The Catholic Church - Reform--Good or Bad?

[I Will Deny You]

As I'm sure you all know, there is much debate within the Catholic community (which I am not a part of, but I follow it closely anyway) on reform. Some people are saying that women should be allowed to be priests and celibacy should no longer be a requirement--there's a theory floating around that without the celibacy requirement far fewer children would have been molested--while other people are saying that the Catholic Church shouldn't have to give way and should say "to hell with the non-believers" while keeping the true Catholics happy. (Lots of people born into Catholic families aren't involved in religion later in life.) Anyway, what do you guys think? Should women be allowed to be priests? Should celibacy be required, or should marriage be allowed?

[Reuben]

O.K.

A preist is going on holiday and he can't find anyone to cover for him. Eventually he finds the rabbi who agrees. Anyway the rabbi is doing confession and first a man comes in and confesses that he used gods name in vain and the rabbi looks in his book and tells him to say ten "Hail Maries". Then a woman comes in and says "I must confess father, I sucked off a preist", so he look in his book and he can't find it anywhere so he shouts over to the choir boys "What do you get for sucking off a preist?" and one shouts back "usually two chocolate bars"

[vox]

I don't know about the correlation between child molestation and celibacy. I think that it's extremely tenuous at best. After all, you don't hear about monks molesting children, nor nuns. It could be that people prone to child molestation are attracted to the priesthood, but I don't think that celibacy has anything to do with it in and of itself.

For the Roman Catholic Church to change either principle you mention would mean to change a helluva lot of theology, and I don't really think that it's going to do that. If it did, then the basis of belief would have to be questioned, and, considering that the Catholics are hurting for numbers right now, it would be a bad move politically, I think. Never sell out your base. The Democrats did, and look what happened to them.

vox

[Fires of History]

The basis for the theology of the priesthood is thousands of years old, and is an intricate part of what sets Catholics apart from Protestants. I wouldn't expect this to change anytime soon.

That said, I personally think both the priesthood and celibacy are silly. But I do not believe that celibacy is to blame for child molestations. Thousands of kids are molested everyday, and not by only celebate people. This is 'big' news only because priests have such 'standing' in the community, and are supposed to be 'role models.'

But, to answer your question, no, there will be no such reform. And if there was, that would be one of the last nails in the coffin for American Catholicism, if not Catholism in general around the world- because without preserving the role of the priest as it is now, they are running dangerously close to being Protestant. After all, their beliefs about confession, which run directly into their beliefs about salvation, are dependent on their stance on the priesthood. Not to mention several other beliefs about the sacraments, baptism, and the communion of the saints which are directly linked to the theology of the priesthood. No on this one for sure.
If it did happen though, talk about ecclesiastical meltdown.

Women
This, however, actually might change. This was even brought up during Vatican II, but wasn't a very popular idea at the time.

Not sure on this one. This could happen and not have disasterous effects on the sum of Catholic dogma. So who knows. I would support it though, uhm obviously.

People Over Profits,
Trance

EDIT: Keep in mind, not even the majority of Protestant churches allow female ministers. Hard to imagine the Catholics beating the Protestants to the punch on that one. I would hope it happens though.

(Edited by Fires of History at 2:10 pm on Mar. 30, 2002)