www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Celibate Clergy and Latin Catholics

Correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't a large part of that population that fled the Latin Priesthood to go get married after their vow of celibacy, also join the ranks of the Latin Priestrhood in bulk during the time of the Vietnam War? And then leave the Priesthood for marriage a short time after the war was over?

A Latin priest with whom I'm familiar spoke to me recently about the priesthood, and how he thought I should be a priest and even join his congregation, and that maybe God was using him to get me to think upon these things. I told him I'd think about it.

Anyway, he had talked about how he had originally come to know his vocation. He talked about how when the Korean War happened, a lot of people, his friends included, didn't want to serve, so they entered the seminaries, and that's how he began, and eventually got ordained, by entering his order and the seminary to avoid the army.

Forswearing women forever to avoid going to war? No thanks...give me my gun!! :p

(I speak Hindi intermediately too, by the way, and have been to India twice).

Hindi? That's admirable...my mom likes talking to people in Hindi, so she'd probably enjoy talking to you. Of course, Malayalam is like a hundred times harder than Hindi, so she tells me -- she knows both fluently. I don't know Hindi, so I can't say.

So learn Malayalam, a real man's language. Hindi is the Campbell's Chicken Soup of India...why settle for that when you can have Campbell's Chunky Soup? :p

+JMJ+

Alex has brought up several issues that I beleive need to be addressed.

1. A lack of respect for Eastern Traditions. This is true. This happens because we basically know very little about the Eastern Traditions. Most of the Bishops I have talked too support Easterns returning to their traditions (including the very traditional ones I mentioned earlier). We need to be educated. If you want us to support and promote your traditions, we need to be educated by those who are Byzantine Catholic.

2. The Scandals. Having a married priesthood will not solve the fundamental issue that is behind the scandals. The fundamental issue behind the scandals is a complete abandonment of Catholic Tradition. In dioceses where traditions are followed, there is no scandal. Our priests and prelates (in the Latin Rite) have rejected many of the Churches teachings on Human Sexuality. So says William Donahue, president of the Catholic Leage for social and political justice.

3. The Vow-promise issue. All priests (unless they have been dispensed from it) make a vow of celibacy on Ordination day. All those who are women's religious make a promise of celibacy. Which can be broken were they to leave the convent.

4. Married Bishops. In the Eastern Churches, I say decide it yourselves, but in the latin Rite I say absolutley NOT.

In light of these issues, I beleive we can come up with a consensus in which everyone benifits. Send those Latin Riters who feel they have a vocation both to the Priesthood and to the Married life to have discussions on the matter with their bishop and spiritual director/confessor about the issue. If they are all three come to the consensus that these two vocations exist simultaniously, send them to you easterners as in our Partiqular Church these two vocations cannot coexist exept in the cases of clerical converts. That way you have more priests which you can use to evangelize the world and spread appreciation of the Eastern Traditons and we don't stop being Latin Rite Catholics.

As any practicing Latin Rite Catholic will tell you, in our Church we have a tradition of having daily Mass. Now if a priest was married, he would still have to be celibate in order to offer up the Sacrifice of the Mass every day. Canon Law and longstanding tradition states that a priest must refrain from the exercise of the marital rites before offering up the Liturgy.

The Latin Rite cannot accept a general married priesthood. If it did it would stop being the Latin Rite in general.

A good indication of how bad this can get in the Latin Rite is a group called "rent-a-priest" which advocates the marriage of priests after ordination. Now I realize that what is under discussion here is ordaining already married men, but this step will only give more vigor to this group and the countless other groups like them that are trying to destroy the Latin Rite by corrupting our priesthood. Ordaining already married men is but one step from allowing priests to marry.

Joe Zollars

Dear Catholicos,

Shhhh. . .

Syriac Orthodox married priest! Syriac Orthodox married priest!

Just love y'a, Big Guy!

Alex

Dear Joe,

3. The Vow-promise issue. All priests (unless they have been dispensed from it) make a vow of celibacy on Ordination day. All those who are women's religious make a promise of celibacy. Which can be broken were they to leave the convent.

According to all the reading I've done on the subject, it's not a vow of celibacy, but a promise of celibacy. What exactly the difference is, I don't know, because of my next point. What's the point in a priest being dispensed of the vow/promise/whatever requirement at ordination, if ordination itself is a canonical impediment to matrimony? It looks like useless paperwork.

As any practicing Latin Rite Catholic will tell you, in our Church we have a tradition of having daily Mass.

According to my mother, "It is only in this country that they have Mass every day." She doesn't know about many places other than India and the States, but she says that over there, Mass is only on Sundays and Holy Days. She could be wrong, but I wouldn't know otherwise.

Dear Alex,

Thanks for providing me with a cheering section.

At this point in my life, right when I thought I had things figured out, God allowed a wrench to be thrown in the machine that is me, and so I'm confused once again, and so I will wait a little while and learn more and do some soul searching, that sort of thing.

But my priest's son is being ordained a subdeacon day after tomorrow. Seven metropolitans, forty priests, five deacons, and eight hundred or so people will be in attendance, including the Indian Ambassadors to the UN and to the US and the Consul in Manhattan, I'm told. It will be quite the day for hobnobbing with diplomats and hierarchs. Maybe I'll make up my mind definitely after that event.

By the by, please pray for me...in order to be in the actual church when this all happens, rather than be stuck in a back room watching the whole thing on closed circuit television, I have to be one of the first people there, meaning I should be there by like seven or so in the morning, before the bishops come. I need to wake up!

