Wednesday, March 23, 2005
HARD CASES MAKE BAD LAW
When the permanent diaconate was introduced after Vatican II, many in the pews took it for granted that this was the backdoor into the married priesthood. Much effort was made by Catholic apologists to dispell that notion, and our permanent deacons have slowly been able to make a place for themselves within the Church hierarchy.
Now comes an Australian bishop who wants to ordain married men.
A Catholic bishop says the church will need to consider ordaining married men to overcome a shortage of priests.
Bishop Brian Heenan from the Rockhampton diocese in central Queensland says it is becoming more difficult to find priests to work in the bush.
A priest, Fr. Robert Hollow, will be leaving two Queensland parishes at the end of May, leaving only two priests to serve the region. According to Fr. Hollow:
"The way for the future for the church generally is to change its view of the way it gets priests," he said.
"The idea of a local priest...there might be someone, an upstanding member of the community here, may be a married man, may be put through some limited training...understanding that he has to train for life, continue in service and that kind of stuff, but be ordained for the local community here."
In other words, the new married priest will not have the benefit of years of seminary training. He will be called forth out of the community and will get his training as he serves. Presumably, theology will suffer further degradation under his supervision.
I would expect that if Father's suggestion is taken up, married clergy in the U.S. would be a mere eyeblink away, adding more changes to an already disturbed Church, and bringing with it all the problems associated that prompted the Church to require clergy to be celibate.
None of this would have been necessary if theology had been guarded in the first place. Prior to the last 40 years of destruction, we had full seminaries and associate priests in every parish. But the Pope did not guard theology. The Pope disregarded discipline and instead went on a worldwide tour grandstanding before cheering youth while youth in parish after parish were desecrated, and seminaries turned into dens of iniquity. And now we have no priests. And so the solution is to ordain untrained married men who will not be able to withstand the onslaught of the modernists for further corruption of theology. And the Church will degrade even more. The Bride of Christ is still floating around in the mud puddle.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
