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作者 內容 Augustine Posted - 2002/4/6 下午 10:51:54 Besides the disgrace felt by the faithfuls, all these scandals provide a perfect excuse for the secular press and those who are always denouncing Church authority (on various topics such as celibacy, feminism, and moral issues) TO exert pressure on the Church to accept THEIR standards. Their mistake is they claim priestly celibracy IS the cause of all these! It is trivial to disproof it and I think Steve did well for that. My point is: The most tragic is those bishops' mentality that good press is more important than moral principles in our Faith. I don't know whether some day in the future, how many more will be sacrificed by this kind of mediocrity .....lack of insistance on issues of faith in favor of the secular media! The liberal (left winged)media have their goal: they have always been opposing the Holy Priesthood, denouncing Church practices and policies......what they want most is the total crackdown of our Holy Mother Church. They attack the personal dignity of millions of honorable fathers by some mere bad examples. Trying to call for the abolishment of the celibacy and thus suceed in trivializing the priesthood. Then they attack the tradition of male priesthood and finally the hierarchial structure of the Church becomes the target. What a conspiracy...of course they deny it. Nowadays very few bishops dare to challenge "the Press"...our beloved bishop Chen may be an exception though. Augustine Posted - 2002/4/6 下午 11:37:19 And the Catholic Church IS the only church institution in America which can pay the enormous sums of compensation resulting from sucessful lawsuits against various dioceses. Engagement in suing the Church WILL result in large sums of cash of course. That is another reason why so many emphasis is on the pedophile priest cases. steve 管理人員 Posted - 2002/4/7 上午 01:53:36 So the sex thing really bring out the problem with the heirarchy NOT anything to do with celibacy. And we should rethink our heirarchy rather than give up the fine tradition of celibacy. Cecil Posted - 2002/4/8 上午 10:28:24 同意兩位的分析.其實,守獨身不容易,人在這些地方最容易受試探,信友應給予他/她們無限量的支持和鼓勵,而不是因為傳媒如何如何,咱們就相應地如何反應 - 有些事情,是不變勝萬變,美國某些主教級領導層的少信表現不足以代表咱們的信仰.大家為有關的人士多祈禱吧!尤其,應全力鼓勵聖召. 歸一 管理人員 Posted - 2002/4/8 下午 02:04:41 嘗試繼續探討這個課題。關於獨身，我們是否過於注重可見的形式，而忽略了獨身的精神。我認為獨身的問題，在於獨身的所謂守貞，其實是建基於與基督深深的契合。由於與天主的深深契合，讓人不再需要在世的伴侶。由於已經有一個更深切的伴侶(基督)，自然就獨身。 因此，獨身是一個結果，但是今天卻變成了一個條件，做 司鐸的條件，豈不是違背了原意呢？ 歸一 管理人員 Posted - 2002/4/8 下午 02:09:19 再者，觸目所見，獨身者很容易有自我中心的傾向，因為沒有人的交流與對抗，讓自己變得更加成熟。一般人，還可能有其他的人際關係，有較平等的人和他交往，所以性格變得乖張的可能性還低一點，但是神職往往是孤獨的，即使有長上，也只是行政關係，而很少是溝通的對象。於是，如果神職的靈修不足，結果就會變成性格乖張的獨裁者了，而這個情況，正普遍發生在教區當中。 Cecil Posted - 2002/4/8 下午 03:44:09 The failure to achieve a really sanctified consecrated single religious life is phenomenal. However, to put forward this 'result' or phenomenon as a justification to abolish this as a requirement (not critieria, as Bro. One suggests) for priesthood, is in itself totally unjustified. For example, many Catholic faithful commit crimes after baptism, some commit mortal sins. Is it therefore a justification for the abolition of the need for observance with the ten commandments? Cecil Posted - 2002/4/25 上午 11:40:08 天亞社對事件的回應之一:FR. ROGER LANDRY在講道之中正面回應這"醜聞". 