Roman Catholic Magisterium and Catechism on polygyny

[VictorLepanto]

As for deacons, they haven't taken final priestly vows. It is permitted for deacons to marry if they choose. In which case they would then to be permanent deacons. This is the ancient custom of the Church. I wish people actually had a real knowledge of Church history. As John Henry Newman said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." If the Catholic Church is not Christ's one & only true church, there is no true Church. If their is no Church, there is no Christ & we are still in our sins. The Catholic Church is our only connection to the Apostolic teaching.

Are deacons then permitted to be unmarried in Roman Catholicism according to the Magisterium and the Catechism and Tradition?

No one is obliged to get married.
Anyone can undergo the discipline of celibacy if they choose to. There are monastic groups who do this, & there is a traditino of dedicated virgins who live secular lives but never marry & never enter an formal order.

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

As for deacons, they haven't taken final priestly vows. It is permitted for deacons to marry if they choose. In which case they would then to be permanent deacons. This is the ancient custom of the Church. I wish people actually had a real knowledge of Church history. As John Henry Newman said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." If the Catholic Church is not Christ's one & only true church, there is no true Church. If their is no Church, there is no Christ & we are still in our sins. The Catholic Church is our only connection to the Apostolic teaching.

Are deacons then permitted to be unmarried in Roman Catholicism according to the Magisterium and the Catechism and Tradition?

No one is obliged to get married.
Anyone can undergo the discipline of celibacy if they choose to. There are monastic groups who do this, & there is a traditino of dedicated virgins who live secular lives but never marry & never enter an formal order.

How does that reconcile with 1 Timothy 3:12?

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. (1 Timothy 3:12 King James)

 

[MarvelousMarvin]

1 Timothy 3:1-5 NKJV This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. (2) A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; (3) not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; (4) one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (5) (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);

(And, of course, similar requirements for deacons if you read down through verse 13. And for elders and bishops in Titus 1:6-9.)

Sounds to me like a leader in the Church must be married and have children. Why? verse 5.

BTW, I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I asked in my last post of this thread about Pope Benedict XIII saying something about church tradition that directly contradicts what Jesus said about the doctrines of man being taught as commandments of God. Wasn't the Pope's statement just such a contradiction? If not, why not?

 

[VictorLepanto]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornocracy

I'd encourage you to continue learning about the early Church & to read the Patristic Fathers of the Early Church Period. You'd do well to familiarize yourself w/ them & what they actually said. I remember reading St. Augustine & how that shook my complacent acceptance of common Protestant assumptions. But a discussion of how my Pentacostal period came to an end is for another day.

I just need to repeat, people need to read closely & thoughtfully what they are reading. The answer to your question is right in the very text you posted. A Christian presbyter (the source of the English term priest) has never been allowed to get married AFTER taking holy orders. In fact, deacons may not marry after taking holy orders either, even still in the Latin Rite tradition. The Orthodox permit a man to take holy orders while still married. After orders, they many not marry either. They also can't remarry if widowed.

A recent development has been the permission of married Anglican clergy to take holy orders. It must be understood that Anglican orders are not recognised by the Catholic Church. It is held that since Anglicans changed the rite of holy orders after Henry VIII, real orders died out amongst them. But since these guys really thought they were being made priests when they were ordained as Anglicans, they are being given a pass for making a good college try. None-the-less, they are still forbidden to remarry if their wives preceed them in death. They are also barred from the episcopate while married, this is also the Orthodox Christian practice.

As for the Levitical preisthood, why do you even mention them? We are talking about the preisthood of the new, not the Old Covenant. The Levites & their Tabernacle/Temple was only instituted after the Golden Calf incident. It was corporate penance inposed on Israel as a punishment for their sins. Previously, the 1st born sons of every tribe were priests according to the ancient rite of primo genitor. It is these 1st borns who were slaughtered by the Levites after the Golden Calf, by the Levites. The Levites were annointed priests by the blood of the 1st borns of the other tribes.

 

[VictorLepanto]

[quote="DiscussingTheTopic
How does that reconcile with 1 Timothy 3:12?

