Canonist Says Deacons Must Refrain From Sex

And here we go again! Shades of Gnosticism from 160 A.D.! One of their misinterpretations was that marriage was evil, and that the engagement in sexual intercourse sullied spiritual perception and purity.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons successfully countered Gnosticism in his day. May we see another like him to counter this stupidity.

Of course, just about every heresy that presented itself got adopted into the Church at another juncture of history. Pope Damasus (366-384) taught that spiritual fatherhood was more important than biological fatherhood, and prohibited priests in Rome from marrying---so that their 'cultic purity' would not be tarnished.

In 633 at the Fourth Council of Toledo, Spain---bishops and priests were required to take a vow of chastity---with no sexual activity for life.

But it was not until the Second Lateran Council of 1139---that the question of celibacy for the whole Western Church was decided. Any marriage of the clergy was considered invalid by Church law.

But after Vatican Council II, the Permanant Diaconate was revived and made available to married men. The practice sexual abstinance from their wives for the rest of their lives---was not in the cards at that time.

If the official Church begins to insist upon celibacy from Permanant Deacons---the Church will be cutting off its nose to spite its face. It is about time that the Church welcome a married clergy (and Permanant Deacons are a married clergy) into its ranks. And the opinions of the wives of the deacons are very valuable and much needed, as well.

at the Last Supper Jesus taught us to be the servant of all, the LAst of all. Jesus taught us to love one another entirely

not to deny love to one we have sworn a lifetime to love.

not to castrate us all and send us into loveless unloving insanity, such as we see so clearly.

not everyone is called to be a guy out alone in the desert like me

thank God

Please tell canonist Ed Peters to address the Vatican cover up of the sex abuse/pedophile abuse scandal among the Irish clergy. Rome and its canon law cannot be a substitute for civil law and as for his theories on human sexuality, let the deacons look elsewhere than canonist Peters. Let him try and devise a canon law that is healthier in terms of its understanding of human sexuality and is not something which condones sexual abuse. Like his authorities in the heirarchy, canonist Peters has no moral credibility left to preach to members of the deaconate.

Once again the same old offensive, misguided drivel that sex with one's spouse will adversely affect one's spiritual life and siphon off much of one's dedication to the Church. Priests, bishops, and popes did a pretty good job of leading the Church in the first several centuries. Perhaps we should avoid sending this message off to heaven. Saint Peter and many others might be, to say the least, pussled.

Ridiculous medi-evil nonsense of those canon laws. Marriage is OK to Jesus. He picked married women and married men to be his Apostles and Disciples.

Is the pope and Company really that ignorant that they do not know that Saint Peter was MARRIED, and his son is Mark? That Samarian woman of the well was MARRIED and Junia also is clearly another MARRIED Apostle.

When Jesus went about making MARRIED his big time Apostles certainly deacons and priests, bishops can be MARRIED too.

Why does the pope have such disordered disdain for women and for sex between men and women? He is apathetic towards and tolerates pedophiliac sex of his clergy, and of Legion of Christ founder, the despicable Maciel. However he can not stand marital sex between men and women really when he seeks to outlaw deacons who are married from being truly in a married state.

America Magazine online has this:
Sex and the Married Deacon by John W. Martens

http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=1&entry_id=3802

I'm sure you will have seen it. jm

I guess as soon as the Vatican finishes its persecution of the women religious, it can start up after the married deacons. I wonder how they enforce Article 2?

" 2. Clerics are to behave with due prudence towards persons whose company can endanger their obligation to observe continence or give rise to scandal among the faithful. §"

Force the married couple to separate?

My friend, very few of us are all for "incontinence" but, of course, that 'depends.'

I have been a Permanent Deacon for 29 hyears and am continually amazed by the stupidity I continue to encounter in our church. This is another example of the type of material that just elicits groans of disbelief that end with the phrase, "you have got to be kidding".

Just a nut.

