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Thanks for the reference! I will look it up.

Ok, so I read this on some forum, somewhere a while ago and I just came across it again, is there any truth to this or is this a common misunderstanding?

There is a great deal of truth in this, but what happens in the bedroom is normally left there .

Certainly abstention from the marital act , at times , is there as part of fasting in the Eastern Churches , but as ever you follow the guidance of your Spiritual Father .

I can't honestly see how this can be said to apply to Latin Priests since their discipline is for mandatory celebacy.

I agree that it would be necessary to abstain from conjugal love, as a fast prior to Divine Services. I do not agree with the poster I quoted that it needs to be as strict as he alludes to.

I shall restrain myself from asking how one would go about fornicating with one's own wife - something tells me that I really don't care to know!

Fr. Serge

Ask Rev. Fr. Scott Medlock of the (roman rite) Archdiocese of Anchorage. Or his wife and kids.

As I said
Presumably Fr Scott Medlick has come into the Church from elsewhere. There are exceptions to every rule

"Presumably Fr Scott Medlick has come into the Church from elsewhere. There are exceptions to every rule"

There are more married Latin priests in this country than there are married Greek Catholic ones.

I'm not sure that is accurate; possibly the UGCC alone in the USA (roughly about 60 now) might approach that number, and combining the UGCC, Melkites and Romanians would likely yield a higher number.

There is something to the north of 100 married Latin priests in the U.S. right now.

Am I missing something?

In the Latin Church, the eucharistic fast is one hour. I imagine most (theoretical) married priests would be able to comply.

Shalom,
Memo

Nonetheless, I think having more married priests would also get the Latin Church to cut back on the heedless proliferation of Masses (the Saturday 5PM Mass being the one I would love to see go first) which is far from the patristic ideal of one church, one altar, one Eucharist on one day.

Going back to near the beginning of this thread someone had a question about married priests in the Ruthenian-Byzantine Church (BRC). I will try as accurately as I can to relay what was very recently told to me by an RBC priest when this topic came up.

- Currently, the problem with ordination of married men is not so much a problem for Rome as it is for a number of American Roman Catholic Bishops. (Remember, they are the ones, albeit a couple generations ago, that threw a hissy-fit over the new immigrants with their "Orthodox ways.")

- They contend that Rome decreed no married clergy in the U.S. because the Roman Church has predominance (not sure if right word) over the other Catholic Churches. I guess they see the rest of us Eastern Catholics are just temporary visitors.

- So how come the Melkites and the Ukranians have married priests? Well, those Churches are not "based" in this country. Their metropolitan/patriarch/"government" is based in "the old country." Their priests are technically of the homeland and not of the U.S. The BRC, with its Metropolitan in Pittsburgh, is an "American Church," and therefore must abide by American (i.e., Latin) rules.

- Okay, I'm not here to debate this logic. Personally, I think it's absurd. What I do want to note is that, according to this clergyman, the issue of no married clergy for the BRC boils down to resistance by the RC Church in America and a failure (for whatever reasons) by the BRC hierarchy to push back. As he stated earlier, Rome, theoretically has no real problem.

Last week I was speaking with several members of the Vocation Committee for the Archeparchy and I was informed that things are moving towards a more open allowance of married priests in the Archeparchy. The process is not moving as fast as some would like.

Then I asked about formation, how would we house married seminarians, etc... They told me that we'll make it work somehow. At this point that was good enough for me. I'm just excited that "something" is happening.

This isn't completely accurate. The Melkite, Ukrainian and Romanian Greek Catholic hierarchs within the US have ordained married men to the presbyterate for more than a decade. While there have been some "imports", there have also been ordinations of American men of their particular Churches ordained for service to American eparchies who were not "imports".

If indeed the Latins have more married priests than the combined Greek Catholic tally in the US as StuartK postulates, the Latins essentially have nothing to tell us about celibacy and priestly orders.