How nice of them to take such an interest in ecclesiastical matters.
January 22, 2011
German Christian Democrats know solution to Church’s priest shortage
Posted by notburga under Germany, how tedious, Ludicrous To Pious Ears, politics[7] Comments
[7] Comments
Archived Entry
- Post Date :
- January 22, 2011 at 7:39 pm
- Category :
- Germany, how tedious, Ludicrous To Pious Ears, politics
- Do More :
- You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Laodicea
%d bloggers like this:
January 22, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Creeps! But then if the Church won’t even defend her own teaching, what can we expect?
January 24, 2011 at 9:13 am
a 1970 essay by the present pope where he predicts the Church “will know new forms of ministry and ordain upstanding (lay) Christians as priests.
I love the (lay). Who does the journo think are ordained now? I don’t suppose he thinks the quote is talking about ordination “per saltum”.
I wonder what the original quote had in mind.
January 24, 2011 at 5:13 pm
No “lay” in the original quote, but “Sie wird auch gewiss … bewährte Christen, die im Beruf stehen, zu Priestern weihen” – see below
January 24, 2011 at 5:11 pm
The quote, appearing on a surprising number of, let’s say, none-too-slavishly-obeying-the-teaching-of-the-Church websites, seems to come from Benedikt XIV’s 1970 “Faith and Reason”. He is talking about the Church of the future, which will be small, loose many of today’s privileges and relying more than now on voluntary work of its members. He is suggesting something like “part-time-priests”, working in another job as well, as supplementing the “full-time-priests”. There is no hint, however, that he thinks these priests might be married. (Even if he thought it, it’s not in the text. The fact that anyone not even a full-time priest might decide to live celebate appears to boggle these polititians’ minds.)
The quote:
“Sie wird sich sehr viel stärker gegenüber bisher als Freiwilligengemeinschaft darstellen, die nur durch Entscheidung zugänglich wird. Sie wird als kleine Gemeinschaft sehr viel stärker die Initiative ihrer einzelnen Glieder beanspruchen. Sie wird auch gewiss neue Formen des Amtes kennen und bewährte Christen, die im Beruf stehen, zu Priestern weihen: In vielen kleinen Gemeinden bzw. in zusammengehörigen sozialen Gruppen wird die normale Seelsorge auf diese Weise erfüllt werden. Daneben wird der hauptamtliche Priester wie bisher unentbehrlich sein.»
Quelle: Josef Ratzinger: Glaube und Zukunft.
München 1970. Seiten 122f.
January 24, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Surely you mean Benedict XVI’s “faith and future”, not “faith and reason”?
I like the quote. I must admit I like the picture it draws of the future church. Of course, I would live in a region where there would be some part-time priests around, not somewhere in the spiritual desert where I would be the only catholic within a radius of 200 km 🙂 It is painful to think of the majority of people as not belonging to the church – poor things, really…
January 24, 2011 at 8:52 pm
“Faith and Future” of course! Greatly obliged for the correction. We seem to have a typo bug going around here!
February 4, 2011 at 6:23 pm
[…] by this. While some German Christian Democrats only asked the Pope to abolish celibacy for priests, 144 German *Catholic* s.l. theology professors […]