真的,現世的信徒們必須有成聖的決心,才不容易看到這樣的事而倒下去。講道中有一個比喻很真確的:死屍也一樣能夠隨波逐流;要逆流而上,卻要具有生命的活人! 沒有這講道內文又想看的,可以來電cecilliaa@sinaman.com給我. Augustine Posted - 2002/4/25 下午 04:50:32 (http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak042302.asp) Column by Mike Novak 23 April 2002 www.NationalReview.com On a fairly regular basis, the Lord makes His people suffer, His church, His Beloved. The present has been such a time, and our own sins have brought on our troubles. PART 1:THE STEM OF THE PROBLEM The much acclaimed "Church of Vatican II," the church of "the progressives," energized since 1965 by dissent and rebellion against many traditions and teachings of the Church, and intent upon foisting on the Church a new morality of sex and marriage and birth and priesthood, has made an awful botch of things. In 1964, I called my first book A New Generation: American and Catholic. Magazines those days were full of stories about "the New Breed" of priests and laity, and how great the "renewed" church would be. Implicitly, how much better than the old. We certainly showed them. Never has the Catholic Church in America been so shamed, humiliated, and mortified before the whole world. The "new morality" of the New Breed has turned into a disgrace. Much good, of course, has been done in and through the Church during the last forty years. Many things — ecumenism, for instance — have been made better. (In my opinion, the liturgy in many ways is far worse done than earlier, with far less respect, and far less sense of holiness, dignity, and awe.) Openness and dialogue are much better, even though some have taken "openness" to mean an inner hollowness, without content or character of its own. The current scandals, alas, have made the name "Catholic" a badge of self-inflicted shame, a shame inflicted by a tiny proportion of the clergy. If interviews in the press are correct, some of these culprits actually picture themselves as an advance party for a new and better sexual morality than that of the tradition they loathe. They are not in favor of celibacy — and certainly not of chastity, either — but of "self-exploration" and "self-acceptance of one's own body and its pleasures," of "being at home in one's own body," and other such rationalizations. To some extent, this pattern may be explained by the tsunami of the sexual revolution of the Sixties and Seventies, that earthquake/hurricane/tidal wave which threw millions of souls into confusion about who and what to believe about authentic morality. Many good people, conservative as well as liberal, were thrown off balance in those days. A fairly large proportion of Catholics, like others, may be tempted to rationalize away their own errors of those days, by trying now to "normalize" what in other ages was taken as plainly sinful, or to use the current secular term, "deviant" behavior. Abortion, for instance, adultery, homosexual actions. But the sexual revolution does not explain the full pride of the "reformers" of Vatican II, who when the ink was not yet dry on the decrees of that council, were already foreseeing Vatican III, and a wholly new