brien forecasts married priests

Excerpt:

The church leader has upset traditional Catholics in the past with his views on celibacy, homosexuality and the priesthood.

His latest comments were made in an interview with the Catholic Times, which will be published on Sunday,

Asked if he believed married priests will become a reality, he said: "Having seen something of the apostolate of married deacons, I can foresee the day when there will be married priests."

The Cardinal has angered conservative Catholics in the past with his acceptance of gay priests, as long as they remained celibate.

I can see two sides of this issue. I find it more than slightly hypocritical that the Church would keep and hide and protect pedophiles in the priesthood who don't belong there but not ordain men (like married deacons whose worth have been tested) with a vocation just becasue they happened to get married (especially since a lot of vocation to the priesthood these days is from older men in their 30s and 40s) and also hypocritical for the Church to institute a Pastoral Provision so that ex-Protestant ministers who have wives can enter the priesthood but not married Catholic men. Basically what you are saying is that someone who was raised Catholic, leaves the Church, joins the Lutherans or Anglicans and becomes a minister, then re-joins the RCC and wishes to become a priest can do so even if they are married, but a faithful son of the Church who never left can't. It's almost comical.

On the other hand, I certainly recognize that whenever someone want to attack and destroy the Catholic Church, the first thing they attack is celibacy. They go after those who have taken vows. The Protestant Reformers did it. The French Revolutionaries forced all the collaborationist "Constitutional" priests to marry or lose their heads, the Communist Chinese also tried to do the same. It would be laughable to say they did this with an attempt to make the Church "stronger".
In the news media and in Hollywood, it is always celibacy that is mocked and called into question as if it isn't possible to be celibate despite the fact that literally millions of men and women have done it over the millenia. The so-called modern "reformers" of the Church always say that they have nothing against celibacy and think that is it a "gift" but that it should become "optional", yet these same "reformers" don't defend celibacy when people who hate the Catholic Church's postions of issues insult celibacy by saying "who are these celibate old men to tell me how to live my life, have sex, procreate, abort, etc." That's kind a mantra that often appears in op-ed columns. So obviously celibacy is threatening to the secular world, just as the Catholic Church is threatening (you don't see them talking about the celebate vows of Buddhist monks or nuns, do you?). Which makes me think that celibacy is worth keeping - after all if the enemies of the Faith are so adamant that the Church should change that's all the more reason (to me at least) that it shouldn't.