Catholic Priestly Celibacy Vs Dismal Dramatic Dabbling Damina [III]

 

 Screenshot of a clip showing Mr. Damina's dismal dramatic dabbling in interpreting 1 Timothy 4:1-5... 

Preamble:

This is the third entry in the Dismal Dramatic Dabbling Damina series. 

• In the first it was established that to the extent Historical Christianity is at stake Mr. Abel Damina is at once a dismal dramatic dabbler and not a Christian and couldn't be a Christian minister. 
• In the second, it was shown clearly that Mr. Abel Damina is a dismal dramatic dabbler to the extent Catholic discipline on the study of the Holy Scripture is at stake. And that as one sprung from the heretical tradition of “Sola scriptura”, he could not in any way be a companion to a Catholic Bible student in “bible discussion” but must be a student who is to be properly instructed.

In this entry, we show how Mr. Damina is top on the list of those called by the First Vicar of Christ, “the unstable” who “wrest” the Scriptures “to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:17). 

The case study is Mr. Damina's shameless dismal dramatic dabbling in his attempt to condemn Catholic priestly celibacy based on his foolish and false interpretation of 1 Timothy 4:3. 

Mr. Damina's Contention

Over the centuries, the Catholic discipline of Priestly Celibacy has be attacked over and over again by heretics, who, having not the divine and Catholic Faith, now knowing the power of God, are unable to grasp both the Evangelical foundation of the discipline not it's salutary pride of place in the project of Christian perfection. Mr. Damina's shameless contention therefore is not an isolated case. 

His onslaught on Catholic law of Priestly celibacy is based on his reading of St. Paul's first letter to St. Timothy, beginning from the first verse to the fifth:

Now the Spirit manifestly saith that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, Speaking lies in hypocrisy and having their conscience seared, Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful and by them that have known the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:1-5) 

His conclusion is that Catholic law of Priestly Celibacy is:

• A departure from the faith
• A part of false doctrine resulting from giving heed to spirits of error and therefore is a doctrine of the devil. 

His audience, poor blinds led by blind he, went home therefore, imbued with varying portions of his ludicrously infantile prejudice, all sinking deeper in the pitiable quicksand of Protestant fellowship of falsehood. 

Understanding Catholic Clerical Celibacy

Clerical Celibacy designates the state of chastity observed by Catholic clerics in the Major Orders (Subdiaconate, Diaconate, and Priesthood/Bishopric). A celibate, per se, is one who has freely resolved to observe life-long continence by abstaining from carnal pleasures. The distinguishing virtue of celibacy is chastity. This virtue excludes both libidinous acts and sinful thoughts. This virtue of chastity, says St. Jerome, consists in living in the flesh but outside the flesh.

Celibacy then is a lofty ideal and the summit of Christian perfection which man cannot attain through his powers alone. It is for this reason that it was not commanded but counseled or recommended by Christ and the Apostle Paul. Celibacy is therefore a gift of God not given to all but some. 

Now, it is written: 

For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mothers womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it. (Matt. 19:12) 

For I would that all men were even as myself. But every one hath his proper gift from God: one after this manner, and another after that. (1 Cor. 7:7)

This discipline, clerical celibacy, was developed gradually in the Church. The reason for its observance is not farfetched: it is observed in order that clerics may be left free to devote themselves to the things of God and to the service of the Church and the faithful. 

St. Paul writes thus:

 … I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord: how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world: how he may please his wife. And he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord: that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she that is married thinketh on the things of the world: how she may please her husband. (1 Cor. 7:32-34)

Now, apart from this seeming utilitarian motive for the Catholic Priestly Celibacy, in enforcing celibacy the Bride of Christ has a deeper motive. Personified and conceived as “The Virgin Bride” and “The Pure Bride of Christ” or as the “Virgin Mother” right from Apostolic times, the virgin Church reckoned it fitting to be served by a virgin Priesthood. It was therefore her delight to make virginity the special prerogative of the priesthood at her service, drawing her inspiration from her Spouse's counsel to begin with. It is with this sentiments that Pope St. Pius X calls chastity “the choicest ornament” of Catholic priesthood! 

May chastity, the choicest ornament of our priesthood, flourish undimmed among you; through the splendor of this virtue, by which the priest is make like angels, the priest wins greater veneration among the Christian flock, and his ministry yields an even greater harvest of holiness (Pope St. Pius X, Haerent Animo, 1908)

In practice, after a period of trial and preparation, this discipline is voluntarily chosen, (at the ordination to the Subdiaconate) and once chosen, it becomes a binding obligation regulated by the law of the Church.

The unmistakable point here is that Catholic Priestly celibacy has its basis in Evangelical and Apostolical counsel. No doctorate degrees are required to figure that out, or don't you think so too, esteemed reader? 