church of their imagination. A utopian church of the progressive dream emerged, always different from the Church dragged down by the weight of the actual Rome of Pope Paul VI (in his day as loathed by progressives as John Paul II is today). In the name of this airy and future church, all sorts of opinions and actions and policies were countenanced as "forward-looking" that in other ages would have been seen as wanderings far from authentic faith. This was the climate within which the "deviancy" that brought on the current scandals prospered, undetected, undeterred. Note, for instance, that most of the scandals being reported in 2002 actually happened more than ten years ago, in the heyday of those thirty most-progressive years from 1965 until about 1993. About that time, reforms instituted by the bishops began to take effect. Many badly errant seminaries were cleaned out, or shut down. A number of new, more orthodox and traditional seminaries began to bear good fruit and to prosper in vocations. The change already under way in many places is tangible. PART 2:THE HOLY PRISETHOOD The life of celibacy can be a very hard one, especially in times of aridity in prayer, and career frustration, and normal loneliness — and when acute temptations arise in situations almost wholly undefended by safeguards and precautions, by ascetical practices, and by a surrounding community of loving fidelity and chastity. Maintaining chastity requires abundant graces. These require silence and prayer for their reception. A life too LONG lived apart from intense daily prayer, meditation on the lives of the saints, the devout praying of the daily office of the Church, and a slowly and reflectively enacted sacrifice of the Mass each day, is not a life in which the probabilities of fidelity are enhanced. On the contrary, the probabilities of chastity decline exponentially, as neglect of the life of the spirit extends its control, like a summer drought spreading its reach across sun-baked fields. Where the love of God withers, the love of THIS world gains a chokehold. There is a lesson in the present time: The prayerful, orthodox, and faithful priests and religious of this generation did not bring about the scandals that now humiliate the church. The sins that have brought us low were abetted by a culture of rebellion, pride, and moral superiority, among those who THOUGHT themselves more INTELLIGENT, more able, more in tune with human progress, open, experimental, and brave. They despised the merely traditional, observant, and orthodox, whom they considered closed-minded, rigid, and intransigent. They turned away from the tried and true asceticism and paths of holiness of the past. The sins that have disgraced us are the sins of those who promised "renewal" and "progress" down "new" paths. "But we did not mean child-abuse," the progressives will say in self-defense. "We didn't mean the abuse of teenagers." But, hey, a climate in which it was regarded as "rigid" to say that sex outside of marriage was sinful, was not a climate in which playground sand long held lines drawn in it. Young people in pre-marital coupling, older couples "experimenting" beyond the marriage bond, and