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Austrian Priest: Before Female Priests, There Will be Married Priests

Paul Zulehner, the Austrian priest who last October helped organize the Pro Pope Francis initiative, has just given, on 6 January 2018, an interview to the Austrian newspaper Kurier which is being widely discussed in German-speaking media. Being a prominent representative of the German-speaking progressivists in the Catholic Church, Zulehner predicts that there will be approved, in 2019, the ordination of married priests. He also indicates the possibility of female priests.

When asked about whether there will soon be female priests in the Catholic Church, Zulehner answers with the following words:

Before there will be female priests, there will take place an opening up of the Catholic-ecclesiastical office [sic – the priesthood] to the married. I guess that the Latin American bishops will decide this at the Synod for the Pan-Amazon region in 2019. The pope probably will back them up. This will then put others under pressure to follow the example of the Latin Americans. This way, the Church will change.

Speaking about this method of operation which is based on a more decentralized way of governing the Church, Zulehner adds “It is one of the most important decisions of this pontificate that the pope overcomes centralism.” Things have changed now in such a way, says the professor of pastoral theology, that “that which Rome now says might well come from the peripheries.” He continues, saying:

Rome now goes into the school of regions, of the continents, of the bishops’ conferences, and then says: Okay, we accept that for the Universal Church, or, for now, we support it for the region.

For the Austrian priest, this development is revolutionary: “That is a revolution.” He explains, as follows:

Now the bishops’ conferences are being asked to decide about things which are important for us and then to inform the Vatican and then the pope can say: Do it exactly that way!

For Zulehner, this reform is about “the Church arriving in modernity.” Quoting “Pope Francis’ mentor, Cardinal [Carlo] Martini,” the Austrian professor says: that “the Catholic Church is 300 years behind the modern world.” Concretely, this new approach is described by Zulehner with the words: “One does not any more speak about the sins of men, but about their wounds; one does not moralize, one heals.” In this priest’s eyes, “Pope Francis is not an ideologue, but a shepherd who cares for the individual person in his individual situation.”

In this context, Paul Zulehner sees the next conclave to be decisive: “Will we continue the path of Pope Francis?”

Paul Zulehner himself co-authored books with Bishop emeritus Fritz Lobinger (South Africa) who is a promoter of married priests, as well as of the idea of ordaining women to the priesthood. As we reported in November of 2017, Zulehner then gave a talk at the fall assembly of the Bavarian Regional Committee of Catholics where he already showed himself convinced that Pope Francis will admit new forms of the priesthood.

As the newspaper Kurier reports at the end of this new 6 January interview, Zulehner’s initiative Pro Pope Francis has gained 70,000 supporters, and Zulehner himself is currently engaged in organizing a global network of 175 top theologians in order to “give theological foundations for the path of the pope.” “The goal is to follow up on — and secure — the Second Vatican Council so that the Church’s path into modernity will not be left again.”

174 thoughts on “Austrian Priest: Before Female Priests, There Will be Married Priests”

  1. Spiritual villains bent on destroying themselves. Remember the Deaconess thing is all about Women Cardinals not priests, that comes after.
    Conforming the Kingdom of God to the World is anti-Catholic in it’s very essence and contradicts the Great Commission (and everything else that is Christian.)
    These men are under a strong delusion from Satan and this is why they promote moral evil as good and call the ugly beautiful. May God deliver them before it’s too late.

    Reply
    • This is an answer to prayers.
      Let them show themselves for who and what they really are.
      Make them fall into the traps they set.
      This is a good thing.

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    • And everyone playing the confused card, still asking for “clarification” from Bergoglio and his henchmen. What more clarification?? They are as clear as a pristine church bell.

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      • Absolutely!! The Dubia has been answered. There is no more CONFUSION about what the Pope ‘meant’. I’m growing really tired of the prelates who are still playing the ‘Confusion in the Church’ card. The answer to the Dubia came when the Pope made the Argentine Bishops’ letter and his response part of his ‘magisterium’. Could he be more CLEAR? Nope. Crystal clear. Heresy thru and thru.

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        • “gay” is a vile little euphemism that has long been employed to render people oblivious to the horrendous reality of homosexuality, and it has been an outstanding success. It’s Orwellian ‘newspeak’. Language is a vehicle for the outward expression of thought. Change the language, and eventually the thoughts don’t get ‘thunk’ as it were.

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          • Yes, language is the source of thought and the changes in secular and religious language have been outstandingly successful in the last three hundred years. But the choice is still there to be made.

          • With regard to “religious’, that is to say, liturgical language, I believed for a long time that the Novos Ordo Missae had been devised to accommodate the lowest common denominator. It gradually dawned on me that the lowest common denominator is itself a direct result, and possibly intended purpose of the Novus Ordo. The Mass of St. Pius V was formulated to encapsulate the fulness of the Catholic doctrine and to rebut the heresies of protestantism. For most people, it was the most powerful form of catechesis that was available to them. Many would argue that the current, unprecedented crisis of faith is due primarily to the lamentable state of catechesis that has persisted, and even worsened over the last fifty years, and that is certainly true. But not, primarily, in the way that those who put forward this argument intend.

    • There is nothing refreshing about it. It is shocking and revolting. This will put the church into chaos—I mean more chaos than it already is in.

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  2. ….”and Zulehner himself is currently engaged in organizing a global network of 175 top theologians in order to “give theological foundations for the path of the pope”……….”
    Indeed, with ample support from the ultimate wordsmith: the devil.

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  3. The church-of-utopia in which the sins of man, and his fallen nature, are exalted.

