The Catholic Parish of
Saint John Henry Newman

 Covering most of East Leeds

The Revelation.

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There has been much discussion throughout the church on celibacy within the priesthood. With the advent of many married Anglican priests finally seeing the light and joining the Catholic Church, this has reignited further discussion within the church on this issue. Fortunately, after many years of patient research, I am able to shed some light on this difficult subject:-

It is 16th century Britain and high on a hilltop in northern Britain there stands a beautiful monastery. The Abbot has given a young novice the task of copying out the old canons and laws of the church. For weeks the young man worked diligently in his stone cell working by candle light and copying the ancient scrolls by hand from the old manuscripts provided. Then one day he goes to see the Abbot and says, “My Lord Abbot, I have been thinking that if someone made even a small error in the manuscript I am working from, that error would be continued in all subsequent copies. Have we not got the original manuscript in the Abbey vaults? Then I could copy these and be sure they were accurate” The Abbot thought for a moment and then said, “You are quite right my son, I will go down to the vault and bring you up the originals”

Two hours elapse and the novice begins to worry that the Abbot has taken ill, so he makes his way down to the vault and hears cries of pain coming from the stone cellar. He enters the room to find the Abbot banging his head on the stone wall, with blood running down his face and crying out, “They’ve got it all wrong, we missed the “R,” we missed the “R,” for hundreds of years we’ve missed the “R”, don’t you see what this means?” The novice replies, “My Lord Abbot, you must calm down and explain why you are so upset and what you mean by missing the “R’s.” The Abbot calms down and with a choking voice replies, “In these scrolls that I have been reading, it says in canon law that a priest has a duty to “CELEBRATE” the Mass, It doesn’t say that a priest must be “CELIBATE” at Mass, don’t you see, it’s all one big mistake, someone missed out the”R” in the translation hundreds of years ago.”



Published Fri 19th Oct 2012 12:12:07

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