same-sex coupling were in that climate not regarded as "disordered" but as "healthy experimentation." "When is the Catholic Church ever going to get over its Victorian moral qualms, and get up to date with contemporary sex science?" was the subject of many a dinner-party interlude. Remember those days? The "progressive" vision of the human being embodies a profound error of anthropology. It imagines human beings to be "persons," whose bodies are somehow separable from these genderless "persons," and malleable for deployment in any of a number of culturally and personally preferential ways, so long as the person of the other is "respected" and, in its fashion, "loved." Progressivism, in short, is a form of GNOSTICISM. Its systematic separation of body and person (soul) is a very ancient heresy. The moral dissoluteness to which it gradually leads has been witnessed in many earlier cycles of human history. For the curing of this disease, the greatest kindness is strict adherence to a more demanding regimen: respect for a more accurate anthropology of the embodied person, the spirited body, the incarnate person, the flesh-and-blood human being fashioned by the Creator for His own inhabitation. This is the regimen of the oneness and wholeness of God's transcendent love, diffused by understanding, reflection, and loving choice through every organ, member, and fiber of human tissue. It is the regimen of that chastity of the heart which is, to paraphrase Kierkegaard, to will one love. PART 3:NEW HOPES The current humiliation of the Catholic Church will, I feel sure, lead to the great grace of remembrance — remembrance of our true and most precious inheritance, trust in the Word of God bequeathed to us by the ancient Church, and by the Sacred Scripture to whose canonical status it attests. "He is no Catholic who is not united in sacra doctrina with the Bishop of Rome," Stanislaus Hosius says, on a tablet memorialized on the walls of S. Maria in Trastevere in Rome, the titular church of the great Cardinal Gibbons. There is coming an awakening of a great love for orthodoxy, for fidelity, for clinging to the whole truth as it was handed down to us. There is also arising, justifiably, a certain hard-won contempt for the learned doctors whose pride led them to try to sell us a bill of goods for, lo, so many decades now. To what a miserable state have they reduced their lower regions of the church. The good and solid things of the Tradition have proved more reliable than they. By far. These are the notes I look to hear from Rome, more sweetly said, during the coming weeks and months — and maybe days. Augustine Posted - 2002/4/25 下午 04:52:00 Sorry for the sheer length, but that really worth reading, trust me! Cecil Posted - 2003/11/6 上午 10:07:31 Married priests are converts from the Episcopal Church (Anglican). More scientifically, I wonder how many existing clergy are still fully convinced of this celibacy stuff. The Church may loath to find out, but I think this is very important - not that their opinion SHOULD point towards the abolition of this system; rather it should serve as a benchmark of how far IS this system still working. Mitrophanes Posted - 2003/11/12 下午 10:16:42 回應﹕“守貞”其實很平常　－　我有不少教內外青年中年朋友也是過著這種生活（真的守貞，不只是沒有結婚）。