1 Timothy 4: 1-5: A Reproof of Catholic Priestly Celibacy?

Well, we would not be tired of reiterating with corresponding pride that the Bible is the property of the Catholic Church. 

Yes, it was the Catholic Church that collected and preserved the Books and determined the Canon of the Bible - including the verses of the First letter of St. Paul to St. Timothy under contention; including that. These lines capture this nicely:

No Catholic Church:

No Bible

Know the Catholic Church:

Know the Bible

We are forced to quote again the following: 

“The same authority which made and collected and preserved these books alone has the right to claim them as her own, and to say what the meaning of them is. The Church of Saint Paul and Saint Peter and Saint James in the first century was the same Church as that of the Council of Carthage and of Saint Augustine in the fourth, and of the Council of Florence in the fifteenth, and the Vatican in the nineteenth - one and the same body -growing and developing, certainly, as every living thing must do, but still preserving its identity and remaining essentially the same body, as a man of 80 is the same person as he was at 40, and the same person at 40 as he was at 2…. The Church wrote the New Testament; she, and she alone, can tell us what the meaning of it is. (Bishop Henry Grey Graham, Where we got the Bible…) 

It is no doubt that when the Canon of the Bible was first established (i.e. by the last decade of the Fourth century AD), Catholic discipline of Priestly Celibacy was a well established tradition. This passage therefore couldn't be remotely a proscription of the discipline of the Church, or could it? One would just have to consult Basic Common Sense. 

Meanwhile, let us see what a Catholic Commentary on 1 Timothy 4:3 has to say.

Catholic Commentary on 1 Timothy 4:3. 

The Haydock Biblical Commentary notes that according to St. John Chrysostom this verse was denoting and foretelling a number of heretics whose doctrines were opposed by a number of other Church Fathers, and underlines how Catholic Priestly Celibacy is essentially different from the doctrines of these heretics:

What is denoted and foretold:

Here says S. Chrys… are foretold and denoted the heretics called Encratites, the Marcionites, Manicheans, &c. who condemned all marriages as evil, as may be seen in S. Irenæus, Epiphanius, S. Aug. Theodoret, &c. These heretics held a god who was the author of good things, and another god who was the author or cause of all evils; among the latter they reckoned, marriages, fleshmeats, wine, &c. 

S. Paul here speaks of the Gnostics and other ancient heretics, who absolutely condemned marriage and the use of all kind of meat, because they pretended that all flesh was from an evil principle: whereas the Church of God so far from condemning marriage, holds it to be a holy sacrament, and forbids it to none but such as by vow have chosen the better part: and prohibits not the use of any meats whatsoever, in proper times and seasons, though she does not judge all kinds of diet proper for days of fasting and penance…

We may see in the earliest ages of Christianity, that some of the most infamous and impure heretics that ever went out of the Church, condemned all marriage as unlawful, at the same time allowing the most unheard of abominations: men without religion, without faith, without modesty, without honour. See S. Clem. lib. 3. Strom.

Catholic doctrine:

The doctrine of Catholics is quite different, when they condemn the marriages of priests and of such as have made a vow to God to always lead a single life; or when the Church forbids persons to eat flesh in Lent, or on fasting-days, unless their health require it. We hold that marriage in itself is not only honourable, but a sacrament of divine institution. We believe and profess that the same only true God is the author of all creatures which are good of themselves; that all eatables are to be eaten with thanksgiving, and none of them to be rejected, as coming from the author of evil. When we condemn priests for marrying, it is for breaking their vows and promises made to God of living unmarried, and of leading a more perfect life; we condemn them with the Scripture, which teaches us that vows made are to be kept; with S. Paul, who in the next chap. (v. 12) teaches us, that they who break such vows incur their damnation. When the Church, which we are commanded to obey, enjoins abstinence from flesh, or puts a restraint as to the times of eating on days of humiliation and fasting, it is by way of self-denial and mortification: so that it is not the meats, but the transgression of the precept, that on such occasions defiles the consciences of the transgressors. “You will object, (says S. Chrys.) that we hinder persons from marrying; God forbid,” &c. S. Aug. (l. 30. cont. Faustum. c. vi.) “You see (says he) the great difference in abstaining from meats for mortification sake, and as if God was not the author of them.” We may observe that God, in the law of Moses, prohibited swine’s flesh and many other eatables; and that even the apostles, in the Council of Jerusalem, forbade the Christians, (at least about Antioch) to eat at that time blood and things strangled; not that they were bad of themselves, as the Manicheans pretended. Wi. 

What is the point here?

