"Celibacy has no theological foundation": Synod

[emad]

New Pope's First Synod Confronts Array of Sensitive Issues

SNIP:

"Celibacy has no theological foundation," Gregoire III Laham, who attended the synod as the patriarch of the Melkite Catholics, an Eastern rite church, said at an early session, official briefers reported. "Married priests are admitted."

After that potent bombshell, the Vatican cut back on the detail provided to reporters on the talks unfolding among 256 bishops, who came to discuss on-the-ground concerns from around the world.

Still, it seems clear that the private deliberations in this first synod of bishops under Benedict - in office for six months now - mark a departure, even if the discussion is kept within relatively narrow confines.

Since the synod opened on Monday, bishops have raised other sensitive and rarely aired issues - whether to allow communion to divorced Catholics who remarry without an annulment, and whether Catholics can vote for politicians at odds with church teaching on issues like abortion or euthanasia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/international/europe/06cnd-pope.html?hp

[shenmue]

1. Knew it!

Much of the reactionary doctrine they support seems to be more political and philosophical than founded on anything that may have existed during ancient times.

[htuttle]

2. Well, of course -- it had to do with property rights

The Church wanted to ensure that any assets that priests and monks acquired during their lifetimes were returned back to the Church when they died, rather than getting handed down to their children.

Sure, they cloaked the rule in the arguments of the eternally repressed St. Augustine, but the real reason it was insituted had everything to do with money and property.

[CatholicEdHead]

3. That can easily be fixed today

Just have a mandatory pre-nup written to protect church property and all is fine.

[Interloper]

4. Bodily Fluids

Some traditions encourage seminal retention as a way to highten spiritual experience.