www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Clerical Marriage

I might have to take you to task at least on this point... The restoration of the diaconate as a perm office and the opening of it to married men is still in relative infancy. I would argue that the 16.6K deacons now serving in the US (with an expectation we will be at 20K+ withing about 4 years) have been a boon so far and we are just getting started.

My priest put it well when our first deacon was ordained. "They are kind of like food processors - you don't think you need one till you get one, then you don't know how you ever got along without and want at least one more!"

On all other points, we are in substantial agreement.

I have been very quiet recently, but I have to jump in and be a bomb thrower. Many "super" Latins (and if it has been said in this thread, it needs to be said again) express great horror at the concept of a married priesthood in the Latin Church and leave the impression that you cannot change something which has always been in place. I would remind them that the blanket celibacy in the Latin west as a matter of policy is a matter of discipline and could be changed in the blink of an eye. It probably won't be for economic reasons (you have to pay the priest a living wage because he would have to support a family if he married), although a the pool of men available for ordination would certainly be increased. Yes, I am saying that celibacy is an economic issue!


These "super" Latins (yes there are "super" Orthodox also who are equally hard to live with) seem to have developed amnesia about blanket celibacy in the Latin rite and forgotten that it is an INNOVATION of --if I remember correctly-- the 11th or 12th century. It was only introduced to protect the real property of the church by keeping the clergy from willing church property to their heirs. It was all economics!!! A true conservative Latin would want a return to a married priesthood because it would be returning the church to its original stance on the issue not some medieval INNOVATION!

Ok now I retreat to my bunker!

I do beleive that ordination of married men is a distinct possibility and I would love for it to occur. But we can not just make changes in the blink of an eye. Look what happened in the west when we made changes in the blink of an eye 40 years ago. A married latin clergy is something that needs to slowly be transitioned to along with a return to orthodoxy and better catechisis.

Celibacy is not merely an economic issue. I can't say that it is not a factor, but the model of ministry adopted, parish sizes and formation programs being what they are, it isn't just dollars and cents.

Honestly this matter is - in a real way - about 20 years behind the times and very Ameri-centric in its presentation. Necessity simply does not drive a need for married clergy in the Latin Church - nations like Mexico now has 14,000 men in priestly formation as compared to 16,000 ordained priests! There is a boon in Africa, Asia and other parts of South America. (Tales of all of America having become Protestant Evangelicals are somewhat exagerrated - we are still alive and kicking!)

The idea that a "real conservative" is an antiquarianist - always looking to restore that which is oldest is odd and unconvincing to me. I know a lot of conservatives, I don't know a lot of folks looking to return to public penance in sackcloth and ashes!

A lot of folks like to claim that it is a "mere" 8ish centuries old in the Latin Church... leaving the imagination to run wild that for centuries 0 - XII the Western Church had what the Eastern Churches have now. I just don't believe that to be accurate, but a days long debate in a new thread could I suppose be started about all that.

I don't see married preisthood in the Latin Church any time soon. If for no better reason than they simply are not going to have a need for that model.

How do you slowly transition to married clergy? You either have them or you don't . . . whether you ordain a married man today or wait a hundred years, you'll either have married priests or you won't.

Arguably you would expand the exceptions slowly... First just Protestant converts... Than maybe men who have served as deacons for X number of years over the age of X....

But again, I don't see any real pressing need coming down the pike on this one. For all the talk of the "shortage" that we have of clergy, in fact the real shortage is of the laity... Besides, the ratio of priests to faithful we have today is roughly the same as it was in 1900, and far better than it traditionally was in Mexico & South America.

I was recently doing some research at a local latin seminary that has doubled to almost 170 men in the past decade - most all of them under 30, and more are on the way.

So even this much speculation is rather of the "Angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin" variety.