他／她們事業心強，對生活比較嚴謹，是典型的保守中國人士，對性沒那麼隨便就是了，也不見的他們很不高興（有些，開心指數還比結了婚的高很多，如在下一樣）。所以看事物全面看，有例外亦更有不例外，當然，結了婚可不可以當神父，這是有研究的鮽地，不如問　－　你喜歡神父有”神母”嗎？我則不喜歡了，現在，我當神父是我老豆，如果他自有子女，我是甚麼？油瓶女？如果他有老婆，亦大件事，他老婆是我的誰人？她會不會當我是女？ 請記得，神父有很大部份的功能是ｐｒｏｍｏｔｅ教友的屬靈修養，如果他不是修行人，這神師的職務很難推展，充其量是牧師或執事的功能（牧師跟神父的ｃｈａｒｉｓｍａ差很遠的，雖然他們教理不會比神父差，對聖經的認識亦很高，但這都不是ｃｈａｒｉｓｍａ來的）。單是告解修和一項，牧師不做，是大有理由的，因為他不是出家人，他不用守貞。奴教友不便跟他說得太多。當然世界上懷事總會有，神父利用告解做懷事的例子，是偶爾有的。 可以認為“守貞”其實很平常的人﹐當是有一顆極不平常的平常心吧。在在下看來﹐為主而守貞﹐是“為了天國而自閹”守貞者是“居世負形之天神”在下是決不敢說“其實守貞也好平常”就好像在下不敢說﹕“婚姻聖事其實很平常(就連聖保祿都稱婚姻為‘偉大的奧秘’)。當基督徒很“平常”地認為屬神的奧秘“其實也好平常”那麼“禮崩樂壞”的末法時代也就不遠了。 事業心強+生活態度嚴謹+中國式的保守+對性不隨便=獨身=守貞﹖﹖﹖ 生活開心=守貞的目的或者終極意義﹖﹖﹖ 我不喜歡的事情=教會加以屏棄的事情-SEMPER 由此推論﹕我的個人喜好恆常=教會的公斷 由此可結出﹕朕即教會﹐朕即天主﹖﹖﹖ 如果神父有肉身子女﹐教友便成為“拖油瓶”﹖﹖﹖那麼舉凡不是由聖史若望宗徒按立而取得宗徒傳承的主教都是“油瓶主教”﹖﹖﹖如果我可以證明天主教香港教區的宗徒傳承並非來自聖若望﹐那麼你們這一干人眾是什麼﹖油瓶﹖﹖﹖ 聖伯多祿的老婆是當時教友的什麼人﹖尼西亞普世大公會議的諸聖教父(主教)們的老婆是當時教友的什麼人﹖神母﹖﹖﹖女主教﹖﹖﹖ 獨身=滿被恩寵=靈性素養高﹖﹖﹖ 這是基督的道理還是摩尼教的道理﹖ 只有出家人才可以施行修和聖事﹖ 守貞=赦罪的權柄﹖﹖﹖ 真的是很悲傷看見天主教內居然有如此離譜的觀點。 Mitrophanes Posted - 2003/11/12 下午 10:21:55 嗚呼,根據數字比率,天主教獨身神父犯此罪的,其實不多。這報導是包羅了其他宗教的守貞人士的，以百分比，天主教的是不到0.01%的。40萬中不到200。 這個數字比率﹐到那“義怒之日”再見分曉罷。但願這個“很低的犯罪率”背後沒有更大的醜惡罪行﹗天主至知﹗﹗﹗ Mitrophanes Posted - 2003/11/12 下午 10:38:46 湘�蠖�?瞳?孟 忑珂扂?��?ь奠妯駁窆岆翋韜妯岆撿衄韜鍔俶斮腔﹝秪�橠鷖�鍔扂?腔逌珂猁楛栲?嗣妯梢�M湮華﹝奧й跦��諒虜?腔?�妝o扂?踏�梖�?腔駁窆秶僅腔偞蕾妯岆奻翋眕む秷雌�位勤修齔黨遠N娗寰妯稛闚政婓駁窆腔��?價掛醴腔奻孟1妯汜郤姅秪�樼��齟修瘛詰攃桑嵷o�丳蓂酸塕L汜祥侚妯���o駁窆睿汜郤妯��?腔意逜憩�o楊湔鴦﹝2妯笥?�碥w腔①�j姅秪�橯祲修瘛詰攃桑嵷o��?祥筍衄賸侚厗眳賴妯珩衄賸忳跪意佌�jぇ①嬪�_腔芫賴﹝奧婓珨з①�j笢妯眕妘�j(晊鴦?闚汜韜腔價掛�j咡)睿俶�j(晊鴦意�盡�韜腔價掛�j咡)郔�暺饡噥�?轄﹝奧俶�j祫�橁〡謕o���衵鉸��m跦妯駁窆癖岈眳偞蕾妯珩岆�橧侁}趙森意�j咡妯郔屾郔屾妏む衄※磁楊�M逋§眳芴�蔗o奧祥祫傖�曀堛z蚗倢眳秪珩﹝ 暫�遙橏麜н鰽鏽�鍔妯饒�N妯���]衄�鉡朵曾劂藑葀遠��纂��庥�?�D蜊?麼氪?葡翋垀膘蕾腔駁窆秶僅腔�邥o斛忳唵紸﹝ 筍岆妯扂?腔淂寰氪翋奻著珖搞價飭妯婓諫隅睿癖趙賸駁窆汜魂腔肮�r妯珩硌堤賸鍚珨意妏腕馞骯睿�犓穔繭蝓}趙摯淂寰腔芴�蔗s党耋汜魂妯麼氪想�樻壖嘟蔥馨�魂﹝筍岆妯森意汜魂源宒岆※腦秞腔�鵖I§奧祥岆�褉牴橏鰤蒫纂副梇曀鏽�鍔§﹝党耋汜魂嘐�銘ョ假酸亃��Z�扔譫�疑腔珨爺§筍�s珩岆褫郣祥褫⑴腔※夔薆忳氪晞薆忳§腔朸塋俶跎昜﹝ 祫黺垀牼腔す陓芺?旯腔?觳妯坋煦華恚褭﹝婓狟?�D煦昴�蝝峏s 忑珂齬壺珨虳準赻?腔妯麼氪岆�o鰓腔?旯﹝(掀�觰��曌眷〝o?嬪脹)﹝ 婓赻?腔妯奧й岆眕皺む珨汜�橠裒繺�?旯氪笢妯珩褫棉謹華煦釬酘笢衵��??�滿� 菴珨?岆孟薆忳賸?旯腔塋?妯僅珨意婓模腔党俴汜魂﹝稛岆衄褫夔腔﹝秪�橯睌}諒場鶸眳�r妯�K�]衄躓党耋埏妯�s�a都衄忐?腔※?躓§眕摯※塾�D§妯坴?螈�棑确��^妯懈蛂婓赻撩模孬妯�]衄萎宒腔党耋岉?妯�s珩肮�荈�覂※腦秞�鵖I§腔汜魂﹝稛意朸塋婓諒��腔�v妢笢珨眻湔婓妯眻善踏�晥o�K蚕稛脹�匊虳o都衄癖�佼鰬F妯眕聃隴森意汜魂復?蟹翋蔥腦﹝ 菴媼?岆孟�K祥?�獄橏鰫o筍�s紒腕�]衄磐駁腔砩砃﹝�蝜�?綎割ь睿�Q趙赻撩腔砩砃妯復眭褫眕婓�]衄溢郫睿視善腔峉蕔笢僅汜妯�t諒���K祥樓眕輦砦妯筍珩祥樓眕婪�P﹝稛�茧�?旯硐岆�匋娸彴x�騊躅Y彆妯�聹��N�A祫菴珨?腔※婓模党俴§汜魂妯�t森??旯�]衄�庥昡`俶�r硉褫晟﹝ 菴��?岆孟�位飩橏齥倜鑑閣�復腔艘楊妯掀�觬扥順�啋?腔荌?妯庲�橤埰ё蛪x墏�熊纂�衱麼氪庲���橧侕��I奧�瘃�駁窆岆硉腕腔﹝衱麼氪祥?創��駁窆腔?�峏o洷咡�縳倜娸屺娵痤�?�佮黖媯�﹝�t森??旯岆堤黺�o眭妯悷賤妯瓷�B腔陑燴妯朼祫郫蘭妯祥筍祥�朣���垀�楗S妯朼祫�a都�朣���垀莛?﹝ 婓踏�欶晅蓁蛣�?旯諒衭?笢妯噶器岆饒珨?掀廌�袪��腔堜t Josemaria Posted - 2003/11/13 上午 10:33:33 One question that I would like to ask: How does the Orthodox Church view laity's single status? As pointed out in the quotation above, not all singles in HK are leading a life of dissipation. Especially the large number of single old maids. Augustine Posted - 2003/11/13 上午 11:26:10 I am very interested to know if a celibate man, after ordination to the Orthodox priesthood, could marry again? ALso, is it true that all(or, in general all) celibate candidates to the priesthood are monks that have made vows of chastity? Would the orthodox priesthood be denied to celibate men who are not monks and have made no vows? Mitrophanes Posted - 2003/11/13 下午 10:31:25 答若瑟瑪利亞﹕ 首先我們應該清楚﹐婚姻是主命﹐是具有命令性質的。因為主命令我們的祖先要繁衍眾多﹐遍滿大地。