A timely piece from Catholic World News in light of recent posts about married priests - emphases mine.
Married Priests Not a Solution to Shortage, Cardinal Says
Paris, Nov. 12, 2007 (CWNews.com)
An influential French cardinal has said that the ordination of married men is a possibility that could be discussed, but "it is not a solution to the vocations crisis."
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray (bio - news), the former president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, explained to the newspaper Le Parisen that priestly celibacy is a discipline rather than a matter of doctrine. "It can be discussed," he said.
However, the cardinal voiced his extreme skepticism about suggestions that a provision for married priests would end the shortage of clergy in Europe. The fundamental response to that crisis, he said, must involve a renewed appreciation for service to the Church.
Big surprise, heterodoxy, iconoclasm, lack of catechisis, and a liturgy which in its most common form is effeminate to the extreme fails to attract young men to the priesthood.
ReplyDeleteHow about instead of a married priesthood we first try a return to orthodoxy, Catholic aesthetics, sound catechisis in parochial schools and CCD, and the Tridentine Mass (or at a minimum a Novus Ordo that actually resembles the Tridentine Mass). It seemed to work well enough prior to the mess of the last 40 years.