    “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’” – St. Anthony the Great

    Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

    Reply
    • Wasn’t it Pope Pius and John Paul who said that the ‘greatest sin is the loss of the sense of sin.” They didn’t say that the greatest wound is our loss of the sense of our wounds.” Our wounds are the result of sin. It is by Christ’s wounds that we are healed. These men have to speak this touchy feely way in order to tear down, because they have abandoned Christ’s church and they no longer believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

      Reply
  4. Before there are women priests there will be women deacons and before there are women deacons there will be altar girls and before there are altar girls there will be female Eucharistic Ministers and lectors. Every giant step is divisible into 39 smaller steps. Before we can have women priests, we must first become accustomed to women marching all over the sanctuary.

    Oh, yeah….we’ve already passed stages 1 and 2 so that’s all done. We’re now at stage 3, waiting for the outcome of the Francis Commission on women deacons.

    Gee……..I wonder what it’s going to say?

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  5. Why not just get your paycheck from protestants, Mr. Zulehner?
    Why would anyone give him credence about anything since he lives without integrity. How can you be an authentic Catholic when you don’t believe in Catholicism? Why would you collect your wages for a job you don’t do? These men, all of them, are simply con artists.
    That includes Bergoglio.
    They are con artists.
    They speak with forked tongues.
    They are liars.
    Leave.

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  6. To be fair, look at what was allowed after Vatican II, married deacons and female altar girls. This is just a step down the road of “progression” that was started in the post-conciliar period. We should come to evaluate these changes, what fruits these changes bore, and do so in an honest fashion.

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    • It’s time faithful Catholics threw out Vatican II altogether and embraced the SSPX. Archbishop Lefebvre was right and John Paul II was heretic.

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  7. Yes Maike it is revolution and more. Pope Francis’ decentralization policy granting autonomy to National Bishops Conferences Germany, Argentina, Malta and elsewhere is having its apparent intended effect. Far more radical than what Fr Zulehner predicts. January 10, 2018, “Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, the Vice President of the German Bishops’ Conference, has called for a discussion about the possibility of blessing homosexual relationships. He believes there to be ‘much [that is] positive’ in such relationships” (LifeSiteNews). Conference President Cardinal Reinhard Marx agrees in principle. “He proposed that the Catholic Church rethink her teaching on sexual morality in which he argued against ‘blind rigorism.’ Marx applied this statement not only to men and women in ‘irregular situations,’ but also to those in a homosexual relationship. There has to be ‘a respect for a decision made in freedom’ and for one’s ‘conscience,’ claimed Marx. He said that one has to take into account the ‘concrete circumstances’” (Herder Korrespondenz). The term “concrete circumstances” was used by Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia. An ethics determined by circumstances is identical to the Situation Ethics of Joseph Fletcher 1963. Saint Thomas Aquinas demonstrates that a moral act must be good in its three categories, object, intent, and circumstance. While a circumstance can render a good act evil, it cannot render an evil act homosexuality good. Because the deciding premise is the object of the act, what the act does. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor following Aquinas affirms the act’s object must be ordered to God. Once moral absolutes are abandoned any evil becomes possible. This revolution is more a rebellion against God.

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    • Why am I reminded of the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf says to Saruman “Tell me Saruman, when did Saruman the wise abandon reason for madness!” and then the battle commences.

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      • I suppose persons like ourselves have something of Gandalf in us. The Sarumans of the Church are showing their colors. Tolkien was deeply Catholic and apparently received Our Lord daily. The Rings is a powerful moral drama. We live in a moment somewhat similar. The chilling sense I have at times as impossible as it seems [I long cherished the papacy and still honor the Chair of Peter] is that the Vatican during this Pontificate resembles Mordor.

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        • Resembles Mordor – yes, but that is where their Master is. Just Saruman’s Isengard or perhaps Gondor with its deluded King. Kasper as Wormtongue?

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          • Yes it makes sense. However Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin just approvingly remarked during a broadcast that the Church in the spirit of Pope Francis and Amoris Laetitia is experiencing in terms of morality a “new paradigm shift”. Mordor seems appropriate.

          • There are thousands of Church documents over the ages, most of which nobody ever reads or remembers other than as part of the general deposit of the faith. I find it laughable that a principle in a footnote of a late chapter in one of the longest and most incoherent of documents which at its very onset declared itself to be pastoral not doctrinal should now be used to overwrite EVERYTHING the Church has ever believed.

            The “spirit of Amoris Laetitia” sounds an awful like the “spirit of Vatican II”.

            I propose just throwing them away, as they don’t really add anything to the understanding of the faith and have demonstrably messed everything up.

          • Yes I agree. In reference to your reply and Standtall below my lifelong premonition has been that if the world and especially the Church were to favorably sanction homosexuality it indicates End Times [Cardinal Burke also feels we may be in End Times]. The breathtaking rapidity of approval in so short a time frame by so many particularly the diabolical ‘promotion’ now by prelates within the Church particularly the Vatican is that clear indication. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to pass. But I would be blind if I didn’t acknowledge the signs.

          • I totally agree Father. It seems that as the time goes by things are happening quicker and quicker. I think Satan knows he’s running out of time. I hope it doesn’t happen as well, but, if that’s where we are we’ll just have to galvanize, pray our Rosaries and have confidence in Providence. May our Lady keep you Father.

          • The Vatican has been a homosexual cesspool for some time. It accelerated with the arrival of Senor Bergoglio to its present as a homosexual enclave.