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. (1 Timothy 3:12 King James)

Have you ever wondered, why this talk about a man for deacon or a presbyter or an episcopate must have one wife? Divorce was most certainly becoming common amongst the Roman nobility. It was still fairly uncommon elsewhere. Also, Greek or Roman, one wife at a time was still the rule. In a monogamous culture, insisting on this point is rather like insisting the only non-cannibals can be deacons, priests, or bishops. A good rule I suppose, but not like to actually come up. Could it be that this phrase actually means something else?

Maybe this means it is certainly atleast preferable that people holding these offices be (in effect) married to their congregations, thus having no human wife or children. How else to explain St. Paul's insistance that it is preferable people be unmarried, if they can bear the rule of chastity?

People need to read closely, think about what they've read & ask questions.

 

[Dr. K.R. Allen]

As for:

How else to explain St. Paul's insistance that it is preferable people be unmarried, if they can bear the rule of chastity?

First, if we apply a literal (historical grammatical) hermeneutic, instead of an allegorical spiritualized one, Paul said in 1 Cor. 7:7 that he wished, not that he commanded.

But, even further, and secondly, do you know what the "present crisis" was that Paul was referencing in 1 Cor. 7:26? That is a critical key to the proper interpretation of the wish by Paul for the men and women in Corinth to stay single. Are you aware of what it was?

Dr. Allen

 

[VictorLepanto]

As for:

How else to explain St. Paul's insistance that it is preferable people be unmarried, if they can bear the rule of chastity?

First, if we apply a literal (historical grammatical) hermeneutic, instead of an allegorical spiritualized one, Paul said in 1 Cor. 7:7 that he wished, not that he commanded.

But, even further, and secondly, do you know what the "present crisis" was that Paul was referencing in 1 Cor. 7:26? That is a critical key to the proper interpretation of the wish by Paul for the men and women in Corinth to stay single. Are you aware of what it was?

Dr. Allen

Which version of the Bible are your using to get "present crisis?" The Jimmy Bible says "distress." The actual Greek word is anayke. The primary meaing I can find is circumstance or necessity. So that idea that St. Paul was talking about a "crisis" at all is debatable. What kind of a crisis would require a virgin to remain a virgin is strange to me.

As to context, which is the proper sense of hermeneutic, the opening line of chap. 7 (which should usually served to control interpretation); St. Paul says:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is well for a man not to touch a woman.

St. Paul then discusses the danger of inchastity, recommending marriage only as a safe guard against it. See vs 2-6
-He speaks of only one (1) wife for a husband & one (1) husband for a wife.
-He speaks of married couples conducting themselves in terms of perfect equitiy, each submitting themselves in humility towards the other.
-Finally, he states he merely allowing for marriage as a concession merely to lust, it isn't a "command." vs. 6

He then inserts his wish that "all" were celibate, as he is.

He then discusses "unmarrieds" (agamos) & "widows, again advising celibacy but conceeding the mere allowability of marriage to avoid inchastity. vs. 8& 9

He then discusses married COUPLES again:
-He advises married couples to be content & to stay married.
-He advised seperated couples to seek to be reconciled rather then to divorce
-In vs.14 he makes his enigmatic statement about "believing" spouses "consecrating" their "unbelieving" spouses.
- (vs. 17) He recommends contentment in whatever your circumstance.

Now, in vs. 18-24; he discusses circumcision & slavery. Apart from again advising contentment in ones circumstance, this has little obvious relevance to our present discussion.

Now as to vs. 25-35:
He returns to discussing marriage. I'll forgo a detailed discussiong of this passage except to note that he gives the general principle by which he so anti marriage. Married people must be devoted to their spouses & families, thus they are proportionately less devoted to the Lord.

I'll also note that the term Allen seems to reference in his "prestent crisis" statement can be translated circumstance or necessity. Thus "for our present needs." If he wishes to impose a stronger meaning on it, he needs to prove its fittingness. (see vs. 26)

It is vs. 36 & 37 I find most interesting:

St. Paul here seems to say that a father should keep his virgin daughter as a virgin for as long as possible. In vs. 36, he conceeds that he should allow her to marry if she is getting long in the tooth & is losing her figure & is fretting about being an old maid, let her marry, In vs. 37, he says that if father can have his own way (the word anayke appears again), he should keep a virgin.

