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Mor,

Some of those priests who asked for laicization in the Roman Church had many reasons to do so. Some did NOT have vocations. In some ethnic families, for example, it is (or was) expected that one of the sons would go to priesthood, no argument allowed. So, I would think it is good for both the Church and them that they did not continue in something they were not called to. This was true also of those in Religious communities.
I agree with you that doctrinal orthodoxy should be of major importance but otherwise, see no problem with Alex's proposal. I think that it would take awhile in some parishes for the RC faithful to get used to a married priest but there are some (few) former Episcopalian priests who do serve in Roman parishes that are not of the special "Anglican-use" ones. Maybe the rest of the Church could learn from their experience of how to prepare the RC faithful for getting beyond certain prejudices against married priests.
i think what Alex proposes is a good one and clearly there are priests who have been "laicized" who want to serve the Church again as priests and certainly the RC parishes need them.

Alex,

Tell me more about the PNCC Parish that joined up?

Axios

"I think such events show the impact that lack of priests is having on the RC Church."

Well, the situation decribed before, like a layman baptizing while the priest says the words, or viceversa, may be the result of ignorance (or laziness). For example, I've attended catholic masses with my mother, and I have seen many masses, in which, at the time of Holy Communion, the priest self-communicates, and then goes to his chair, takes a sit, and rests confortably, while laymen and women distribute communion.

The issue of married priesthood is complex, the eastern experience and the Roman one are very different. For example, in eastern christianity, maried priesthood had always existed, and the identity of the priest has never been affected, even now in modern times (the privileges of the priest in his special and unique relationship with the mysteries has never been usurpated by the laity). The loss of identity among Roman priests and the usurpation of most of their functions by the laity will just enworse with a married priesthood. There0s a very good articles about this:

http://www.maternalheart.com/library/emasculation.htm

reply:

Alex, unless I'm mistaken I thought the universal rule in East and West was that once in Holy Orders, it was forbidden to contract a marriage for oneself? How then can we say that priests should be allowed to marry??? This is much different than saying we should allow married men to become priests. The priests you mention, apparently violated a very clear anceint universal law.

I do agree with you that allowing married men into the Latin priesthood could be a powerful force in restoring a masculine image of repsect and trust. But there are many, many able bodied men (e.g. RC apologists) who could make very strong pastors as many of them left their pastorates to become Roman Catholics. I'm not against reconcilling the others either at the bishop's descretion on a case by case basis.

And I do believe there are strong biblical arguments for celibacy to be held (as it is for our Eastern Bishops) where the Church sees fit.

In Christ's Light,

Wm. Der-Ghazarian

Alex:

I'm surprised. I was taught that the Apostolic tradition was and is simply that a priest cannot marry after ordination. That applies also to a priest who is married and whose wife dies. It is also the case for those who have become permanent deacons: if your wife dies, you cannot remarry. I have discussed this situation at length with Orthodox clergy over the years and in some jurisdictions a man cannot continue his ministry if his marriage breaks up--or so they tell me.

I have heard of some cases in the United States where permanent deacons have asked to be laicized when their wives die and they realized that they did not want to remain celibate for the balance of their lives. That is one reason that my spiritual director advised me against entering the permanent deacon program in my diocese some years ago.

There are a few situations I am aware of where Protestant and Anglican clergy are received, but the custom here seems to be that they cannot serve in regular parish settings. They are usually assigned to chaplain duties in some setting away from a regular parish.

I also understand that a man who is laicized cannot do many things in a parish that another layman can do. I have also been told that a laicized priest cannot do catechetical work, do liturgical ministry, or in any way use many of the gifts and talents that they may have developed. Of course I also have resided in very conservative areas of the United States and perhaps allowing former priests back into parish life is winked at in other places.

As far as the Baptism problem, I'm not surprised. I believe and have said for many years that the problem of catechesis is a huge one that has been ignored for too long. Then, too, there are too many people being given rudimentary training and turned loose to fill places once filled by priests. But I can top that one. In 1986, a permanent deacon came to my funeral home to do a funeral for a child who had died at the age of just over a year. He was comforting the parents and in the midst of the conversation they told him that they had never found the time to have the child baptized and now they were so worried that he would not make it into Heaven. So do you know what happened next? The guy got a glass of water and poured it all over the body lying in the casket and "baptized" it! And I thought I'd seen everything in the grieving process!