          • That has been what of the great contradictions that is misleading many to believe his orthodox words against homosexuality are in reality contradicted by his actions. In 2014, Francis reinstated Italian priest Father Mauro Inzoli, who was stripped of his priestly faculties by Pope Benedict in 2012 one of 800 priests defrocked by Benedict. Last year, Inzoli was jailed for four years and nine months for serial pedophilia against boys. And public profile kissing active homosexual couples before the world media doesn’t speak to conversion but accommodation of perhaps the worst scourge the Church has suffered.

          • That’s the tragedy. If he were opposed by the hierarchy he very likely would not have succeeded.

          • I find it unsurprising.

            That, I’m sorry to say, because my Protestant upbringing actually in some ways educated me about the collapse of Catholic piety, belief and practice in ways so many Catholics seem to have missed.

            We talk a lot about all the Catholics that have left the Church since V2 but I suspect far more have left the Church in belief and spirit who have yet remained in outward appearance.

            The truth is, Bergoglio isn’t an anomaly. He represents the full fruit of apostasy that has been ripening in the Church for decades. As such, he should surprise no one. In fact, the opposite; We should have been surprised if something like a Bergoglio DIDN’T occur in the papacy.

          • Margaret although as noted above it doesn’t meet the need for the Pope to definitively state his intent on matters related to the Deposit of Faith, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin confirms the Pope’s mind on the controversy answering the Dubia. It poses a quandary for many especially priests who feel bound to the Magisterium. Nevertheless it presents a gospel different from that which Christ gave us. That is Anathema. Unacceptable. And I hope clergy will realize that. The appeal to charity for a broken world by loosening doctrine isn’t going to inspire people to return to practice of the faith. Rather it signals that doesn’t matter. And with that inevitably comes loss of interest and Apostasy.

          • Well said, Father. It’s good priests like you who have to help your brother priests. In my experience, when I’ve tried to charitably correct a priest, it doesn’t work out (to put it nicely).

            When I went on my first Ignatian retreat, the priest told us that a woman never converts a man by words – only by prayer and example. Eve did not say anything to Adam when she gave him the forbidden fruit, and when St. Joseph was tempted to put Our Lady away (c.f.. Matthew 1), she did not say anything to him – it was the angel who told him: Fear not, Joseph…

            A final thought: Since St. Joseph is the Patron of the Catholic Church, we should invoke his intercession in these extremely difficult times.

          • Thanks Margaret. St Joseph isn’t often mentioned. He’s a modal for us particularly priests for humility and purity. He gave up his natural expectations of marriage and children out of obedience for something greater as member of the Holy Family. He practiced celibacy and remained chaste out of a perfect love for Jesus and Mary.

          • The incarnate Son of God before Whom the Cherubim and Seraphim hide their faces obeyed His own creatures. Isn’t that awesome? It makes my head ache just thinking about it (but it’s a good kind of headache if you know what I mean).

            Have a good Compline!

        • And here we the faithful laity await trembling, leaderless, knowing what should be done but lacking the means to make it so. its frustratingly painful to see the Church apparently moving in the wrong direction and having no mechanism (where’s our Theodan and Aragon??) to slow progress. Prayer gets us only so far, and eventually (likely sooner rather than later) we will have no competent authority to administer the Sacraments. And that is the most frightening of all.

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          • Indeed!! But…….stay close to Our Lady, she will help guide us. I am absolutely as sure as I’m typing on this keyboard, that Jesus will never forsake us!! He will take care of His little flock! And little we are, in more ways than one.

          • My belief is God will not permit this or any Pontiff to contradict the authoritative discretion inherent to the Chair of Peter to repudiate what Christ has revealed. That is why Pope Francis has engineered this infliction on the Church underhandedly and obliquely [it seems he is aware of this] not stating any of the errors definitively [sententia definitive intenda as cited in Prop 2 Doctrinal Commentary to Ad Tuendam Fidem] and why prev Apostolic Signatura Card R Burke’s Dubia remain valid inquiry. The addition of the letters to the Acta Apostolicae indicate intent but does definitively confirm that the Pontiff is making a Magisterial pronouncement. Furthermore if it were to occur that the Vatican issues a new liturgy definitively in theological error we as priests [which includes bishops and cardinals] have the obligation to refuse compliance [there is reference to End Times and abolition of the sacrifice of the Mass in Daniel]. A good source on this is Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s recent comments on the authority and limits to authority of the Papacy. If this travesty continues the faithful among the clergy will step forward and provide leadership for the faithful Laity. Such an occurrence will likely indicate End Times. The man occupying the Chair of Peter appears to be the fulfillment of a prophesy in her Scriva given by St Hildegard of Bingen. That the Church in the image of a woman gives birth to a demonic figure. That indicates demonic influence within the Church perhaps represented by a human person not necessarily an actual demon.

          • One certainly must be sympathetic to all those Protestants who see in the CC nothing but obfuscation, disingenuousness, liars in red hats and fraud religion.

            I ache for my family and friends who look at us and think we are absolutely insane to have anything to do with the CC.

            Of course, the Church is only parroting what the Protestants have had going on for decades, but still….

            And also, there are those who have converted who have been told that many of the things that are happening today “can’t happen because the Holy Spirit won’t allow it”.

          • My belief is we’re being chastised for our loss of faith. This Pontiff seems to have been permitted by Our Lord in anger to give those who are nominal, lukewarm free rein to perdition. It seems to me a moment of test and trial apparently intended to separate the chaff from the wheat before the Final Judgment.

          • Brian, let’s not forget a great work of Mercy which is to support good priests. If you have a good, faithful priest tell him you will support him when times get tough for HIM. Let’s give our good priests our prayers, but also a word of encouragement.