The proscribed false doctrine denoted and foretold by St. Paul in this letter to St. Timothy is the doctrine of those heretics who absolutely condemn marriage and the use of meat.

My most attentive reader, so you now see how foolish and false Damina's interpretation is in making all believe that a salutary discipline of the Catholic Church which is founded on Evangelical and Apostolical counsel is opposed to the letter of St. Paul's letter to St. Timothy? It should be quickly noted that St. Paul was himself a celibate Catholic Bishop, and he was Writing to another celibate Catholic Bishop, St. Timothy and he could not be condemning celibacy when he recommends it somewhere else. (i.e. 1 Cor. 7: 7)

Is it not easy then to see as Pope Leo XIII notes, that:

...the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture, and never attain its pith? (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus )

Think on it!

Third Summing Up:

• Catholic discipline of Priestly Celibacy is founded on Evangelical and Apostolical counsel.
• But Mr. Damina calls it a departure from the faith and a doctrine of the devil based on his interpretation of 1 Timothy 4:3.
• However, this passage does not remotely apply to Catholic discipline of Priestly celibacy but denotes and foretells the doctrine of those heretics who absolutely condemn marriage. 

Here two points are certain:

1. Mr. Damina's interpretation of 1 Timothy 4: 3 is foolish and false - he makes all believe that Catholic salutary discipline of Priestly Celibacy which is based on Evangelical and Apostolical counsel is contrary to 1 Timothy 4:3; at the same time making St. Paul seem to disagree with himself, who was both a celibate Catholic Bishop and was writing to a Catholic Bishop.
2. Damina's foolish and false interpretation of 1 Timothy 4:3 amounts to nothing short of dismal dramatic dabbling. 

Would anyone gainsay our submissions?  I should be excited to see! 

From this Dismal Dramatic Dabbling Damina trilogy, it should be sufficiently clear to anyone of good will that whatever truth that may be cited as escaping the vocal cavity of Mr. Abel Damina serves only as a slave of this ninety-nine other falsehoods and errors. As a matter of fact, his case is not a singular instance: this fact of truth being the slave of error and falsehood is characteristic of the entire fellowship of falsehood at the service of the mystery of iniquity, the fellowship of falsehood in whose membership Mr. Damina enjoys a distinguished place of honor for his uniquely dramatic persona.

Yes, from this trilogy, it is sufficiently clear that:

• To the extent Historical Christianity is at stake Mr. Abel Damina is at once a dismal dramatic dabbler and not a Christian and couldn't be a Christian minister. 
• Mr. Abel Damina is at once a calumniator, slanderer and a dismal dramatic dabbler to the extent Catholic discipline on the study of the Holy Scripture is at stake. 
• Mr. Damina's foolish and false interpretation of 1 Timothy 4:3 is an eye opener of his shameless dismal dramatic dabbling into scriptural exegesis; he is among the "unstable” who “wrest” the Scriptures “to their own destruction.

Just like his comrades in the fellowship of falsehood at the service of the mystery of iniquity:

•  Mr. Damina fits perfectly the portrait of an enemy of the Faith of Christ and a false prophet that must be avoided by anyone who takes the salvation of his soul seriously. He has not the virtue of Faith and cannot instruct others on matters of Faith. 
• He is a signal slanderer and calumniator and cannot instruct anyone on matters of morality. 
• He is at once intellectually lazy and dishonest: lazy, in not  taking the required diligence to delve into readily available trustworthy historical testimonials of the historical Christianity with explicit marks of divine institution; dishonest, in misrepresenting verifiable facts just to advance and institutionalize his laughable prejudice against the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Custodian and Guardian of all revealed Truth and authorized Teacher of all nations in all things religious and moral. 

Let people of good will see and judge!

We? Formed in the Apostolical tradition, and aided by the grace of Him Who willed from all eternity to enlist us among the laborers in His vineyard though all unworthy, and zealous for the humiliation of the enemies of Our Holy Faith to the greater glory of God and sanctification of souls, we would never tire of reproving the many rotten fruits of the spirit of the fellowship of falsehood, i.e. indifferentism in all it's shades - be it Protestant, Modernist, secular humanist, etc; and also all dismal dramatic dabblings, Mr. Damina's in particular. 

Raising the chalice of salvation: shewing "the death of the Lord, until He come" (1 Cor. 11:25)

Daily, in obedience to the dying wish of Our Blessed Lord, we offer His own precious Blood for the repentance of unbelievers and the uprooting of heresy, among other intentions. We look forward to that day, when, by a singular miracle of grace, the likes of Mr. Damina would be given the light and knowledge of the true and saving Faith. If he would place no obstacle to grace, we can hope for this turn of events sooner than later. What is Christian hope if it is not to hope against hope? Hoping indeed we hope against hope!