Word: priests
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Overshadowing the Pope's declaration, however, was the news that earlier in the week Father Alberto Cutie - the Miami-based priest and television personality who left the Catholic church last month amid soap opera-worthy scandal - had married his girlfriend of two years. Also making waves was the publication of former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland's memoir detailing his life as a closeted gay man within the church and the loneliness that drove him to pursue a sexual relationship with another man. Weakland, who stepped down seven years ago when he turned 75, the age when priests typically submit letters...
Although both he and Cutie have insisted they do not want to be held up as poster boys for changing the Church's celibacy requirement, their stories have added new fuel to a long-simmering debate. The Catholic Church in the U.S. has a serious priest crisis - the number of men entering the priesthood has dropped by 60% over the past four decades and the current average age of active priests is 60. Many dioceses have been forced to close parishes or import foreign priests to deal with shortages. But advocates of celibacy reform say there is a better solution...
Over the centuries, the Church tried to split the difference, prohibiting marriage after ordination and encouraging married priests to abstain from sex with their wives after they had joined the priesthood. (The Eastern Orthodox CHurch continues to allow married men to be ordained as priests.) But it wasn't until the Second Lateran Council in 1139 that a firm church law allowing ordination only of unmarried men was adopted. Journalist and former priest James Carroll contends in Practicing Catholic that the reasons for this celibacy requirement were not purely theological. "Celibacy had been imposed on priests mainly for the most...
...Ramis and co-writer Gene Stupnitsky clearly think the best thing about setting a movie in Sodom is the opportunity for jokes about sodomy. They trot out bananas being eaten seductively by prostitutes, a horny high priest (played to the hilt by Oliver Platt, in more eye makeup than Liza Minnelli) who has his eye on Oh and even a sheep joke. Vulgarity can be a dazzlingly pleasurable thing in comedy. But there's something very sad about Year One's vulgarity. It's desperate. The movie is one long snigger. Cera is the only aspect of it that doesn...
Ultimately, religious schisms often boil down to the question of who's in charge. In this specific case, the Lefebvrites want to decide who becomes a priest of the Catholic Church, an authority that for centuries has rested solely in the hands of local bishops, who derive their authority from the Pope himself. One senior Vatican official says that the Pope's unilaterally reaching out to the Society, even with many outstanding issues unresolved, has emboldened rather than humbled the breakaway flock. "They thought all concessions had to come from Holy See," he says. "But they are [now] going...