should priests be able to give advice on things they have no experience in?

Question

it seems to me, the only people they can give honest experiential advice to is members of NAMBLA...and perhaps the gay and lesbian community as well.

lovely: thanks. sarcasm is my thing...

sparkl, nice try, but i'll take advice on real estate from donald trump over the pope anyday of the week pal...

Answer 1

In what way would the church be able to give advice to the gay and lesbian community?

Surely their advice would be to stop being gay or lesbian, but for a true gay person, it's no more possible to willingly have a loving relationship with someone of the oposite sex as it is for a heterosexual person to have a relationship with someone of the same sex. Call it a genetic malfunction if you wish, but we are born the way we are. Believe me, I have tried to have relationships with men and I have always been repulsed by men as anything but friends. Even after I came out - for the sake of my family - I continued to try and have reationships with men, but I was physically sick when they touched me. There is no miracle drug or therapy to 'cure' us because there is nothing there to cure. If - as a religious person - you want to blame someone for the way we offend you, then blame God. Surely he has the power to cure us of our 'sickness'. If Jesus could protect a whore and forgive her - someone who CHOSE to sin - then surely he can forgive or cure a person who is born with feelings for the same sex.

To be perfectly honest, I'm sick to the back teeth with Christians - who know absolutely nothing about gay people - telling me that I should stop sinning and have a so-called 'normal' relationship. For a gay person, a relationship with a member of the same sex IS normal. What is abnormal is people like you who take one or two passages from some text written by a bunch of ignoramus megalomaniacs - a text full of spite, hate, racism and murder - and point a finger. Read that marvellous book you profess to follow and I mean READ IT! Read it from cover to cover and look at all the contradictions of you infallable Lord. See how he kills his own people - commands them to slaughter their own children in his name. You don't call a cripple a sinner or an abomination in the eye of the Lord do you? You don't make a woman who is having her period stay in a room on her own for the duration and several days before and afterwards do you? No you don't, yet the bible says that the handicapped should not be allowed in God's house because they offend his eye and women are unclean during their time of a period and should be set apart from all others because they are dirty and this is the manifestation of her sins. Just think about what this is saying and how utterly crazy it is. No one in their right mind would follow these rules because they are totally unjust and neither a handicapped person nor a woman can help or change what they are. So is it any fairer to say that gay people are an abomination when the condition we have is something we are born with and cannot change?

Love is love. Love is good. Two people who are passionately in love don't have time for hatred. They don't want wars and starvation. They want everyone to be as much as in love as they are. It doesn't matter if it's a man and a woman, two men or two women. It's the love they have for each other that counts. Love is the greatest gift we have as a species. Hating someone for being in love is what is abnormal.

Answer 2

The legal position is entirely dependant on the laws of the nation where you live. In the UK you can only marry people if you are a registrar or Christian priest, I am not sure about the legal standing for officiating over funerals. As for consecration, if you are accepted by the community that you serve as priest then you can do this any time. For Asatru I believe the AFA run courses for priesthood.

Answer 3

This is interesting, because in my opinion the only issues a Priest should be questioned upon would concern faith and religion.

However, as a member of the church Priests have immense resources and a wealth of information at their fingertips.

F.Y.I. that gay and lesbian comment came out sounding quite snarky.

Answer 4

Should psychiatrists only be able to counsel people if they've suffered from depression or mental illness themselves? Or is it possible to receive enough training to be able to help a person without actually experiencing the issue first?

Should physical therapists be limited in working only on injuries that they've suffered themselves? Or is it possible for them to receive training to be able to help a person effectively without having personally suffered from the injury?

Should diplomats who negotiate peace treaties be chosen solely on their own personal history as terrorists so that we know that they really understand what the poor terrorists are going through?

Should judges be elected based on their criminal history, so that we know they have the right "experience" to determine proper sentencing for convicted criminals?

Should orphaned children only be given to parents who already have kids because childless couples don't have any experience and couldn't possibly know how to raise kids? And should we just take EVERY baby away from a first-time parent because that parent doesn't have enough experience to know what to do?

You see the problem with your logic, don't you? There are many, many people in society who are capable of helping other people in very real ways despite not having done X, Y or Z themselves.

Answer 5

Like Super hero cops with tattoos dealing with mentally ill Americans?

Answer 6

Yes its not the particulars , its life advice in general. in any situation you should be able to look to God.

Answer 7

The whole priestly profession is about giving advice on things they have no experience in.

Answer 8

If you go to a priest for advise or counseling, he will give you advise from the Bible.

Answer 9

I think it depends on what they are giving you advice on. I wouldn't want a priest giving me sex or marriage advice which he has no experience in.

Answer 10

...the Lord can grant wisdom and understanding in any area of human life to anyone whom He sees fit...