The final three verses are a summary basically. He gives his reason for recommending celibacy & again advises all follow celibacy.

There some hermeneutics for ye.

 

[Tlaloc]

A Christian presbyter (the source of the English term priest) has never been allowed to get married AFTER taking holy orders.

No, they where allowed such before the Council of Toledo, A.D. 400, and such a think was not opposed outside of ascetic sects before Pope Siricius (A.D. 385) Interestingly this was during the life of Aurelius Augustinus. But these measures where so controversial and ineffective to Christianity as a whole that Gregory VII had to crack down again at the Lateran councils A.D. 1059 (and forcefully tear families apart etc...). Even that was forcefully opposed by the Anti-Pope Cadalous and Christian clergy from the barbaric Germain Regions and Britannia even to the heart of Catholic power in Italia itself. They had serious disturbances all the way to Milan for Christs sake! If it wasn't for the Hildibradian popes consolidating (Usurping) the imperial might of the Holy Roman Empire they wouldn't have had the clout to enforce such a ridiculous rule on Christianity as a whole.

You have perhaps a 300 year window where papal power reigned over Christianity to the extent that no priest was allowed to marry, then you have the reformation.

Now, if you separate concepts of a catholic papal supremacy and Catholicism in general, that 300 year window from around 1200 to around 1500 is the only time papal Catholicism represented virtually all of Christianity. That kind of Catholicism is what we call 'catholic' today, before that time all Christians of all parties went by the name 'catholic', even the anti popes.

You have scraps from the ECF's that are manipulated by Catholics to look catholic and protestants to look protestant, and you have the name 'catholic' and assume that means Christians always did it like you do it today... Its pathetic. If you get some balanced history you can see that the Church has changed in many ways and the term catholic was a catch all term for orthodoxy. But mainstream Catholics at their heart consistently assume Christianity was always what Catholicism is now, and thats where we get quotes like the one above.

This is a topic which has always been controversial in Christianity, it's because many early Christians embraced asceticism. It's integrating pop culture with doctrine, and its BS then as much as pop Christianity is BS today.

 

[VictorLepanto]

As is typical w/ evangelical Bible commentaries & now the treatment of Church history. A priest was never permitted to be married AFTER taking holy orders. Some indeed were married before taking holy orders, but this was discouraged as St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians makes clear. Some couples became like Josephite marrages after taking holy oreders, or they became Josephite couples in order to take holy orders. The scope for such things was gradually more strictly limited.

The wild anachronistic constructs of Church history that are commonly presented by Protestants is truly bizarre.

 

[Tlaloc]

Dude, I cited councils, people, historical events, times, ect... You ignored the problem and assumed you where right.

I assure you Cadalous backed priests marrying and maintaining relationships AFTER taking their holy orders. Both marrying after taking the office of a priest of bishop and especially keeping concubines was very common at the time.

For earlier I went so far as to mention the first primatial council to make a decision on this area, not to mention the first pope. You've reply with nothing but idle dogma and you're impression of one passage of Corinthians in isolation of the larger context of scripture.

Wild anachronistic constructs of Church history are the legs on which the papacy stand, you couldn't say that marriage after ordination was never permitted without disregarding history. There was a time before it was prohibited, and there was a time after its first prohibition it became common, and now many Christians (Catholics in its proper use, Christianity as a whole, Protestent, Reformed, Orthodox, Roman Papist et all) allow marriage after ordination. The only error protestants made was abandoning the word catholic, now papists think that THEY are catholic, just because they kept the name. What drivel. :roll: :ugeek: :lol:

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

or they became Josephite couples

Spiritual marriage comes from the idea of "love without sex." It is a practice in which a man and a woman live intimately without engaging in any sexual activities. It has been known throughout many cultures as the bond of a man and a woman for reasons of spiritual and emotional intimacy and connection. ...