BOB

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

I wanted to share a letter I sent to my former pastor and spiritual director about the clergy shortage. I wrote it as a result of an ongoing conversation we have been having for a number of years. I work as a funeral director and have run the vocations problem past clergy of many stripes in the past thirty years. It seems that we all have a similar problem: filling the leadership position in parishes/churches.

I'd be glad for comment.

May 15, 2002

Dear Paul,

I received your letter and I've also been wondering about assignment moves in the near future. Every man who is moved across the diocese will face a lingering suspicion about why he is being moved. While it will probably not be the case, the lingering suspicion of outsiders is beginning to build in some places. Polls are beginning to show that people are willing to say that they trust their own parish priest but won't give a blanket support for all priests. That will make the future a tougher environment for our clergy when they move.

I have thought many times about the optional celibacy issue. I have had opportunity to talk extensively with the clergy of many churches that have married clergy in the past many years. The problem with vocations is just as serious with them. The problem goes beyond merely marriage or lack of it. In many of these other churches, the clergy are paid so little that the spouse has to become the unwilling subsidy for the church's inability or refusal to compensate fairly. Then there was the clergy wife who told me she always had someone from the parish building committee walking into the house unannounced: once when she was in the bathroom. There was also the Orthodox priest in western PA a few years back who suddenly disappeared. Apparently he was having trouble with his congregation. It seems that they went looking for him one Sunday morning because he didn't show up for the Divine Liturgy and the house was completely cleaned out, no forwarding address, and from what I hear no one has heard from him since. (Perhaps that's a bit extreme, but sometimes the story illustrates the stresses that can accompany this situation. You could call the bishop and ask for a transfer, but with a family there are a lot more considerations.) My mother tells me from her experience of counting weekly envelopes and collections at her parish that there isn't a woman in the world who would stand for living on what the church pays the priests there. We know that Catholics are the poorest contributors of any organized religious group in this country. There is also the issue of the school system that we have. We might have to give up our Catholic schools to pay for a clergy family. Beyond that, going back to many Protestant models, there are so many opportunities out there for young people that somehow we haven't made the Church as attractive as it really is. Many of the Protestant clergy start with salaries anywhere from $12K to $24K per year. The Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Church of the Brethren—all have trouble filling pulpits. When you consider what Nick and Rachel (my son and daughter) are seeing: over $50K per year, a list of benefits, and their weekends off. Compare that to the difficulty that you have had even getting a day a week away to just charge your batteries. It is a similar problem with funeral service: we cannot attract the quality candidate and retain him/her because of the hours, pay, and benefits—not to mention the 24/7 on-call situation. Occasionally one hears of a minister with a dream package: $45K salary, $600 per month in housing allowance, a car, a chunk for retirement, an annual $2K for books, another $5 or 6K for continuing ed. But those are the exceptions.

Then there are those who advocate women clergy. The truth of the matter is that this has not been a matter of women's equality, as some would have it. Nor is it some deep re-thinking of theology. That often comes after the decision has been made: decide the issue and then go find some justification for it. In every case, it has started with the idea that a faltering congregation could have someone filling the pulpit at a lesser salary than they would have had to pay to a man. And I get this from people who have served on boards, vestries, and presbyteries that tell me that that had been the reasoning behind moves in their own church or other churches that they were familiar with. I just read a very beautiful explanation of our theology in this area. It explained the reasons behind the Catholic position of not ordaining women. It demonstrated that this area is one of theology—who we are as Catholics—not discipline as is the issue of married clergy. It's too bad that this particular article is not more widely distributed and taught.