Dear Joe,

You are just a little fire-ball, aren't you!

Good for you, Servus Dei, good for you!

I don't think the East will approve of married Bishops, at least not outside an Ecumenical Council, and there's no fear of one of those happening any time soon!

The daily Mass and celibacy rule is actually the same in the East. The East does not have the tradition of daily Divine Liturgy in any event.

The Eastern rules for married priests, as written, say the following: "Know, o Priest, that the day before you are to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, you are not even to sleep IN THE SAME ROOM as does your wife. If you do, you will sin grievously."

There is also a heavy penitential rule for priests who have a night emission the evening before celebrating the Divine Liturgy.

Wait a minute, I think I here Dr. John coming .

Dr. John, Dr. John, I was just quoting from the Priest's Servicebook, take it easy, now, put that stick away!

God bless, Joe, and what you make a mean set of prayerbeads!

Alex

Dear Mor Ephrem:

Back in the Philippines, Masses are said daily like in all countries where there is a Catholic presence.

To date, the Vatican has Apostolic Nuncios (or Papal Nuncios/Legates) in 176 countries and counting. That means there is a Catholic presence in all of these countries, necessitating Vatican "protection" and daily celebration of the Mass is the norm.

In countries with heavy Catholic populations like Brazil (110+ million Catholics), Mexico (90+ million), the Philippines (65+ million), the US (63+ million), and Italy (50+ million) (that's Nos.1 through 5) mulitiple daily masses are celebrated at 5:00 a.m., 6:00 a.m., 7:00 a.m., and at 11:00 a.m. (or, in some parishes at 12:00 noon time).

I don't intend to project that Roman Catholics have that "holier than thou" attitude. It's just a practice common to all of the Roman Catholic parishes around the world (speaking of universality).

It has been observed that a Mass is celebrated probably every hour daily, as the globe rotates and brings successive sunrises to each of the 24 datelines.

[ 04-11-2002: Message edited by: Amado Guerrero ]

Mor,

I should point out that I have no issue at all with those Priests who entered the Priesthood to avoid war and yet remained committed to the Priesthood after the war was over. As you've stated in your own round-about way sex drives men so strongly that most of us knuckle heads would rather endanger our lives then forego sex for the rest of our lives. These Priests like the one you speak of should be commended, not that they were right for the reasons they entered the Priesthood, but that they corrected all of that by honoring the Church and society by keeping to their religious obligation. I'd like to think we all are redeemable.

But you should be aware, and I'm sure you are, that not everyone walks off the battle feild, and not everyone walks off whole, infact few do - whether physicaly or mentaly. And some catholics who do go to the battle feild in their nations uniform and come back to eventualy find those who escaped their duty to war through the means of the Priesthood then leaving the Priesthood for marriage after the war is over, can feel a sense of betrayal. Especialy those you can imagin, who scarficed and left their legs on some foreign battle feild, perhaps confined to a wheelchair and no longer able to gain an erection or make love to a woman again.

From what I understand Korea, WWII, Viet Nam, every major war has saw an increase of those entering the Priesthood, and after every major war there has been an exodus from the Priesthood for marriage.

+JMJ+

Those who are dispensed from the vow of Celibacy on ordination day are clerical converts who are already married.

Yes indeed it is a common worldwide practice of the Latin Rite to have daily Mass and therefore a married clergy would simply not work in the Latin Rite. What is worse is if married priests did become common practice there would have to be several priests at each parish and each one would have to have a seperate rectory. Could you imagine the cost????!

Joe Zollars

H'mm Joe,

OK supposing, just supposing, that we did have married Priests[ Oh I am speaking as a Latin here ] - why would we have to have several in one Parish ?

I take your point about the living accommodation problem - but why would we need more than one - how about a Deacon or two ?

Angela

Ah, Amado, but India is one of those 176 countries with an Apostolic Nuncio, and she still says that daily Mass isn't all that customary...oh well. I'll have to ask an Indian Latin Catholic about it one day.

This is an excellent point. As a practical matter, with mass times not always on the hour and daily masses often about 30-40 minutes, the Church around the world is in constant prayer and worship.

Have a Blessed Day!

John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck.

+JMJ+

Angela:

To maintain the Latin tradition of Daily Mass, which could not be done by a married priest, we would need several priests. See my earlier posts if you do not understand why a married priest could not say Mass every day.

Deacons are great, but they just can't say the Mass or hear confessions.

John:

According to an old Confraternity of the Precious Blood Missal I have at home, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is continuos throughut the world and there is probably not even one minute in which the Mass is not being offered up.

Joe Zollars

I personally don't see why a married priest could not celebrate the Liturgy daily, sex or no sex, East or West. I think the regulation is just a bit outdated. But that's just me. Being twenty, I suppose I'm a bit underdated...

Dear Catholicos,

Yes, the rubric that proscribes the priest from having sex the night before celebrating the Divine Liturgy is an important impediment to having it celebrated daily, unless the priests take turns .

So I call on Dr. John and the other members of the Theological Committee of this forum, Cantor Joe, Father Joe, the Administrator, Fr. Deacon Ed, Fr. Elias et al, to kindly take this issue under advisement and let us know how one may resolve the issue of a married priesthood (assuming that there is one priest in the parish) and the issue of daily Divine Liturgy.

In other words, HELP!

Also, most married priests I know work for a living.

And most celibate priests and monks I know work for a living too! (I think they're overworked as a matter of fact).

Alex