... Spiritual marriage in Catholicism

Spiritual marriage is a concept that has a long history in Catholicism, and is also known as a "Josephite marriage" after the marriage between Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary.[citation needed] A feature of Catholic spiritual marriage, or Josephite marriage, is that the agreement to abstain from sex should be a free mutual decision, rather than resulting from impotence or the views of one party.

In senses beyond spiritual marriage, chastity is a key concept of Church doctrine that demands celibacy of priests, monks, nuns and certain other officials in the Church. The doctrine established a "spiritual marriage" of church officials to their church; in order to better serve God, one had to disavow the demands and temptations of traditional marriage. This rule was enforced by Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, whose marriage to Cunigunde of Luxemburg was also a very famous spiritual marriage.

The Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin professed to enter a spiritual marriage, but consummated a year later when directed by their confessor to do so.[1] Of their nine children the five who survived to adulthood all became nuns, including Saint Thérèse de Lisieux.

Occasionally, spiritual marriages may also be entered later in life, with the renunciation of sexual relations after raising a family to fully dedicate oneself to God. In October 2001 John Paul II beatified a married couple, Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who bore four children, but later in life lived separately and committed to a Josephite marriage.[2][3]

Spiritual marriage has sometimes assumed a questionable form, in which a priest or monk would take a nun or laywoman as a wife, claim to remain celibate, and claim that they slept in the same bed but did not engage in sexual relations as a sign of their own willpower. Most, however, doubted that they were in fact as strong in chastity as they claimed, and such claims were judged heretical.[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_marriage

25And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
Mathew 1:25 King James

If Joseph did not know Mary until after she gave birth, how did he have in mind to divorce her?

"Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly." Mathew 1:19 NIV 1984

I think know is a metaphor for sex

But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus. Mathew 1:25 New Living Translation

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

[quote="DiscussingTheTopic
How does that reconcile with 1 Timothy 3:12?

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. (1 Timothy 3:12 King James)

Have you ever wondered, why this talk about a man for deacon or a presbyter or an episcopate must have one wife? Divorce was most certainly becoming common amongst the Roman nobility. It was still fairly uncommon elsewhere. Also, Greek or Roman, one wife at a time was still the rule. In a monogamous culture, insisting on this point is rather like insisting the only non-cannibals can be deacons, priests, or bishops. A good rule I suppose, but not like to actually come up. Could it be that this phrase actually means something else?

Maybe this means it is certainly atleast preferable that people holding these offices be (in effect) married to their congregations, thus having no human wife or children. How else to explain St. Paul's insistance that it is preferable people be unmarried, if they can bear the rule of chastity?

People need to read closely, think about what they've read & ask questions.

So a deacon could plant holy seed in a congregation of say 10 women, and it would be fine because it was only one congregation.

Marriage is to be ordained between one man and one group of women. As long as it is only one group of women it is monogamy even though it is with more than one women.

 

[VictorLepanto]

If you knew anything about Church history, you'd know that the main historic role of deacons was in reading the scriptures to the congregation during the Christian liturgy. This was one of the responsibilities of the Levitical priests in Israel. This is partly why deacons were called Levites in the early Church.

The only seed that they were putting into anyone is the word of God.

But your vulgar misapprehension is demonstrative of the real motives which drive this movment of yours.

 

[Anonymous]

But your vulgar misapprehension is demonstrative of the real motives which drive this movment of yours.

While I feel DTT's comments were unfortunate.....The above comment from you was not a fair statement. Please do not paint us all with the same brush.

Blessings,
Fairlight

 

[VictorLepanto]

But your vulgar misapprehension is demonstrative of the real motives which drive this movment of yours.

While I feel DTT's comments were unfortunate.....The above comment from you was not a fair statement. Please do not paint us all with the same brush.

Blessings,
Fairlight

I didn't make a comment about all of anybody. I take great care, usually (nah -see?) to be very careful w/ my words. I addressed the motive which drive this movement. A movement is driven by those who initiate it. I will wonder about what drives a person who initiates a modern polygamy movement.

 

[Anonymous]

I addressed the motive which drive this movement. A movement is driven by those who initiate it. I will wonder about what drives a person who initiates a modern polygamy movement.

