www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Why married priests won't solve the vocation shortage

No pews? Sounds like an Easterner to me.

Charles,

Here where we winter in SW Tucson which is in the southwestern U.S. in our mission church we do have pews so we aren't nopewers - however, no room for kneelers. so nokneelers. This historic mission is so crowded the pews sometimes get pushed together and so we have to search for one to accommodate clumsy folks like us or go in very sideways. Last week I tripped into my seat, fortunately no one else was seated there yet, but the noise my foot made was, well, ! It IS cozy and togetherness though.

Have a blessed celebration on Pascha--pews or no pews, kneelers or nokneelers.

Mary Jo...

On priestly celibacy I can recommend an excellent article "My experience of priestly celibacy in the Maronite Church in America" by Bishop Gregory Mansour (The Maronite Voice, 1.3 2005, pp. 10-11).

I have found that many priests & seminarians feel uncomfortable discussing celibacy. Well, of course, it is a private manner, in many respects.

The excellent article by Bishop Gregory offers great insight. He says: "...priestly celibacy carries with it a real 'cost' but also a great gift." He says that it has its good and bad sides, though he has been enriched by it.

Stojgniev

Dear Stoyjniev,

Priestly celibacy is truly a great gift - celibacy in any state is.

But not everyone is called to celibacy - not even priests in the EC experience.

Alex

Christos voskrese! Chrystus zmartwychwstal!


Dear Alex,

Well, of course, I agree completely.

I wish I could reproduce Bishop Gregory's article here, as his frankness is refreshing.

So, in summary, my two cents worth: abolishing the requirement of celibacy will not significantly increase the number of priests in America. Yes, at first there would be several hundred new applicants. But over a period of 10 years, I don't think we'd see major changes in the numbers of priests.

Stojgniev

Third Pew, Stojgniev, and everybody else: who think:

"abolishing the requirement of celibacy will not significantly increase the number of priests in America. Yes, at first there would be several hundred new applicants. But over a period of 10 years, I don't think we'd see major changes in the numbers of priests."

I disagree completely because you have all forgoten one important thing: holy married priests have sons that grow up to become holy priests. Some families have several generations of priests. many of our current priests are the sons and grandsons of priests.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Dear Father Deacon Lance,

And what a wonderful tradition that was!

Like Cz. Milosz said of himself, I'm an antimodernist and often I find myself wishing I was living in the 18th century in an isolated village of the Carpathians, surrounded by peace, quiet & folk tradition.

Unfortunately for those who think like myself, we live in the 21st century. It's very hard to maintain the tradition of "priestly families" today. I suspect it's not very common among the Orthodox.

But to clarify my position: I don't like the idea of completely abolishing the tradition of a married priesthood. I'm just saying that that is not a solution to the shortage of priests. I defend the tradition, but I don't see it as a solution for 21st century Babylon (the United States).

Stojgniev

It is probably more common than you think. The priest of my home parish is a third generation vocation (both his father and grandfather were priests); he is married to a woman who is the daughter of a priest, and whose maternal grandfather was a priest.

A good friend of mine, recently ordained, married a priest's daughter.

I know of another instance where there are three sisters, daughters of a priest; two of the three are now priest's wives.

On the flip side, there are also those priest's kids who are very jaded toward the priesthood and the church, especially in cases where their dad was treated like garbage by his assigned parish or by a one of his higher-ups on the ecclesiastical ladder.

Dave

Still in the Third Pew, snickering a bit I might confess.
Speaking about that (pews) go to the OCA web site and you�ll see 99% of all their parishes with pews. Face it; people like to sit, all of them, not just the old timers.
Think of it as borrowing a good idea from someone else; like indoor plumbing.

Now,
The essence of the priesthood?

Priests are �called�. They can be called either married or not I suppose. But there seems to be �call-blocking� in too many families.
The point is that when men are called, they either can, or must �leave everything� like a decent living for their families, or even for themselves for service to the Church. Young men just need to be aware of the reality of living in the good old USA. Priest salaries are not up to par with a decent standard of living.