Canonist Ed Peters, appears to want to start another problem about sexual matters that probably does not need to happen. I do not recall Jesus telling any of his apostles that they needed to refrain from sex with their wives when he selected them to follow him. Why not just select men who are not married to be Deacons, then they can join the ranks of the continent priest who as we have heard are not all following the rules. This is another case which seems to indicate that the Church really has a problem with sexual matters. I imagine next that the Canonist like Peters will be insisting that married men who have been married for many years and their wives cannot concieve should also refrain from loving their wives sexually.

As long as their wives are not expected to refrain from sexual encounters ...

I hope none of my many priest friends in the various Orthodox Churches find out about this. Most of them were still having children well past their ordination. One has six kids;most have at least two or three. I also know a few Eastern Catholic priests in similar situations. Now,unless, these is some new way of conceiving, that I, with my limited knowledge of biology, have not uncovered, I have to presume that they are producing their children the same way everyone else is.(OK make an exception for Elton John,etc.) I am obviously not going to ask them about the intimate details of their personal lives. (I would like to remain welcome in their homes. Besides, it's been a long time, since I've been sixteen years old.) The point is sexual relations are not bad and God has a place for sex,even in the clergy's life. If these Anglican thought that Peter's views were normative, I doubt that they would be going Rome-ward.

I wonder how many deacons would resign. The diaconate has been a bright spot among the ordained clergy, but not for much longer if this is actually true -- and is enforced.

Sex, sex, sex: for so many Catholics, that is all there is of morality. I would like for the Church to adopt a moratorium on discussions of sex for a period of ten [10] years. We could use a rest from this.

I doubt that St. Peter refrained from sex with his wife. Articles like these point to a real lack of understanding of human sexuality and marriage. Sex is good. Sex is an avenue for grace for married people. Sex is one way married couples renew their special relationship "that God has put together."

Has the Church become filled with scribes and pharisees? Considering the sexual abuse scandals, I will feel better with a married priest who made love to his wife in the morning before saying Mass. I think he would have a much better idea about the special relationship between God and the Church. I have heard that the union between man and woman is as close to the beatific vision as one can get in this life. Canonist Peters needs to retire (or get married.)

Is this another form of Vatican birth control?

Good Grief!!!

So Ed Peters' interpretation of canon law says that ordination trumps the sacrament of matrimony! And furthers the age old Catholic point of view that all sex is somehow not licit, in fact is "dirty". Years ago I read a book by Jose de Vinck (as I recall his name) entitled, "The Virtue of Sex". In this book he makes the case that marital relations are a positive practice and important for a healthy marriage. I guess not many canonists would accept such a "radical" view. Why would spouses choose to forsake one another for the sake of some musty, misguided view of conjugal relations? Perhaps we should redact "The Song of Songs" from the bible while we're at it. God surely made a mistake in the way procreation and the pleasure concurrently derived from such behavior.

Unbelievable!!!! Re: this "canonist", Ed Peters: This is just plain sick thinking and I hope none of my "NON-Catholic" friends read about this. (it's embarrassing enough to be a Catholic these days) I'm quite sure (based on my reading of the gospels) that Jesus would laugh at this legalistic, pharasaic, ridiculous drivel.

Thank goodness that most of the Catholics I meet are much more realistic and open-minded. I wonder: what would Jesus think about the entire concept of "Canon Law"? I think he might weep.

Once again, it is the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is overly obsessed with sex; it looks like an ETWN version of "SEX ADDICTION-THE SERIES."

How is it that we, as Catholics, can examine virtually the entire canon of the new testament through the lectionary cycle, with only a few passages by Paul mentioning anything about sex, and yet let these men who are by definition sexually "immature" (or in reality sexually perverted) dictate their obsessive morality to 2 billion people?

Whre are the Gospels in any of this nonsense? Nowhere! The hierarchy is all about control, not Christianity, and has been since the Middle Ages. Vatican II sought to rebalance much of this institutionalized fossilation, but the fear of losing control and absolute power of the faithful casued them to retreat back into their caves.