Instead of wondering what the motives may be, why don't you just ask what they are ? I'm sure someone will have an answer for you.

Blessings,
Fairlight

 

[VictorLepanto]

But your vulgar misapprehension is demonstrative of the real motives which drive this movment of yours.

While I feel DTT's comments were unfortunate.....The above comment from you was not a fair statement. Please do not paint us all with the same brush.

Blessings,
Fairlight

I didn't make a comment about all of anybody. I take great care, usually (nah -see?) to be very careful w/ my words. I addressed the motive which drive this movement. A movement is driven by those who initiate it. I will wonder about what drives a person who initiates a modern polygamy movement.

As for Joseph not "knowing" his wife, in the DDT sense, "until the son was born;" King David's 1st wife also had no children until the day she died. This doesn't mean she starting dropping litters after she died. This statement about Joseph is only meant to assert that Mary was a virgin before Jesus was born.

As for after Jesus was born, Joseph would have been even less likely to approach her, as good Jew. Remember Belshazzar in Dan. 5. His kingdom was destroyed in a day for defiling the vessels dedicated to the service of God in the Temple of Jerusalem. The handwriting on the wall. He asked for the cups from the Temple be brought to him & he drank from God's vessel. For this defilement of the minor objects of the Temple, Babylon fell.

How much more so for the Ark of the New Covenant? As pious Jew he'd never enter the Temple of God. If he accepted the great miracle God rot in Mary, he'd never touch her either.

She was sacred on to God through her son. No man had a right to touch her.

 

[VictorLepanto]

I addressed the motive which drive this movement. A movement is driven by those who initiate it. I will wonder about what drives a person who initiates a modern polygamy movement.

Instead of wondering what the motives may be, why don't you just ask what they are ? I'm sure someone will have an answer for you.

Blessings,
Fairlight

As if people w/ bad motives would be honest about them, even necessarily to themselves. There is no one in this world easier to lie to then yourself. No one knows better then yourself all the right buttons to push in order to get you to buy the lie.

Self deception is a powerful thing, we must take great pains to guard against it.

 

[Anonymous]

How much more so for the Ark of the New Covenant? As pious Jew he'd never enter the Temple of God. If he accepted the great miracle God rot in Mary, he'd never touch her either.

She was sacred on to God through her son. No man had a right to touch her.

God created marital intimacy. There is nothing wrong or sinful with it as long as it is kept within the marriage union. Marital intimacy was normal, expected and good. Mary was human...not divine, even if she was used to bring about the birth of the Messiah. Marital intimacy would not have and did not defile her or Joseph. The idea that Mary was a perpetual virgin is one of the made up doctrines of the RCC. There is no Biblical text which supports such a belief.

Blessings,
Fairlight

 

[VictorLepanto]

How much more so for the Ark of the New Covenant? As pious Jew he'd never enter the Temple of God. If he accepted the great miracle God rot in Mary, he'd never touch her either.

She was sacred on to God through her son. No man had a right to touch her.

God created marital intimacy. There is nothing wrong or sinful with it as long as it is kept within the marriage union. Marital intimacy was normal, expected and good. Mary was human...not divine, even if she was used to bring about the birth of the Messiah. Marital intimacy would not have and did not defile her or Joseph. The idea that Mary was a perpetual virgin is one of the made up doctrines of the RCC. There is no Biblical text which supports such a belief.

Blessings,
Fairlight

It is late so I can not elaborate on the matter now. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant & is shown to be by the numerous numerous typological parallels between her & the Ark of the Covenant in the OT. The parallels are amazing. She is also like the Ark which saved Moses, as she carries Jesus to safety in Egypt, as Moses was carried to safety in Egypt.

She is also the Gebirah, the Queen Mother of Israel. The mother of the king was always given a throne of honor after Solomon & Bathsheba. This is a considerable theme in the OT. It would take much to developel everything pertaining to it properly.

Remember, it was seed of the woman (or is it the woman herself) who crushes the serpents head.

Besides, you said God "used her," no, God doesn't use anyone. He is not a love'em & leave'em kinda guy. He is not some Zeus coupling w/ every other nymph he finds passing in the woods. He was espoused to her.