    • “Bishop Franz Josef Bode, the Vice President of the German Bishops’ Conference, has called for a discussion about the possibility of blessing homosexual relationships.”………THIS is what they are really after. THIS is the fake golden nugget they have been working for. They want the normalization and indeed, glorification of homosexual sex. Full Stop…

      Reply
    • AL misquoted St. Thomas, attempting to make his say soething that anyone famliar wiht his thought would recognize as contrarty to it. As for Veritatis Splendor, it wasn’t even quoted. As for priestly celibacy, there are several excellent historical and theological studies, such as the one by Fr. Cochini which cleary prove that cellibacy of deacons, priests and bishops is of apostolic origin. The notion that it was invented in the 14th century by the Council of Elvira, oby Pope Sirisius or others is false. In those days, the Church took Sacred Tradition very seriously and novelties were considered heresies. As for the Orthodox, they rejecred the authentic and previosly universal tradition in an anti-Romann council, called Quinisextus or In Trullo, in 691 and they partly supported their novelty with a mistaken reference to a Council of Carthage on 393. Later, if my memory serve me right, in the 11th century, they even banned non married priests except monks. They jettisoned the authentic tradition. Real reform in the Church does not come from giving into worldly aspirations but from the work of saints such as St. Gregory VII and so many saints of the 16th century, such as St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Charles Borromeo and so many others. What is needed is a radical change in the way parishes are run so as to fulfill the command of Our Lord to go and make disciples of all nation…. If the Germans bishops did this, instead of administering 7 billion euros they get from the government, they would have abundant vocations. Catholics have to be awakened to their missionof evangelization and intentional disciples, and with that the vocation crisis wil disappear.

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  8. There are married priests. Eastern Catholic Churches may ordain married men. Under the Ordinariate, married Anglicans clergy may be ordained Catholic priests. This is the extent of it.

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    • Except in the Ordinariate they’re not asked to undertake Levitical continence that the Eastern tradition has as implicit. Similar to the old Eucharistic Fast from at least the night before IIRC.

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  9. The “logic” of the “modernist” leaves no stone unturned, there is endless road. The wall if there IS one
    is in a very distant future, not even on the present horizon.

    One conclusion following “their logic” is a future female “pope” who happens to be a lesbian with a Child
    or two from a previous heterosexual relationship or I.V treatment.

    This is akin to what “they” are promoting. The shocking reality and implications of “their” intellectual error.
    But of course we know that it’s far more than an error of thought, it’s rejection of GOD.

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  10. “One does not any more speak about the sins of men, but about their wounds; one does not moralize, one heals.”
    Masonic-communistic-newage-jesuit-liberation-theology-mantra-crap-venom, a poison that instead of blood circulates through the veins of many seduced blind people… With each new revelation of their too much obvious heresies and complete apostasy, our good God is giving many others(!) more time to SEE, understand, believe, repent and make a final choice to be a Catholic!
    Which is diametrically opposite to these heretics.

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  11. Funny how “decentralization” sounds a lot like “centralization,” only the wrong way around (instead of Rome enforcing orthodoxy, the “peripheries” enforcing the lack thereof). The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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  12. Following some very serious research, I found what I believe to be an overlooked but very serious problem. I understand that baptized Catholic married men can be validly ordained to the priesthood but it appears that mostly what they want to do is allow the priests who left the priesthood to get married to return to the active priesthood while remaining married. It is one thing to ordain a married man to the priesthood, it is quite another to allow a de-frocked priest to become active in the Church. These have abandoned their vow of celibacy which they swore to God. Jesus said that; ” If a man puts his hand to the plough and then looks back, he is not worthy of me.” When they left the priesthood they looked back and let go of the plough. Women can never be validly ordained to the priesthood and these who left must remain outside the active priesthood.

    Reply
    • Correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I have read that ‘married Priests’ after they are ordained must become and remain ‘continent’. Celibacy is not exactly ‘continence’. Celibacy is remaining ‘unmarried’. Continent is abstaining from the marital act.

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      • According to the present law of the Church that is correct. This, however, is a disciplinary act or law. Such laws can be changed. Whether they should be changed is another question.

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    • Yes, I’ve read of others who have noted the exact same concern you have.

      Indeed, it is now obvious that a married priesthood would be the fast lane back to the priesthood for those who were booted out in the past.

      Fastlane for both them and their wives…..and husbands….

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    • When I was in college, the Catholic chaplain who was there when I started up to the end of my junior year was a mild fellow who got along with almost everybody, had 2 Ph. Ds. (Philosophy and Theology if I remember right) and gave VERY short homilies (5 minutes max) ended up leaving the priesthood to get married. I’m not certain, but I think he got married WITHOUT being laicized.

      When I came back for my senior year, I saw a new priest moving his stuff into the chaplain’s office. I was really surprised to see him and asked where’s Father So-and-so? He replied that Father So-and-so had left the priesthood to get married. I was stunned but recovered myself and asked him: “So Father, what’s your style?” He replied: “I’m orthodox in content and evangelical in preaching.” Okay…

      On Respect Life Sunday, he gave an awesome pro-life homily. On Ash Wednesday – to a packed auditorium of students and some faculty – he started out like this: “IT’S A MUST! YOU ARE DUST – AND UNTO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN!!!”

      He explained the readings and the Gospel verse by verse. That homily must have lasted 45 minutes and everyone paid attention. No one complained that the homily was too long. After Mass, he distributed the ashes which everyone wore going back to campus.

      He encouraged the students to be pro-life and we started a pro-life group. He took us on the March for Life.

      This priest was almost like another St. Augustine of Hippo. I saw him occasionally after I graduated. He died of cancer some years ago. I don’t know what happened to the former chaplain who left the priesthood.