而且根據教父們的訓導﹐我們今日所見的婚姻制度的設立﹐是上主以其智慧對於原罪的一種補救﹐這體現在婚姻的兩個基本目的上﹕1﹐生育﹔因為自從原祖犯罪之後﹐人便不能長生不死﹐若無婚姻和生育﹐人類的種族就無法存續。2﹐治療肉體的情慾﹔因為在原祖犯罪之後﹐人類不但有了死亡之苦﹐也有了受各種私慾偏情困擾的痛苦。而在一切情慾中﹐以食慾(延續個體生命的基本慾望)和性慾(延續種群生命的基本慾望)最為基本和強烈。而性慾至為微妙﹐牽動一切塵根﹐婚姻聖事之設立﹐也是為了聖化此種慾望﹐最少最少使其有“合法滿足”之途徑﹐而不至成為地獄永刑之因也。 既然婚姻是主的命令﹐那麼﹐人沒有權力反抗或者不服從。任何試圖改變或者顛覆主所建立的婚姻制度的人﹐必受詛咒。 但是﹐我們的拯救者主上帝耶穌基督﹐在肯定和聖化了婚姻生活的同時﹐也指出了另一種使得靈魂和肉身得到聖化及拯救的途徑﹕修道生活﹐或者稱為天使式的生活。但是﹐此種生活方式是“福音的勸諭”而不是如同婚姻般的“普遍的命令”。修道生活固然是“不能被奪去的更好的一份”但卻也是可遇不可求的“能領受者便領受”的神恩性禮物。 至於所謂的平信徒獨身的問題﹐十分地複雜。在下試圖分析如次﹕ 首先排除一些非自願的﹐或者是無奈的獨身。(比如因為疾病﹐貧困等)。 在自願的﹐而且是以終其一生為指向的獨身者中﹐也可粗略地分作左中右三個類群。 第一類是﹕領受了獨身的恩寵﹐度一種在家的修行生活。這是有可能的。因為在聖教初興之時﹐並沒有女修道院﹐卻恆常有守貞的“貞女”以及“寡婦”﹐她們隸屬于堂區﹐居住在自己家裡﹐沒有典式的修道誓願﹐卻也同樣度着“福音勸諭”的生活。這種神恩在教會的歷史中一直存在﹐直到今日﹐並由這等人中﹐常有聖人出現﹐以證明此種生活確實蒙主降福。 第二類是﹕並不厭惡婚姻﹐但卻覺得沒有結婚的意向。如果經過澄清和淨化自己的意向﹐確知可以在沒有犯罪和跌到的危險中度生﹐則教會並不加以禁止﹐但也不加以褒揚。這樣的獨身只是人自由選擇的結果﹐若不昇華至第一類的“在家修行”生活﹐則此類獨身沒有任何靈性價值可言。 第三類是﹕對於婚姻有着不正確的看法﹐比如由於二元論的影響﹐認為性是污穢醜惡的。又或者認為為了事業而犧牲婚姻是值得的。又或者不願承擔婚姻的責任﹐希望擁有自由自在的個人天地等。則此類獨身是出於無知﹐誤解﹐病態的心理﹐甚至罪孽﹐不但不為教會所容許﹐甚至恆常為教會所譴責。 在今日之香港的獨身教友當中﹐究竟是那一類比較佔多數呢﹖ Mitrophanes Posted - 2003/11/13 下午 10:43:36 答奧思定﹕ 一﹐已經領受司祭神品的獨身者﹐若希望結婚﹐分兩種基本情況﹕1﹐若此人已發修道誓願﹐則必須先解除修道誓願﹐並撤除神品﹐然後可以結婚。2﹐若此人尚未宣發修道誓願﹐則僅僅撤除神品即可。 二﹐根據典章和傳承﹐獨身者若求領神品﹐通常必須先宣發修道誓願。(香港及東南亞都主教區新近祝聖的菲律賓籍修士司祭克萊奧帕神父就是一例)。 三﹐主教或者地方宗教會議有權決定將神品授予非修道的獨身者﹐但是這是一種OIKONOMIA(寬免)。就好像有些時候﹐也會授神品于私生子﹐殘疾人士等。至於今日在某些地區﹐此種寬免被某些主教不加節制地濫用﹐是不符合傳承的﹐不能作為正統實踐的模範。 Cecil Posted - 2003/11/14 上午 08:55:46 原來'獨身'也是有清晰的規範. 這三種情況的確有明顯的分別,但如果問我,哪一類為教會中最普遍,相信第一種為最少. 平信徒中第二或三種不少.我的新教友人,也有第三種的例子,他們自己教會對這方面的'獨身'人士培育,也似乎並不足夠. 似乎,正教在這方面是有比較全面的兼顧! Josemaria Posted - 2003/11/14 上午 09:02:25 Bro. Mitrophane's posting on 12/11/2003 could not be read. Can our ADmin. fix it for us? I think for the 3 types of 'celibate laity' mentioned by Bro. M.,each would require a progressive discernment on the part of the lay faithful. If after serious discernment he/she is desirous of leading a consecrated quasi-religious life at home, then it will indeed be great. On this, I think the Church has to work really hard on this group - some of them may, after discernment, discover he/she has a religious vocation. On the vast number of single laity in the Roman Church in Hong Kong, I think with more intensive formation, they would be able to covert themselves into a significant evangelising force. As it is now, I am afrad a considerable number of them is living in the 3rd state of 'sin' as Br. M. puts it. JM Posted - 2004/3/14 上午 10:23:01 The New York Times March 3, 2004 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR <b>For Priests, Celibacy Is Not the Problem<b> By ANDREW GREELEY The logic of the argument is simple: 4 percent of Roman Catholic priests have been sexual abusers. Priests are committed to celibacy. Therefore, the frustrations of the celibate life led to the abuse. Therefore, celibacy should be abolished. While perhaps not quite so starkly stated, this is the line of thinking that has been used by many to explain the sexual abuse scandals shaking the church. It will also shape the response to two reports issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops last week. Leave aside for a moment the fact that 96 percent of priests are not abusers - is this portrayal of widespread frustration an accurate description of American