CATHOLIC CHURCH, WILL THEIR PRIESTS NOW MARRY?

Icheoku asks what happened to our Lord's instruction, "to carry your cross and follow me?" Did the Vatican think through its most recent decision or were they just selfishly being moved by what is in it for their faith? If they want to swallow up the Anglican faith, why must they make such grave concession to permit the inbound flocks to come back with their bags and baggage? Why must they grant the Anglicans' cache-blanc re-admission back into the catholic church; including their priests right to marry?

If Icheoku recalls very well, the Anglican church used to be part of the Roman Catholic Church before monetary matters, St. Peter's pence, drove them out of the fold? It is equally instructive to note that marital preferences and differences, played a major part too in the split between both churches. In 1534 the then King of England, King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment, which riled him so much that he bolted away with his subjects to form the English(Anglo)-Catholic church aka Anglican, permanently splitting from the Rome(Roman)-Catholic aka Catholic church. Now the Pope Benedict XVI, desirous of a bigger congregation, is giving them a free passage with all their baggage back to the catholic church?

Icheoku says, if the objective of Vatican is to entice back the Anglican traditionalists, who loathe gays and lesbians and women ordination, how then does the church plan to reconcile the likely priestly-marital friction that will ensue with the celibate catholic priests; who may find such condescension objectionable and unacceptable? According to the Vatican plan, the anticipated change will allow conservative Anglicans from around the world to join the Catholic Church while retaining aspects of their Anglican liturgy and identity, including married priests! So the question remains, what will the celibate catholic priests now do or will they fight for equalisation of the priesthood along a level playing field, sort of?

With an already 1.1-billion strong membership, what the Catholic Church is doing is tantamount to a hostile take-over of the Anglican Communion, coveting the just 77-million-strong Anglican Communion! In the words of one of the protagonists of this marriage of convenience, "this is a moment of grace, perhaps even a moment of history, not because the past is undone but because the past is transformed!" So Icheoku asks, will the catholic priests' compelled celibacy be equally transformed, so that they can now openly keep dates, girlfriends or boyfriends and marry if they choose to. This and only this will complete this current transformation of the past which the church has just embarked on with this unconditional re-admission of the strayed Anglican flock! It is to be noted that Anglicans in United States of America are known as Episcopalians.

Icheoku says, this very Pope Benedict XVI is really up to something earth-shattering! It was just recently that he made a daring move to rehabilitate four formerly ex-communicated ultra-conservative bishops, including one Holocaust-denier; in a bid to bring them back to the catholic fold? Now he is allowing married priests of the Anglican order back to the catholic church, unconditionally and still married? Who knows what next is up his sleeves? But will this new Papal vision, which will allow married Anglican priests and their seminarians to become ordained as Catholic priests while still remaining married, now become a source of friction with those celibate catholic priests who will feel betrayed by the easy accomodation? Could it be a case of the biblical parable of the prodigal son, now come back to life in 2009; with wayward Anglicans now being rewarded to the chagrin of the good old Catholic faithfuls?

However, the proviso that married Anglicans cannot become Catholic bishops seems to be discriminatory, as the bar has no reasonable justification or basis whatsoever; after-all it is those same priests who eventually rose to become bishops. In one heck of grammatical enunciation, the Vatican said, "the new model doesn't create a new rite, but rather an Anglicanized liturgy within the Latin rite?" Icheoku says, what a wonderful syntax and synchronization of words, but will that make it acceptable? Anyway, Icheoku, alongside a dumbfound and doubtful world is watching to see how this marriage of two polar-opposites plays out; but we do not find this latest papal adventure amusing, to say the least. Our verdict is that it might lead to an unmanageable upheaval in the catholic family, especially on the issue of priestly celibacy!