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      • It seems there were a lot of priests laicicized in the years following Vatican II. We were from a small mission church from the time I was a child until a few years after I got out of the army. After our first priest died, who had taken care of a large area which included 6 churches for over 35 years, we got a younger priest assigned to us. He was one of 3 sons in a family. All 3 were priests. After the council one of them couldn’t in conscience go along with the changes and took an extended sabbatical and the other 2 kept their parishes. Later, the one who had been our pastor was transferred to another parish and within a couple of years got his housekeeper pregnant, was laicicized and got married.

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  13. What’s so bad about married priests? If I remember my Catholic education correctly, the issue of married priests is a tradition with a “lower-case t” and so it would be well within the Church’s power to change it. On the other hand, female priests would violate Tradition (upper-case) and so is impossible.

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    • I mean… TECHNICALLY the practice of married priests could change. Exceptions have even been granted, for instance, in the 3 Ordinariates worldwide for former Anglicans who desire to be Catholic. Some of the former Anglican priests who are married are allowed to be ordained. I’m friends with one actually.

      However, I know of no married priest who thinks it would be a good idea to open the priesthood to married men en masse. I was speaking to my friend about this today actually. There are things he is unable to do for his parish because he is not a celibate. He has a wife to care for… even financially, it’s a huge deal. If the priesthood would be opened to married men generally, it will become impossible for parishes to properly support them AND their wives financially. They will not be as available to the parish (imagine a priest and wife with a newborn who is waking all hours of the night and the priest gets a call to administer Last Rites to someone in the middle of the night… the strain on the wife is great.)

      It is also most likely that any of the first Apostles who were married (St. Peter had a mother in law so he was married, at least at some point) practiced continence and lived apart from their wives. This is also a discipline that has been practiced for over 1000 years. You don’t ever put aside something with that long a history casually… Allowing married men to the priesthood also makes the priesthood more common, less of an identity of who the man is than what he does. Married men being ordained as a matter of course would wreak great destruction upon the Church… it must not be allowed. Exceptions in some cases may be made, but they must be rare (each one ordained to the Ordinariates must be personally approved by the pope.)

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      • Well, we certainly have a homosexual crisis within the priesthood. And there is certainly a vocation crisis. Catholic families are also under attack. What better way to rectify the situation then by allowing priests to marry? Time to rebuild Catholic civilization. If it was good enough for Saint Peter and if it was good enough for the Levites, I say it is worth a shot. It can’t get much worse than it is now. Drastic action is needed. This would be one “surprise” I would welcome from Pope Francis.

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        • It would be a disaster for Catholic civilization. A disaster. We need to restore the priesthood to the prestige it once had, not diminish it to just another job. There is a reason the Church began forbidding her priests to marry.

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          • This too is a HUGE problem.

            I’d reference the term commonly used but I have been instructed by the Moderators not to….

            LOL.

          • As a convert who was raised Methodist, son of a Methodist minister and from a long line of Methodist ministers {even one of my grandmothers was an “ordained” Methodist minister} I have written of the problems with this approach many times.

            Jafin you are dead right.

            It would be a disaster for the Church and worse for the world.

        • Would allowing priests to marry address the problem of homosexuality in the ranks of the priesthood? Or, is it too much of a stretch to suppose that, given the ‘legality’ of same-sex marriage, some may argue that it is discriminatory and therefore illegal to restrict ‘marriage’ to heterosexual priests. It sounds too bizarre to even contemplate, but we live in very strange times.

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          • I agree. Allowing married clergy will not solve the problem of sodomites in the priesthood. The Anglicans and Episcopalians are a perfect example : they allow it but still have the same problem that we have. The only answer is a complete return to traditional liturgy, whose rigorous discipline, sense of hierarchy, embrace of tradition, self-abandonment towards God, and love of Theocentric order, attracts masculine men. Masculine men crave these traits. Effeminate men hate them. The fact that the Church does NOT bring it back shows how little the hierarchy understands human nature. And thus with continuing difficulty will the Church attract masculine priests in the New Rite, unfortunately.

          • Dentists and doctors, and protestant ministers have an equal or greater number of sexual perverts among them. And they abuse children in equal numbers. This is fact. The priesthood is a celibate vocation. A call. A separation from the world. A ‘fatherhood’ of congregations instead of personal families. John Paul (in my humble opinion) did a lot of harm, but one thing he did that will have lasting value is his writing on the all male priesthood. He stated categorically that he couldn’t change something instituted by Christ Himself. Forget Peter and his wife. The Church has spoken – end of discussion.

          • Beautifully put, Michael. Pope Pius XII warned against the “suicide” of altering the faith in the liturgy and doctrine. Thus the vital importance of the traditional liturgy as a means of transmitting the fullness of the Catholic faith. Several decades of Novus Ordoism has led to a near-fatal minimalism and a largely emasculated and hence largely impotent Catholic Church.

          • Oh indeed, Steve. I’m sure there must be those who would be ecstatically happy at the prospect of walking down the aisle, resplendent in their ‘nuptial’ attire. A certain notorious, currently very high profile Jesuit immediately springs to mind.

      • I have thought about this for some time now. According to what I have read, ‘married’ Priests are supposed to practice continence with their wives. First of all, how many do you believe actually do that??!! And second of all, to be married and to be ordained a Priest, it seems to me if a Priest would remain continent, at the same time he would be in a certain sense, and in certain circumstances, dishonoring his marriage vows. If this would be a younger Priest with a young wife, there would be no chance to procreate. To me, anyway, this is a ‘catch two’ situation. Both marriage and the Priesthood are vocations To me, you have to choose one or the other. To choose both you would be dishonoring one of them.

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        • Does ANYONE in authority care?

