[FOREIGN]
>> Pope Francis is reconsidering the rule that forces priests to be celibate.
Now, that's interesting.
I'm sure that priests were forced to be celibate for good reason,
it's a core part of their religion, right?
Except it turns out that the celibacy requirement for
priests wasn't really a requirement until the 11th century when
the Catholic church realized that priests were passing down their wealth,
their inheritance to their children.
Can't have that happen.
They wanted to ensure that the money stayed with the church.
So in the early 11th century,
Pope Benedict VIII responded to the decline in priestly morality by issuing
a rule prohibiting the children of priests from inheriting property.
A few decades later,
Pope Gregory VII issued a decree against clerical marriages.
Interesting.
So now, the pope is like, maybe we scrap this whole celibacy rule?
Why, why would he want to do that?
Could it be that they're having difficulty finding priests?
There's a labor shortage in the Catholic church, everybody.
So according to the Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate,
the number of priests nationwide is down 60% in the last 50 years.
This means more than 3,500 churches are without a resident pastor.
>> Yeah. So, look,
the Catholic church has changed its mind on a number of things,
which is kind of curious because I thought God was eternal and all knowing.
How could an entity that knows everything change its mind?
I'll let you think about that one.
So, they've also changed their mind on homosexuality a number of times.
Now, the hysterical accuracy is hard to tell.
Looking back at it, millenniums later, centuries later,
of gay Popes and straight Popes, and they go back and forth, back and
forth, and what these figures are really are political figures.
And they're trying to adjust to the times that they're in to make their church
more popular, and powerful.
So if being gay is invoked, they're like, yeah, gay is awesome.
Yeah, let's do that.
God says gay is fine.
Totally fine.
Right?
It's not popular?
God says no good, no good.
Always been no good.
Okay?
So in this case, they can't get anybody to become priests.
Because the world is changing, especially in America.
I mean, they're praying in a lot of these churches for
new priests coz there's thousands of open positions.
And behold their prayers are not being answered.
Like in the old days ,you have to remember,
being a priest was super prestigious.
If your son wound up being a priest, all the family was so proud.
Does anyone really think that anymore?
No, everybody wants their kids to be ,again this is a sad thing, but bankers,
or YouTubers, or celebrities, etc.
So now you're not allowed to get married, there's almost no money in it, and
there's almost no prestige in it.
Of course, it's gonna be hard to get people to sign up.
>> In other words, the rules of the religion change depending on
what is beneficial to the church at any given time.
So, when it was beneficial to push for celibacy, because it would mean that these
priests wouldn't have children to pass down their wealth to,
they went that direction.
Once they see there's a shortage in priests and
they need to make the Catholic church more appealing to folks who might
consider being priests, all of a sudden you have Pope Francis who's like,
I don't see nothing wrong with a little bumping grand.
No, he didn't say that.
>> He's like, well, I mean,
it doesn't mean that you have to be celibate your whole life.
What does that mean?
So you could be married before you become a priest, or after you become a priest?
He doesn't clarify because he's in the middle of a transition and
he's trying to have it both ways and appease conservatives, and
adjust to the new world.
But none of this has anything to do with God.