Then there's the fallout. Every ecclesial community that has ordained women has suffered a corresponding drop in membership. I remember the story one man told me of an Anglican congregation in the Lancaster/York area whose wealthy members in large part spent the summer away. Over the summer the people who stayed home hired a woman minister. The first Sunday in September she held a Communion Service. When she went to the communion rail, half the people got up and walked out and the other half refused to approach. Those who had hired her were too intimidated to approach either. By the next week over 90% of the congregation had pulled their pledges and refused to contribute until she left. Since their structure and constitution allow clergy to stay in a place except in very limited circumstances (heresy and immorality), it was a standoff until the church was closed. Perhaps this is a bit on the far edge, but it still illustrates the deep-seated resistance to this idea or reality in some quarters.

Then there is the Catholic approach to optional celibacy. In the Eastern tradition, a man may or may not be ordained right out of the seminary. He had/has to get his marital status established and often he would be held up while he was watched to see how he handled his family—how his kids were/are turning out. How would we deal with someone who married, decided that it wasn't for him, and obtained a divorce? Would he have to go across the country if he had had his marriage annulled, presuming that he could get it done? We have an interesting situation in this area now with an Orthodox priest who has recently been allowed to “resign” the priesthood, marry, and go back to his old parish as a member. Lots of his former parishioners—now fellow parishioners—are uncomfortable because he's heard lots of intimate things about them in confession. They're wondering aloud if things are still held in confidence.

The Catholic approach, too, follows the permanent deacon's state: no marriage after ordination and no remarriage after the death of one's spouse. This discipline is still in place and strictly enforced. One is married to the Church at ordination and that marriage is a permanent one that precludes another following it, as I am sure you well know. So there would be a question as to whether we could still be called “Catholic” if we allowed marriage after ordination. (I've read extensive theology that underlies this whole practice and discipline. It is deep; it is beautiful; and it is still part of us when we call ourselves “Catholic.”) Then there's the issue of a marital problem. How would we address the issue of the unfaithful wife, the priest wanting a divorce for unfaithfulness, but who could not live alone from then on? How about the young wife who dies and leaves a man with young children to raise alone? What do we do if the bishop wants to move a man? (Canon law stipulates that a priest has a six year assignment and then may have another six, but must be moved after that.) What happens to the kids? I met lots of "military brats" in college whose fathers or mothers were moved every year or so and they had a big problem making and keeping friends. Why bother if one is just going to be moved soon? Could we commit to keeping a man in a place until his kids were raised so they wouldn't be moved from school to school? What if his wife had such a good job she didn't want to move? There are a lot more women today that a man with your education would be drawn to that would have a bigger say in where you lived than you, simply because she had a career, too, or made more. What if she told the bishop to go soak his head? What if the spouse got a job offer across the country and the bishop tried to stop the move because he needed the priest badly? What if the spouse absolutely refused to live in Church housing? We have an interesting situation here with an Orthodox priest who was moved here from a distance. His wife has absolutely refused to move to Central PA. He's in a tough spot.

And what of the kids? Many clergy will tell you that it is really hard to be a “PK”: a preacher's kid. Lots of razzing about being the “goody two shoes” example for everyone. Lots of clergy compensate by being liberal enough that their kids get poor example and end up outside the church. I also recently ran into a family that was unchurched because the grown children were all bitter about their father being kept so poor that they could never do anything that others could do, like take a vacation.

To be fully Catholic and faithful to the Apostolic Tradition, we would have to include much of this sort of thinking into our approach and practice as we moved toward allowing a married clergy. Otherwise, we'd be just another group of Protestants. Incidentally, the Protestant approach that divorces ordination from a permanent commitment or marriage to the Church springs from the idea that what a clergyman does is little more important than what the laity does. Once the Mass is not the Unbloody Sacrifice of Christ, once a priest is just a minister, once the idea settles in that the priest does not stand "in persona Christi," what's the point? We just have another married guy filling a slot and he can be easily and cheaply exchanged. I seriously doubt that many of the people advocating the relaxation of the celibacy requirement even know half of this. Many seem to be of the bent that Vatican II made everything a matter of whim or option and not sometimes a matter of theology. While I understand that celibacy is a matter of discipline when applied to male ordination and I understand that the attempted ordination of women is a matter of theology, most people don't see the difference and don't seem to want to understand it.