          Locally there is a deacon who was married w/ kids then obtained an annulment and is married again.

          Yeah, I know, a previous marriage isn’t a marriage if it was annulled…

          “Whatever”…

          Even if the previous was legitimately illegitimate, is that the sort of leader the Church wants for its parishes?

          I guess so.

          Reply
        • Those priests who are married are, as I understand it, dispensed from the requirement to be continent. It is not a requirement… whether good or evil I will withhold my opinion for now.

          Reply
      • Which is why Jorge must have his “divorce/remarriage” and contraception, too.

        See, when Father O’Malley’s marriage of 28 years falls apart because he wants a younger, firmer model, we can’t have his 2 kids scandalized by his new room-mate.

        Reply
    • Having been a participant in Orthodoxy, the argument of married priesthood being somehow less sacramental and effective in vocation is just not tenable. Though i would agree, the ‘ideal’ would be for the charism of celibacy to be exalted in a priestly vocation as a man is liberated form the worldly concerns for exclusive church priority. However, the married priest ‘in the world’ still must support himself and his wife while being present for his parish needs. Thats quite a load. However, the married (orthodox) priest also brings a dimension of relational richness from work and family to his flock that the never married can’t match. And thats not a put down for celibacy but just saying that marriage isn’t a stain on a priestly calling. Having said all that, I do not trust the movement by Pope Francis on this matter because he does not have an orthodox view of marriage to begin with thats why he expresses such magnanimity towards gay relations. He is going to use this as a leverage down the road to exploit ‘other’ venues – this is what a cultural Marxist does and will do. A last point and i’ll shut up. The Orthodox have long recognized the vocation of deaconess but thats where it ends. No female priest now or in the future. I know of no Orthodox church that utilizes altar girls but i may be ignorant here………..

      Reply
    • The Lord does not will this, so God the Holy Spirit has led His Spouse to reveal the Mystery of Christ the Celibate Priest even on earth as He is, and we will all be who are in Heaven in the Life to come..
      BLESSED BE THE LIVING GOD AND BELOVED, THIS IS HIS MIGHTY WORK, THIS IS THE DAY OF THE LORD THAT HE HAS MADE, WE REJOICE AND EXULT!

      Reply
  14. And an inverted pentagram and a cross-less suspended Jesus in the background behind him.
    Just stuff I notice. Sometimes.

    Reply
    • That is perceptive and interesting. There is a demonic influence behind all these people within the Church, who openly and boldy flaunt the moral teachings of Jeaus Christ.

      Reply
    • You’re not kidding! Unbelievable! Linda’s not kidding people. Look at the picture: A crossless Jesus, like DaVinci’s man in the pentagram, and to the left and down, in a vase, some kind of flower arrangement in the perfect, exact, unequivocal shape of an inverted pentagram. Wow! Well, at least he’s lost none of that legendary Austrian directness.

      Reply
    • Linda, Thank you for sharing this, you are very observant. Also the hands of the clock form the broken cross (which most people associate with the peace symbol)

      Reply
      • Christopher, I had not noticed that.
        The top hand a bit askance, but yes. The minute hand caught in the right place.
        The “peace sign” is the sign of the broken cross, upside down.
        Or, the man dies.
        Look at the front and back of a priest’s robes. That’s the cross upright, the arms raised up. The man lives.
        Turn it upside down. The inverted cross. The arms outstretched just contrariwise. The man dies.
        The only cross in the photo is an inverted cross. The shape of one. In the hands of a clock.

        Reply
    • Christopher, I had not noticed that.
      The top hand a bit askance, but yes. The minute hand caught in the right place.
      The “peace sign” is the sign of the broken cross, upside down.
      Or, the man dies.
      Look at the front and back of a priest’s robes. That’s the cross upright, the arms raised up. The man lives.
      Turn it upside down. The inverted cross. The arms outstretched just contrariwise. The man dies.
      The only cross in the photo is an inverted cross.

      Reply
  15. A letter from Pope St. Gregory the Great, with regards to even deacons not having sexual relations with their wives once in their ministry. They were called to continence as with the priests. Are we to believe any married apostles, once ordained by Jesus Christ, continued to have any sexual relations with their wives?

    http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360204036.htm

    Reply
  16. Popes have written against modernism. This will continue to separate the real Catholic Church from the false one. We need to fight – keep the faith and stay the course.

    Reply
  17. “One does not any more speak about the sins of men…” in which case, it is best to avoid reading the words of Christ in the Gospels, where He speaks quite a lot about the sins of men. Or the Letters, which do the same. As does the entire Holy Bible.

    “…but about their wounds.” Did not Our Lord hang from the Cross, covered with wounds, so that our repented sins might be forgiven? No wonder the author has Christ dancing in the air without a Cross.

    “One does not moralize, one heals.” The profession of psychology has been gradually figuring out that without morals, people only create more wounds. You cannot put morality and healing into opposition. This is out dated pop psychology at its miserable worst.

    It has taken real psychology over a hundred years to start to crawl out of that pit, and now they want to jump back in?

    And on the ironic side, Bergoglio never stops talking about the sins of
    men, or at least the sins of traditionalists. And with the possible exception of Outer Mongolia, how can you find a place more peripheral than Khazakstan?