When LITMUS TESTING anything canonical -especially questionable interpretations by a single canonist- I always read it in light of the closing line of the 1983 Code: CURA ANIMARUM LEX SUPREMA EST! (The care of souls is the SUPREME LAW)! Failing that, even the psycho-sexually repressed Saint Paul's "BETTER TO MARRY THAN TO BURN" sound-byte comes to mind in this specific instance...

Memo to Mr. Winters:
This topic is much too IMPORTANT to be discussed here in your lowly blog, since according to the author of the study: "...the internet is a haven for people who would rather post than read, and consequently too many discuss issues without having studied them."

Frankly, I hope this sparks a debate about the Canons on continence and how these just might be based in misogyny from the classical era. Indeed, re-examining the Canons should cause a rethinking of priestly celibacy, female ordination and the entire body of teaching on sexuality, since one obviously affects the other.

Ad Peters might be very right in his study on CIC 277 but that should not lead to the suggestion that it is best to keep sleeping dogs (let alone spouses) in a state of unconsciousness. On the contrary, it could be an excellent occasion to ask for the reasonable (versus authoritarian) plausibility with regard to the claims of this canon. Doing so reveals that behind these claims lurks a gloomy vision on human sexuality which would satisfy St. Augustine but was sent on long overdue pension by Vatican II in 1965 by its pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes.

If we would allow ourselves to learn something from the method recommended by Gaudium et Spes, namely to look at issues “in the light of the Gospel and of human experience” (46), we would have reasons to investigate the claim that imposed celibacy “is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity”. From what I learned during well over two decades of teaching also clerics, the claimed “more easily” and “more freely” are almost completely wishful thinking, if not self-delusion. Add to this the insulting claim about the “undivided heart” and this canon is ready for the dustbin of history.

What is the reason for enforced celibacy of deacons? If they have been married in a sacramental union, as one assumes, then does not that entail certain rights of both partners and is not the right to conjugal relations by the wife and integral right in the marriage? What is the marriage bond for if not for sanctioning and sanctifying sexual relations and pleasure? In canon law, does ordination to the office of deacon take precedence over marriage?

A clarification, please. In the Studia article, I discuss deacons only (which for various reasons, is a higher hill to climb than would be the case for just priests). In the recent on-line discussions, I do indeed extend my claim to priests (which is not hard to do). But, strictly speaking, I have not addressed in any systematic way ap. con. Anglicanorum coetibus because it (a) post-dates my article and (b) involves particular legisation questions that I want to study before weighing in on it. Regards, edp.

Love is more than sex. The wife of the deacon must give consent for his ordination and at his ordination he becomes bound by the canon requiring consonance for clerics. No one made him become a deacon, and no one made his wife sign off on it. As a cleric of the Catholic Church it is his duty to follow the laws he has agreed to obey. Marriage is more than the ability to have sex with your wife. It is a big sacrifice but it is one which should be made willingly for the sake of God and your love for Him.

It's interesting to see that no one actually read the article in question. Ed Peters does not condemn marriage or sex. He notes that there has been a long tradition in the Catholic Church of requiring clerical continence. This is still true in the current Code of Canon Law. He merely points out that Canon Law is in disagreement with the current practice of the Latin Church. He proposes solutions, namely, either a) enforce the law or b) change the law. He supports a), but sees b) as a valid option. He notes that most deacons were misinformed about this, not through their own fault, and that allowances would need to be made for them.

He is clear that he is not a theologian, and says that a key to resolving this issue needs to be a theological inquiry to see if our theology of the diaconate has developed.

As most Catholics should realize by now, ignoring the rules doesn't solve anything.

I've never seen an objection to Dr Peters article that actually points out how he misunderstood the canon law in question. Rather, it mostly seems to be personal attacks and sneering.

Thus, if you read the article, you could fairly say, "I believe that there has been a valid theological development since the Second Vatican Council that requires a reform of the law on this matter."