Orthodox priests have jobs, either full or part time. Married Byzantine priests will need them too. Can�t support a family on $475.00 per week, BEFORE taxes. Have the wife work? Sure, but who takes care of the kids?
Not a good motherly example for the Pani to have kids in daycare.
This isn�t the Old Country, where priests were taken care of by their village parishioners. Contrary to Hillary, it takes a village to have a priest, but we have no village anymore.
Priestly families? How many �Byzantine Families� have every one of their offspring remain Byzantine? That should quash that theory. We can�t even keep kids Byzantine Catholic, let alone thinking that sons will automatically want to be like dad and be a Byzantine priest.
I know of an Orthodox priest who got canned from their parish because they didn�t "like him." Talk about job security with finicky �Kurators!�

The �nature� of the priesthood is not defined by a person JThur. It was and is defined by Jesus Christ. Jesus called, and �they left their nets� and followed Him.
�I will make you fishers of men� Our Lord said. Anything anyone else would opine is obviously slanted to �their� POV.

An interesting experiment: Why not all of us who are married go and tell our wives, we are becoming a priest as soon as the bishop would ordain us. Of course we would have to be ready to relocate, and leave our current jobs, and "you honey" may have to work or grow a garden in the back yard to support and feed our kids, vacations rare, cars for junior impossible, and college may be out of the question, unless the kids get student loans, and health care...well....and our standard of living would be greatly diminished. Reactions would be interesting from wife and family.
There's reality, and there's wishful, however holy thinking.

JMVFTTP and loving the view from the pew that my dad OBM sat in for 78 years. Go ahead make jokes. Dance on my dads' pew! ;-(

"Speaking about that (pews) go to the OCA web site and you�ll see 99% of all their parishes with pews. Face it; people like to sit, all of them, not just the old timers.
Think of it as borrowing a good idea from someone else; like indoor plumbing."

If people like to sit, why not give them recliners? Or hammocks for more convenience? Methinks because it's impious. So are pews or any other form of mass seating; we have no tradition of them in our Churches. The OCA may be trying to act American, but in the end, I think that sticking with tradition will instill proper piety and keep our Churches filled well into the future. Playing American Church will not. People like to sit ... true ... and people, in our fallen nature like to sin, so why not condone vice in the Churchews of God?

I recall that Metropoliton Philaret (ROCOR) refused to visit my parish because it had enough folding chairs that nearly every one could sit, and while he did not forbid that, to express his disapproval, he would not serve there.

Photius, Reader

However, another Philaret, who is presently interceding before the awesome throne of God, said this:

�It is better to sit and think of God, than to stand and think of your legs�.

St. Philaret of Moscow

As to married priests (or celibate priests) and the need to encourage vocations to the priesthood and diaconate: it is not exactly a cause for shock to note that it is harder to encourage young men to pursue these vocations in settings where the priest and/or deacon is apt to be beset with "Clergy Killers" and to find quite inadequate support from both the faithful and the hierarchs. I could give some amazing examples. If we want more clergy (we certainly need more clergy, but do we want them?) we could do worse than to begin by cherishing the clergy we already have, even though there is not the slightest doubt that the clergy are sinful men (since we are all sinful people).

My thanks to Subdeacon Photius for his observation on pews. This bit of information might be relevant: for the past few Sundays there has been almost no seating available in the chapel our parish uses (for reasons not in the control of either our priest or our parish). Only one person complained; MANY people expressed joy and appreciation. The singing was notably better.

I've run across that cliche (my apologies to Alice) about sitting and thinking about God and standing and thinking about feet in numerous places, ascribed to numerous people, for at least the past 35 years, and the older I get the less it impresses me. It is possible to provide seating for those who genuinely need it (and people can be permitted to determine that need for themselves) without turning the entire congregation into an audience at the theater.

On the other hand, I wonder if the absence of pews would encourage the clergy to preach shorter, pithier sermons?

Incognitus

Well, I guess that on this point I will have to agree to disagree with most of my traditional brethren on this forum!

Praise be to God, I am a healthy woman, however--I love when it is time to sit, and I love to sit when hearing my priest's often fiery and profound sermons, because I am able to concentrate much better!

Sorry!

I have to chime in here, because I'm reading ThirdPew's ex cathedra statements about his intimate knowledge of both the OCA and the married priesthood with quite a bit of hilarity.

Just how many married priests have contributed to this discussion?

If there are any questions that you want to fire at a real, live married priest, I'd be happy to field them for you. And yes, my father was a priest, and two uncles, as well as my grandfather, etc, etc....

Married Priest Thomas

Bless, Father Thomas,

And I've had 14 married priests on my grandmother's side, and a few on my father's side.

They're all right . . .

Alex