    Reply
    • I knew it from the first time I heard Jorge refer to “wounded families” without referring to the guilt of sin that wounded them

      Reply
  18. If Jesus wanted having women priests in His Church that He built it upon Peter the Rock. He would had appointed HIS Most Holy and Precious Mother, Mary Most Holy to be the Rock of His Church. Instead He made Her the Mother of the Church ~”Son behold your mother! Woman, be hold Your son!) Our Holy Mother of the Church! Jesus gave the keys of His kingdoms here on earth and there IN HEAVEN to Peter. Why? Because the Church is built for Sinners (us) to repent as Peter did! Peter was the greatest of all repenters, that is what Heaven is made for, for the Repented Sinner as Peter, that is all of us! No repentance, no HEAVEN! His Mother is the HELPING HANDS of a LOVING MOTHER TO US ALL! It is Her helpings that bring each of us to enter the Church, to repent for our sins as Peter did! All those UNDERSTANDINGS are clearly indicated in the Holy Scriptures! This Austrian Priest, Paul Zulehner did not have enough learning nor had made a careful Critical Thinking before HE EXPRESSED HIS IGNORANCE TO God’s Truth! Pray God to forgive him and them….. to miss lead someone into SIN is the most GRIEVOUS of all SINS!

    Reply
  19. More and more important to use these days for our personal sanctification. Are there many days left to us for developing an inner life? It’s fine to think of the world of souls out there but more important, in the final analysis, to save ourselves. This way we can save our families and others close to us. Leave the world to God and save those we can save.

    I worry about a seeming lack of charity – in myself and others in com boxes (no comment in particular, just in general). We must not lose our peace, and our charity because of frustration and anger. (talking to myself here…) Our Lady has told us we must love sinners and pray for them, and make sacrifices for them. The adage “love the sinner, hate the sin” is very difficult to put into practice. But that’s what Our Lord Jesus does, no?

    Reply
  20. Aside from the fact that I don’t know why these old creeps are so obsessed with sexual matters amongst the laity, I don’t know know why they don’t become protestant. I would think if I were an Austrian or a German I’d be more worried about the pew sitter crisis instead of the vocation crisis. What are they hoping for, a priest-to-parishioner ratio of 1:1?

    Reply
    • In a traditional Ignatian 30 day retreat, one man would make the retreat with one priest. It wasn’t until the 20th century when +Fr. Vallet started the 5 day retreat separately for men and women. Most of the people under his direction either fought or were martyred in the Spanish Civil War.

      Reply
  21. My friends, Paul Zulehner is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Catholic Church is based on the Apostolic Tradition and the Bible. Jesus Christ founded our Church. Obedience to truth has been the example of holy saints. God will not be mocked by the likes of revolutionaries such as the wolf Zulehner.

    This wolf speaks of modernization, yet according to Our Blessed Mother the Church does not have fashions or styles. The Church does not change with the world.

    Priests practice celibacy in imitation of Jesus. Read the bible, look at the great saints how they lived and look at Our Lady. You will find a consistent theme of purity. Purity pleases God. Priests should be pure.

    A woman priestess is a human desire. It is not the will of God. Even Our Lady was not a priest. This idea is from the devil.

    Pray for the wolf Zulehner. He needs a lot of prayer. Hopefully his heart will be moved and he will convert.

    What should priests do? Stop trying to please the world. Instead labor to please God. Stop obsessing about revolutions, modernization, married and female priests. He should spend his time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament begging God’s mercy for the sins of the world. A priest should with a loving heart fast and offer personal sacrifices pleasing to God in atonement for the sins of the world. The priest should focus on the salvation of souls. He should offer the Mass worthily and make confessions available most of the day and everyday.

    Reply
  22. They say this to the detriment of their own soul and to the detriment of many souls who have already imbibed of this deceptively poisonous Kool-aid. Regardless of their words they dont have the power to do what they wish to do, only the pretense of it.

    In regards to married priests, i dont mind this but I take issue with Pope Francis pushing it or any like minded prelate because I feel its some type of component in some major highly spiritually hazardous plan in play.

    Reply
  23. Where can we find the preliminary papers for the “Amazonian” Synod? I’ve only been able to find the press release on the website of the Radio Vaticana. Who are being consulted and who will attend, etc.?

    Reply
  24. The issue is primarily one of the status of the priest as somebody consecrated to the service of God, as someone who handles holy things and deals in holy things. Attachment to the things of this world does not befit priests, in any religion. And the more so, in the one true religion, that is, the Catholic religion. We are all called upon to abstain and fast at the appointed times. The monastic life is seen by the Trappists as one long Lent. It is fitting therefore that those appointed to deal directly with what is holy should abstain even from otherwise legitimate human activities – not confined to the consummation of the matrimonial bond. Continence, therefore, should be the rule for those in the major orders. Celibacy, in the West, is the outward, canonical expression of this obligation to clerical continence. I have heard priests especially in the Novus Ordo, imply that their promise to celibacy is not a promise to chastity. This is not an acceptable line of thinking.

    The question of the ordination of married men in the priesthood in the West is an immensely complex one for a number of reasons. One cannot simply look at what is done in the East (or in the Ordinariate) and try to import it into the West. One cannot also overlook the fact that the understanding of the sacrament of order has undergone significant but not too apparent changes in the West in the previous century, which is itself, linked to the way the Tridentine understanding of minor orders major orders, is received and interpreted. And, finally, I would suggest, also in the light of the disastrous changes following the Second Vatican Council, the changes in the ecclesial culture are too significant to present the ordination of married men as a return to an ancient practice.