It might make sense to consider men who were second career. On the other hand, it is a mighty expense to “fold up the tents” with kids in high school—maybe college—and head off to a seminary for three, four, or five years.

Then I think of Nick. Loretta has had a distant relative leave the priesthood. His reason? Wherever he was stationed he was subjected to homosexual pressure of one sort or another. The man says he left after 10 years because he couldn't stand living around so many perverts anymore. Nick has heard this. How can I make a good case for him to consider what many have seen in him--that he would make a great priest and perhaps even make it to bishop with his intellectual gifts? He still prays daily, serves as a lector and Eucharistic minister weekly at the parish church near campus, reads Scripture regularly. But one thing he cannot stand is having someone of his own sex make a pass at him.

Maybe we need a system where ordination and assignment are followed by the period of formation. Some seminaries have distance learning courses that require a couple weeks in the summer at a seminary. (The Methodists have a similar program for some of the women in the area who have been filling pulpits as lay preachers and then moving to full ordination.) While these are stopgap measures, they do help to plug the gaps. There are lots of graduate programs that are now offered through cyberspace. It might be linked to mentoring with experienced priests already out of the seminary and with at least 10 years of faithful service. Formation might take more years but could place men into churches now. I fully understand that a seminary experience is more than formation, more than a personal experience, and more than a couple years away at a school. It is a “seed bed” so to speak. But as you say, we cannot go on much longer as we are doing now. There are few, if any, men in the pipeline and lots of retirements coming up. That also assumes that everyone between 25 and 75 will not die, have a fatal auto accident, or in some other way get a head start to the Kingdom without the rest of us!

Lots of things. But I fully and completely agree with you that something must be done if we are to continue to function as a liturgical community. We must have people properly formed and ready to function. We must maintain our Catholic identity and that means Mass celebrated and the sacramental system that flows out of and surrounds It. It calls for great sacrifice. But to tell you that is silly. Your very life tells that fact, celebrates that fact, and supports that fact. Culturally, we have left the word “sacrifice” out of our Catholic lexicon for the past 35 years. Most of the people coming after me—and many with me—have seen any idea that Christian living is about becoming more disciplined and thereby more like Our Lord quietly relegated to the same place we store old silk vestments, lace albs, and Baltimore catechisms. Somehow the idea of acquiring the virtues has become obsolete. Somehow right living and absolute values are under challenge both inside and outside the Church. We won't have an increase in vocations until our young people understand that the life of a priest is a life of the greatest commitment one can make and for the most worthy cause: to build up the Kingdom in the hearts of the people one lives with.

I've been wondering lately, too, about the wholesale scrapping of the ascetic tradition and practice in the church and how that has affected this whole situation. The aim of the ascetic tradition and practice was the building up of virtue and discipline. It gave us all a common focus on what the life of a Catholic ought to be. We seem to lack that sense of common focus. I heard someone argue on TV recently that certain practices weren't “sex” at all and that they were harmless. Sounded oddly like Bill Clinton. But the guy was a priest. We all know how people are broken when trust is broken—or we ought to know, and if we don't maybe it was missed somewhere in a classroom, whether that classroom was in school or the school of life. Trust is the bedrock of all that we are and all that we build in relationships as human beings. That seems to be particularly common as a recurring complaint by the victims airing on TV: broken trust, broken innocence.

I suggested to my Disciples group this year as a first activity the practice of “The Holy Face.” They told me that they were so excited about the implications that we did it all of Lent and some of the group tell me that they have found a new way to look at people; that it has sensitized them in a way like no other. Simply put, I look at Paul and I see Jesus Christ beckoning to me. He calls me to discern the need of Paul at this particular moment in time. Maybe it is for a smile; maybe a kind word; maybe some encouragement; maybe a “thank you for being you”; maybe the gift of time spent—whatever it is, it is something only I can give at that moment to that person because of my particular mix of talents, experience, disposition, relationship with the Lord. And we must always keep in mind that whatever we do to the least of the brethren we do for Him. Simple. A challenge.

