In 1970 Fr Joseph Ratzinger signed a petition that suggested the Church re-examine the obligation of priestly celibacy, according to a German newspapaer
By Anna Arco on Friday, 28 January 2011
As a young priest, Pope Benedict put his name to a document calling for the Church to seriously investigate the obligation to priestly celibacy.
Joseph Ratzinger was one of the signatories of a 1970 document calling for an examination of priestly celibacy which was signed by nine theologians.
The memorandum was drawn up in the face of a shortage of priests and other signatories included Karl Rahner and the future cardinals Karl Lehmann and Walter Kasper.
The German newspaper Die Sueddeutsche reported about the document today.
The memorandum, which was sent to the German bishops reads: "Our considerations regard the necessity of a serious investigation and a differentiated inspection of the law of celibacy of the Latin Church for Germany and the whole of the universal Church."
According to the Sueddeutsche, the document said if there were no such investigation, the bishops' conference would "awaken the impression that it did not believe in the strength of the Gospel recommendation of a celibate life for the sake of heaven, but rather only in the power of a formal authority".
If there weren't enough priests, the document said, then the "Church quite simply has a responsibility to take up certain modifications”.
The signatories who had drawn up the document acted as consultors to the German bishops’ conference in a commission for questions of Faith and Morals.
The document's release coincides with a renewed debate on priestly celibacy after prominent German politicians called for the Church to change the teaching on priestly celibacy in the face of a serious lack of priests.
Anna Arco is chief feature writer for the Catholic Herald.
This should surprise no one. If you ever actually read Benedict you can see that while he speaks quite eloquently of the meaning and value of celibacy (he does so every time he speaks to priests or seminarians and the emphasis is on the sacrificial nature and eschatological sign of celibacy) he does not fixate on it as do some Western (particularly American) lay armchair theologians. if you read LIGHT OF THE WORLD you will note than when he speaks of priests leaving for marriage he does so in a very nonjudgmental way.
This pope just goes down and down and down in my estimation. To think we only welcomed him on the day of his election because he was the best of a bad bunch!
God (please) help us.
Really, EditorCT, is there no end to Papal bashing? Can you not be glad that his views evidently changed over time? The See of Peter is protected, we no more need to pray for the Pope to be protected from error than we need to pray that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
It should surprise no one to learn that a young Fr. Ratzinger favoured a re-think on priestly celibacy. One did not have one’s name placed on a list of those ‘suspected of heresy’ at the pre-conciliar Holy Office unless one’s orthodoxy was seriously questionable. Perhaps that’s why he played a central role in having the Holy Office scrapped after the Council. It was a move that certainly pleased a good many other clerical “suspects” on the list, who, contrary to Church law, had already been admitted as theological experts Periti at Vatican II. And we wonder why the true Faith is in crisis today!
Now Pontiff, we must of course pray hard for Pope Benedict XVI. He is certainly more moderate a liberal than he was in those days when, through Cardinal Frings, he guided much of the conciliar revolution in his priestly(!) collar and tie. He still retains some strange ideas from those heddie days of Modernist rebellion, however, such as an un-Catholic belief that separation of Church and State is something to be desired. And, I’m afraid, the recent announcement of a third pan-religious gathering at Assisi raises serious questions about his personal fidelity to previous Magisterial teaching, which forbade such syncretist scandals as “deadly to the Catholic religion.” Yes, the Church does infallibly declare against both freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, and that’s why She has a DOGMA which states: “outside the Church no salvation.”
So much, then, for the leaders of false religions all joining together in a new Tower of Babel to pray their different gods for world peace. It ain’t going to come, but the true God’s wrath might if this infidelity to divine truth continues in our time. We must all pray for Peter, still imprisoned and chained in a Modernist mindset.
So what about Pope Honorious I? The See of Peter is protected only in so far as matters affecting universal Faith and morals are concerned. There is no guarantee that any individual Pope in his personal theology will remain free from error. A pope can give grave scandal by his personal beliefs and conduct. Remember, the dogma is Papal infallibility not Papal impeccability.
Well, Martyjo, I agree in part but not entirely. A Pope may do all manner of evil things, but he cannot be easily led astray on points of faith, even in his personal theology. As the legal theory of “innocent till proven guilty”, this is the de facto presumption and pious belief of the faithful, unless the Church decrees otherwise, as it did in the case of Honorius. Thus St.Catherine, Doctor of the Church, who herself rebuked Popes on their personal conduct: “Even if the Pope were Satan incarnate, we ought not to rise up against him but rather to calmly lay to rest on his bosom”
It is most uncharitable and completely hostile to the humble spirit of the obedience of faith for us to presume to correct our Holy Father. The Church Taught remains in communion with, and subject to the Teaching Church in all things. Each member of the Teaching Church is under the authority of his superior and does not go against him. A Protestant style “great apostasy” will never happen. If a member is suspect of heresy, his superior will excommunicate him, until then we quietly trust in God to work through the Church. The First See has no superior and is judged by no one on earth. Attacking his person reveals a loss of Christian charity, and tends to lead one down the road of being utterly cut off from it, the ultimate sin of schism.
And lest anyone fancy himself to be a St.Paul, let him at least be a bishop, and preferably able to speak in tongues as well as work wonders. Anyway, Martyjo, coming back to a few other allegations you made, let’s see. I don’t know that much about his personal history, but I did see a documentary, BBC was it, long back about him. And if I remember right, as Prefect of the CDF, as far as I recall, he did tighten down on some liberal theologians.
As for extra ecclesiam nulla salus, even in the “pre-Conciliar Church”, the Magisterium authentically interpreted the dogma while a schismatic, puffed up by pride, presumed to oppose even her teaching. Thankfully, Fr. Feeney died in full communion with the Church. But, was that a mistaken judgment too? As for Church-State, he has called for an increased role for religion in public life, and for religious freedom in lands where Christians are actively persecuted. Martyjo, I don’t think I would disagree with you on what the Church-State doctrine is, but it is important for there to be prudence. You can’t just go and tell a secularist state that they ought to allow the Catholic Church unfetttered rights, even though they are proper to her, strictly speaking.
Coming to religious freedom, the doctrine of the Church has been steady, before and after the Second Vatican Council, the pretensions of some to the contary notwithstanding. All men have a duty to seek the truth, which in turn confers on them the right to freely seek the truth. This is all that religious freedom, in the Church’s usage consists of. Obviously, it extends to non-Christians who haven’t correctly exercised that right yet, that they may do so. No human power, such as a State, can coerce men to act against their conscience. As the Angelic Doctor says, If a man believes his conscience tells him something, say, that one needs to pray five times a day, even if it be objectively unfounded, he would sin if he is heedless towards it.
I think Pope John Paul II’s insistence on religious freedom was part of the revolution that helped bring down the USSR. And Pope Benedict XVI’s firm commitment to ecumenism is part of the reason a Bishop of Rome could honor St.Thomas More in the hall he was condemned. Many Anglicans are returning to Mother Church, the Orthodox themselves have considered reunion, none of which would have been possible without Vatican II. That is why I don’t agree with “traditionalism”, though I once seriously considered it. Thus my long rant. I agree there are grave challenges, these remain in every age, for us it is mainly about a loss of reverence, liturgical abuse, and wayward homosexual pedersasty in the priesthood. Hardly insurmountable, to the Spirit of grace. Anyway, God bless you
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