Periodically, I also worked cleaning our parish rectory. After the fire had destroyed the old rectory and killed our priest and his 2 fellow priests, they rebuilt the rectory. There were different priests that came and went as in most parishes, but I got to know most of each fairly well.
When I read that Catholic Bible front to back and highlighted everything, I found myself questioning some concepts the Catholic Church taught compared to that Catholic Bible.
One of the earliest conversations was when the Catholic Church was beginning to see a great shortage of priests. Some churches were beginning to see the hurt and struggles of sharing priests and bringing them in. Plus, it was a time when the subject of priests being allowed to marry came into question.
I did my research and asked one of the priests why the Catholic religion didn’t allow priests to marry. I explained that even Peter, one of Jesus’ apostles, had a mother-in-law. Luke 4:38-40 says, “Jesus left the synagogue and went to Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was very sick. She had a high fever…”. Jesus Himself allowed His disciple to follow him even though He knew Simon Peter was married.
His response was that he didn’t know why. He said all he knew was that the Western Orthodox changed the rules because they felt that priests should concentrate on preaching and not worrying about their own lives but concentrating on the parishes they were in charge of.
I saw several issues here that concerned me. The first was that the Western Orthodox changed what the Bible – God’s Word – allowed. And by now, I knew that in both the first chapter in Galatians and the last few paragraphs in Revelation specifically stated that if anyone, in Galations specifically even including an angel, changed or added to His Word that they would be eternally condemned.
Then, I thought to myself, “If priests were allowed to marry, wouldn’t they better know how to help struggling families?” By experiences we learn and are able to help because many, who have no idea how family life is, struggle with family life. And also, in 1 Timothy 3:2, God specifically says that a bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior and so on.
We discussed this and I expressed my concerns for their changing God’s word and leading others to believe it was ok to change and if marriage was allowed, look how many would be priests! All he could do was shrug and tell me he didn’t know why they changed it.
I recall hearing many in that parish wondering why they wouldn’t allow priests to marry. I did hear there was one priest who was married at that time but was in some parish away from our area. And then heard there was another who was divorced so he could be a priest.
That one concerned me even more! God was also specific to not divorce unless there was sexual sin! More concerns and frustration on my part trying to understand the whys to changing God’s word and then going against what God expected!
Something inside my heart was a nagging and I had to study more! Those kid’s minds who heard conversations also needed the answers. And anyone who works around kids knows how questionable they are! Kids are smart and they soak up so much information like a sponge!