Somehow I believe that if we had been focusing on developing this kind of approach to people much of this would not be upon us. I can't understand how anyone could harm a child. I somehow came to the realization that a child was the most precious gift that a man or woman could have from God. We have a sacred obligation to nurture, to encourage, to protect, to teach them. We have a sacred obligation to model for them the unconditional love of God the Father. We have an obligation to respect their unique person-ness, if I may coin that term: to respect their space, their unique God-given dignity. I simply cannot understand how someone could violate a child.

Christ's Church is something I cannot give up. I have found Him there. I have always wanted to understand what lies behind every nook and cranny, every practice and custom. This is the air I breathe. Indulge me. I have discussed these issues with people to learn about the many implications for many years. We could go on for a long time. There is no simple answer to the Church's problems. But I'd rather be part of the dialogue than let it go for someone else to wrestle with. It is too important.

Anything that is worth anything is worth whatever sacrifice or hardship or struggle that it takes to make it happen. Our Lord is worth all the struggle, the privation, or whatever it takes to follow Him and nourish His people. We apparently haven't gotten this part of the message out to young men, as we should have been doing. We will need a generation of strong examples and a return to a tougher emphasis on both Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice. We may well need a tough return to reading Humanae Vitae and a commitment to the ethos expressed there with its underlying assumption of the great dignity that we all have and the dignity that we must see and respect in those around us.

May God grant in His great and rich mercy that He will remember us in His Kingdom long after the world has forgotten.

Hello:

I'm not sure anyone actually commented about this.

Of course those "Baptisms" would be invalid. The only valid formula for Baptism is the Trinitartian formula "in the Name of the Father, and (of) the Son, and (of) the Holy Spirit".

Shalom,
Memo.

Dear Theophan,

Number one - if the ancient Apostolic tradition were followed in the RC Church, there would not only be married priests, but also married bishops!

And, conversely, which Apostolic canon was the RC Church following when it decided to impose MANDATORY celibacy? Certainly not the New Testament, to begin with!

Following the ancient canons of the Church, priests who are abusers are to be defrocked, period. Not transferred, and certainly not brought back into the Church after serving their time - as happened in the RC parish near me. There are many, many ways in which the current RC situation with respect to celibacy etc. is a flagrant denial of Apostolic Tradition.

That having been said, the Church is certainly empowered to review cases of priests who are no longer in the active ministry because they left to get married, with the view to having them return. The Church CAN do this. And I, and many, many others believe it should. Once again, circumstances may force the Church to do so.

And I think there is MUCH greater danger for the Church in having too many lay-ministers doing all sorts of things formerly reserved to priests only.

And the Latin Church can RETURN to the Apostolic tradition of married men in the priesthood, married prior to ordination.

The arguments you cite from another source about married priests and problems are inferences drawn by someone for whom the married priest tradition is as foreign an experience as all get out.

My grandfather was a priest and my grandmother's 14 relatives were all married priests with doctorates in theology etc. I continue to have married priests in my family.

What you cited above is simply overblown and while there are always issues for families of clergy, they are not insurmountable. For one thing, that person's clear bias against married priests prevented him from saying even one concrete and positive thing about a married priesthood, as I can see.

And that is truly an expression of ignorance of the married priest tradition of the Eastern Churches.

Things like having one's children "razzed" by others in the schoolyard? Puh-lease!

When I was in a Latin Catholic high school and said I was thinking of the priesthood, my reputation from then on was that of someone of a Gay orientation. Others had that as well, and I later learned that our priest-teachers themselves were largely considered homosexuals - and this was before the hey-day of clergy abuse scandals.

That was "razzing" at its worst. The other example is just silly and reflects a dyed-in-the-wool traditional Latin refusal to even CONSIDER married priests for the Latin tradition.

But that view is more and more finding itself a minority, even though the leadership is still strongly in favour of it (with those who aren't remaining silent). Time will tell, but frankly I just don't see Latin purism about married priests withstanding the test of time.