priests? The picture presented by the two reports - one a statistical study by researchers at John Jay College of the abuse cases and the church's reactions to them, the other a report on the causes and context of the crisis by a review board appointed by the bishops - is horrific and tragic. But as a priest and as someone who has been writing about the evil of sexual abuse by priests for two decades, I must also point to a substantial body of data collected over the last 35 years that presents another story, one which ought to be heard. These surveys of attitudes among priests and parishioners have shown that most don't consider celibacy the problem with the priesthood; the problem is that many priests don't do their job well. Over the last 30 years, The Los Angeles Times and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago have each made repeated and comprehensive studies of attitudes among the priesthood and the laity. The polls have consistently shown that a vast majority of priests say that life in the priesthood is better than they expected it would be. For instance, the most recent Los Angeles Times study, completed in 2002, found that 93 percent of the more than 1,800 priests surveyed said that they would become priests if they had to choose their careers again. Only 2 percent said that they would probably leave the priesthood. In general, priests are more likely to affirm that they are happy in their lives and satisfied with their work than are doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors and even married Protestant clergy. Priests, on average, seem to be about the happiest men in the country. Abusers, it seems clear, aren't being driven to crime by celibacy but by their own demons. On measures of personality traits by the National Opinion Research Center - including the capacity for intimacy - priests compare favorably with married laymen of similar educational backgrounds. Despite the call by a few priests for abolishing the celibacy rule, there is no evidence that priests are more likely to be frustrated, unhappy misfits than are married laymen. Priests like being priests; they like doing the work that priests do; and they recognize that celibacy is part and parcel of that work. Like all humans, however, we are far less then perfect: we must offer sacrifice for our own sins as well as the sins of our people, as the Epistle to the Hebrews observes. So where does today's negative picture of priests come from? In part, it's a relic of the anti-Catholic, anti-celibacy sentiment of 19th century nativism. In addition, priests themselves tend to be silent when their vocation is attacked, either by men who have left the priesthood or by the public over the crimes of the abusers. Indeed, their response to the latter is pathetic: my colleagues tend to feel sorry for themselves, to blame the news media, to assert that it is the bishops' problem, and to argue that it is not the most serious crisis facing the church. Denial, research shows, is a major factor in clerical culture - the dark side of the priesthood. Just as teachers stereotype their students and doctors their patients, priests stereotype their parishioners. In