    I personally think, as a private person, that it was perhaps not an entirely prudent thing to tie the minor orders to an eventual priestly ordination. In other words, the problems of clericalism on the one hand, and of superlaicism on the other, could have been avoided if the minor orders were routinely given to men who would otherwise fulfil those functions in their respective parishes. In practice, this means that we would have had an army of tonsured porters and exorcists(sacristans and vergers), tonsured readers and acolytes, who would have relieved priests of a number of duties in the execution of the sacred mysteries. I argue that such a situation would have inculcated in the laity an understanding and love of the Liturgy. Of course, only those of the minor clerks who were not married would be destined for the major orders. But nothing ought to have prevented the others from continuing in their duties. We would have been spared all that malarkey about active participation, if in at least every family, there was a member who, if he was not in the major orders, would have been in the minor orders. Now, this is a lot of dabbling in counterfactuals. Still, today, we have the so called ministries. If more married men would have been given those ministries from Day 1 things might have been different.

    Reply
  25. Bergie had to first get approval from the Bishops to commune divorced and remarried. He has that now.

    Then he can open the door to married priests.

    See, first we had to have a method to keep them when their marriages “fail”. We wouldn’t want to lose a wonderful, good priest just because his marriage failed, now would we?

    That wouldn’t be a very merciful thing to do to the faithful, would it?

    Reply
  26. I hope there will be celibate female priests before married male priests. Celibacy for the sake of the kingdom is a sign that we need in today’s world. Why should we have married male priests first, when there are so many celibate women who would be wonderful priests? The Catholic Church should recognize that religious patriarchy is cultural rather than dogmatic and start ordaining women to the sacramental priesthood.

    Reply
    • “Why should we have married male priests first, when there are so many celibate women who would be wonderful priests?”

      The short answer is “because that is heresy and a proposal that has been condemned by the Catholic Church”.

      Female Priest{-esses} = Non-Catholic.

      Don’t fret, tho. You should feel right at home here:

      http://anglicansonline.org/resources/discuss.html

      Reply
      • The 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is NOT an infallible definition of revealed truth. It is just a pontifical “executive order” to stop further discussion on women priests and bishops at the moment. The letter is addressed to the bishops, not to the entire Church. It does not say it is a dogmatic definition, so it is not infallible as either extraordinary teaching (Pope ex cathedra) or ordinary teaching (Pope and bishops together have never taught infallibly that women cannot be ordained to the sacramental priesthood). It is entirely written in past and present tense, and says nothing about what the Church can or cannot do in the future, so it is “definitive” for the the past and the present, but cannot possibly be “definitive” for the future, since it says nothing about the future.

        Reply
        • Yes, it is infallible:

          “4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

          ****Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that ***this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.****

          Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.

          From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.

          Roma locuta est, causa finita est. That’s it.

          Reply
          • No, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is not infallible. Writing something in present and past tense does not make the words infallible for the future. It is “definitive” about the past and the present, but cannot possibly be definitive about the future, because the document says absolutely nothing about the future. In this case, “Roma locuta est, causa confusa est.” The Church will clarify this in due course. Peace be with you!

          • It is infallible because it is in accord with Holy Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the constant unchanging teaching of the Church.

            You think it isn’t infallible and I say it’s infallible. So let’s end this a la George Gershwin and “call the whole thing off”.

          • Holy Scripture must be properly interpreted, taking into account the CULTURE in which it was written. Sacred Tradition is a LIVING tradition, not a mere repetition of the past. The Church has NEVER defined the exclusively male priesthood as a dogma of the Catholic faith. The Christian faith is always the same, yet the source of ever new light. Why should we keep Christ and the Church frozen in a patriarchal culture that is passing away? Why should we “call the whole thing off”? Is the Church dead? Is the Holy Spirit dead?

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7b1ab6034588423ecc321bd6ef6c08efe7a80c0c5f20104d75c07e6a46bb1d5.jpg

          • Sacred Tradition grows organically (c.f. Orientalium Ecclesiarium) in the same sense and in the same meaning (c.f. Vatican I which quoted St. Vincent of Lerins). You get oaks from acorns, not oranges.

            Re the male priesthood: It is dogmatically defined at the Council of Trent.

            I’m getting ready for church. More later.

    • I strongly disagree with you, Luis.

      I think that your opinion would fly well over at the Jesuit “America” website … “father” James Martin would wholeheartedly endorse it.

      But no. No female “priests” let alone married priests. Nada.

      Reply
  27. “In this context, Paul Zulehner sees the next conclave to be decisive: “Will we continue the path of Pope Francis?””

    Indeed.

    Reply
  28. Traditionalist Catholics who have been mesmerized by the subsidiarity mantra over the past decade or so will now (sadly) see how it plays out in real life. “Do your own thing!”

    Reply
  29. Do married priests include same-sex married men since same-sex marriage is now legal? In other words, how would they be able to say that the married priesthood is only for men married to women thereby discriminating against men married to men? Or, if women become priests, women married to women?

    As for women priests, that would indicate approval for same-sex marriage – lesbianism in this case. Theologically the Bride of Christ is the Church therefore priests, as alter Christus, are married to the Church. If a women are priests they would be married to the Church which would indicate lesbianism.

    Additionally, married men and women as priests would indicate approval of polygamy since a priest as a married man would be married to his wife and to the Church. And a woman priest married to a man and to the Church would mean that poly fidelity is approved.

    Furthermore transgender people would be in an uproar to get equal rights to the Priesthood of Christ. A transgender woman could be a “male” priest; a transgender man married to a homosexual could be a priest. The result of that would be to remake the Bride of Christ into a gender neutral entity so that no parties would be offended by the Church being cisgender.

    All of this would mean then that the laity would likewise be able to participate in such unions.

    Reply
  30. Technically there are already married priests in the church. 1) the ukrainian Catholic and Byzantine Catholic Eastern rite priests marry; and 2) the Anglican priests who are accepted into the catholic church as ordained Catholics are married but I think they are supposed to live in celibacy once they are officially catholic. Perhaps someone with more knowledge than me can confirm or deny that.

    Reply

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