"A Humble Servant's Catholic Blog"

The Western rite of the Church, for centuries, has traditionally selected candidates for the Priesthood only from among those men who have chosen to remain celibate for the sake of the Kingdom. As with most things, there are exceptions to this.  Yet, it is certainly the norm.  It's also worth noting that the celibate Priesthood is only a discipline, not a doctrine of the Church.  It could change at any moment, though it isn't likely. Even in the Eastern Rite of the Church, where married men are allowed to be Priests, they may not marry if they were single when they became a Priest, nor can they remarry if widowed. Over the years there have been arguments from different directions regarding this Priestly celibacy. From “ priests can’t relate to family life ” to “ single men need a sexual outlet, and that’s why sex abuse happened in the Church ” , to “ it’s not fair/Christian to deny a man the right to Marriage " , the reasons for allowing Catholic Priests to marry co...

The caption read, “This is why we don't listen to the Gaithers” and the link led to a long article by David Cloud on why the Gaithers are not model Christians ("disobedient to the Word of God"). Cloud dives into several topics, but most of it can be boiled down to addressing false ecumenism (compromising truth for the sake of a false sense of unity) and a trend in this “judge not” mindset, where people are confusing the right judgment of actions with the wrong judgment of a person's soul. Whether the Gaithers are actually guilty of these, I didn't really see. It would be nice to hear both sides before making a judgment, and I'm simply not familiar with the Gaithers. However, on those two important topics, I do agree with David Cloud's overall position. This notion that we can all come together in different faiths with different views about what Truth is, and have “unity”, is false. We cannot compromise Truth for the sake of unity, because in doing...

Christ said, “ But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.    And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven.     Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah .”   (Mt 23:8-10)   Usually when Catholics are being pointed to the fact that we call our Priests “father”, it is only verse 9 that we see, “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven”.   For some reason, those who like to hone in on “ call no one your father ” are willing to make exceptions for “ teacher ” and “ instructor ”, unless they are only reading the KJV, which translates “ master ” in those instances.   But even those are willing to make exceptions for our biological fathers.   There is a problem there, however, because this passage makes no distinction between spiritual and biological fathers.   It simply says, “ c...