response to an open-ended question in the 2002 Los Angeles Times survey about why the laity was growing disaffected with the church, 13 percent of priests said parishioners were suffering from moral decline, 10 percent cited loss of faith, 7 percent secularism, 5 percent apathy, 5 percent materialism, 4 percent lack of responsibility and 4 percent lack of "personal leadership." Only 13 percent saw problems arising from failures of the clergy - sexual abuse, decline of confidence in leadership, poor sermons and liturgy, and clerical authoritarianism. Only 19 of the more than 1,800 thought that poor sermons were a problem. The mindset is clear: if the laity have religious problems, the fault is either their own or cultural trends over which priests have no control. When asked in the survey why congregants leave the church, a quarter of priests (and only 16 percent of the younger clergymen) accepted some personal responsibility - insensitivity, inadequate leadership, poor sermons and liturgy, and the sexual abuse scandal. The rest cited the usual litany of horrors: individualism, secularism, no faith, poor prayer life, no commitment, media bias, hedonism, sex, feminism, family breakdown and apathy. In essence, three-quarters of the priests surveyed washed their hands of responsibility for Catholics who leave the church and excused themselves from an obligation to respond. On the other side of the steel door that seems to separate priests from parishioners, the laity give their clergy, on the average, scores only about half as high as what Protestants give their ministers on preaching, liturgy, sympathetic counseling, respect for women and work with young people. In the 1950's, according to a study by Ben Gaffin Associates, 40 percent of Americans (Protestants and Catholics alike) rated the sermons they heard as "excellent." In 2002, according to the National Opinion Research Study, 36 percent of Protestants still found their sermons excellent, compared to just 18 percent of Catholics. In addition to the abuse cases, the big problems in the priesthood, then, are not celibacy or sexual frustration, but the constraints on excellence in an envy-ridden, rigid and mediocre clerical culture that does a poor job in serving church members. If priests really want to improve their image, they should not bother to write letters demanding that celibacy be made optional - which will be dismissed by their bishops and the Vatican - but to make every effort to upgrade their work - especially their sermons. These are hard times for priests. They are under attack as perverts. More people are making more demands on fewer priests. Yet, in parishes where the pastor is reasonably open and reasonably secure, the lay response is enthusiastic commitment and dedication. People ask me what kind of a priest I am - meaning Jesuit, Dominican or Franciscan (Jesuit being the answer most want to hear). I usually respond, "Not a very good one, but I try." Now, in the wake of these new reports, we must all try harder. <i>Andrew Greeley is the author of "Priests: A Calling in Crisis" and the forthcoming novel "The Priestly Sins."<i>

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