Are traditionalists afraid of liberalism among married priests? Our married priests are very conservative. Perhaps if the Latin Church acknowledged a married priesthood, the liberals would look for another issue to use as a political football to kick against the Church.

Right now, celibate priests are the ones who are suffering with their very identity questioned widely and suspected.

That's all I have to say.

Alex

Dear Ghazar,

Again, no one is suggesting that the opposite of mandatory celibacy be instituted, namely, "mandatory marriage" for clergy.

The Orthodox Church has traditionally REFUSED ordination to unmarried parish clergy, since it believes that single men should be in monasteries only - and Theophan should also take note that when an Eastern priest's wife dies, the tradition is that the priest enter a monastery, as happened in our Greek community some years ago.

But celibacy is something that is a Gift of the Spirit and will always be around. It is just that not everyone called to the Priesthood is called to celibacy.

The Fathers,Canons, the Bible and the Eastern Church tradition have maintained the legitimacy of married priests for quite some time . . .

Married priests can give a great witness to lay married people and laity, as occurs in our Churches, are more comfortable with their married clergy - and the married presbyteras.

Those who left to get married and petition to return, can have, as you said, their cases reviewed and the Church certainly has the Keys to unlock that problem.

And we're not talking about abuse scandals here. We're talking about serving the people of God and preventing them getting too used to lay-ministers etc.

That is the source of liberalism and even Protestantism in the Church, not married priests - in this case, only in the Eastern Churches and those married former Protestant clergy who have been ordained to the priesthood.

Sorry, but I don't understand Latin Catholic horror at the thought of married priests in their midst.

THAT is what is unscriptural and counter to the Tradition of the Church.

Alex

Dear Remie,

I disagree!

The sacerdotal role of the Latin Catholic priest is under attack precisely because there are so many functions that have been handed over to the laity in view of the fact of the priest shortage.

The abuse scandals don't help matters.

The first issue is to get more priests. The Latin Church can bury its head in the sand all it wants about having married priests, but that issue won't go away.

And anyone who suggests that married priests don't have to make sacrifices, as do their families, in their vocations is someone who doesn't know the situation with married Eastern Catholic priest families.

A lot of what our friend Theophan quoted from his friend is just that - conjecture and theory without bothering to examine real life experience of married EC priests and their families.

Alex

Dear Axios,

Yes, I believe it was a former PNCC parish out in Mississauga that came into communion with Rome as a parish unit, along with their priests. They continue their parish lives and liturgies as before, but they drop the PNCC listing of the Sacraments and don't list the Bible as one of them. That was really the only outward difference, including the liturgical veneration of Savonarola and Jan Hus.

I believe there are others who have done this and their love for the Polish Pope has something to do with it!

Alex

Dear Alex:

I didn't intend the letter that I shared to be arguments. I had intended to refine my own thinking by bringing many things that I had collected into one place and to share them. Quite the contrary, I welcome the experience of the Eastern Catholics and Orthodox and believe wholeheartedly that it is a positive thing that needs to be brought into the discussion within the Latin Church.

On the other hand, there are some implications that need to be considered that would necessitate some changes in current practice at least in the area where I live.

Thanks for your postings. I sincerely hope that I did not cause your blood pressure to rise by this sharing. I am looking for positive information that I can use in this ongoing exchange that this letter was a part of.

I do agree with you about defrocking those who have committed abuse against children. It seems to me from what I have seen that it is more difficult than it appears in current Latin practice. The bishop of Pittsburgh just recently managed to get a problem of this sort resolved but it has taken him from the time he was assigned there to just recently to get it done. It seems that only the Pope himself can defrock a priest; a bishop--or so it seems--cannot do it himself.

BOB

"Sorry, but I don't understand Latin Catholic horror at the thought of married priests in their midst.

THAT is what is unscriptural and counter to the Tradition of the Church. -Alex "

reply: I agree Alex. I'm all for allowing married men to enter the priesthood. All I was saying was that the concept of ordained priests marrying AFTER ORDINATION, raises some flags for me.

In Christ's Light,

Wm.

Don't mean to sound rude but most catholic's I speak to haven't a clue what a catholic really is.