Posted on 09/18/2013 3:41:28 PM PDT by NYer
Last week, the newly appointed Vatican Secretary of State made news when, in answer to a question about the Church's ancient practice of priestly (and episcopal) celibacy, acknowledged that this was not a dogma, and it was certainly possible to discuss a change in this discipline.
The news media predictably made much of this; and for a lot of folks, this seemed to be something new.
Well...it's not.
I think, if you were to do an Internet search, you'd find that similar comments have been made by someone "high up" in the Church during the reign of the last three or four popes (with the possible exception of Pope John Paul I, who reigned about a month). It's a perennial question; and the recent answer is the stock answer. It's not the answer I, as a former PR man, would have advised--but this would hardly be the first time one of our prelates handled a question in a way that makes people savvy in media relations cringe.
For what it's worth, my PR advice would have consisted of asking the pope: do you want to generate controversy over this? No? Then I'd have suggested a response along the lines of saying the age-old discipline of celibacy has served the Roman Rite well, and while people are free to advocate for a change, the odds are extraordinarily slim at best that it's going to be changed now.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State said we can "talk about it," so let's talk about it.
The reading today from St. Paul's first letter to St. Timothy mentioned the families of bishops, raising the question of whether, in the early church, bishops, as well as priests, might have been married. Well, they might indeed have been. But what people forget is that they might also have been expected, after ordination, to remain "continent"--i.e., no longer having marital relations.
But in any case, what people forget is that it was both what Paul wrote elsewhere in his letters, as well as what the Gospels report of our Lord's own instructions, on the value of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom that provides a clear Biblical support for the discipline. Paul said it best: an unmarried man can serve the Lord without being pulled in two directions. And that's obviously true.
My classmate, the late Father Dan Schuh, said it as well as anyone. Father Schuh was, like me, a later vocation; before entering the seminary, he married, and before his wife died, they had two children. His two grandchildren were present for his (and my) ordination; and when one of them called out, "grandpa!" Archbishop Pilarczyk said it was something he never thought he'd hear at an ordination!
Those of us in the seminary with Dan who hadn't been married asked his take on the "married priest" question. And here is his answer: "what woman would want to be put in second place, or deserve to?"
And that is exactly right. That is an inevitable choice for any married man, pressed by his other obligations; now imagine that married man being your parish priest.
My humorous answer--when someone asks what I think about married priests--is to smile and say, "I'm amused that you think my life would be easier if I had a wife and children." Now, I fear some women think I'm making a crack; but I'm not--I'm just trying to make Father Schuh's point a different way.
Married priests mean priests with children and all that entails. Perhaps with large families. This means fundamental changes in housing arrangements and other financial arrangements for parishes.
Here's a detail that many overlook--but attend carefully here, because this is more significant than you may realize:
At issue isn't whether priests can marry--that will never happen. Repeat: never!
Instead, what is at issue is whether married men might become priests. That is what is potentially possible.
This is not a semantical difference.
While there is ample tradition--to this day--for married men being priests (among the Orthodox and other Eastern Christians), as far as I know, there has never been allowance for men, once ordained, to be married. If their wives die, they remain unmarried. This is the norm, right now, for deacons.
Whether that's good or bad is irrelevant; one thing I predict confidently is that the pope isn't going to overturn an established tradition common to all the ancient, apostolic Churches. It would create a vexing new problem for ecumenism, precisely because it would be a true innovation. I cannot conceive of a reason for any pope to go down that road.
But here's why this distinction matters. Given what I said, any change would mean, in practical terms, that for a priest to be married, he must marry first.
Which means that many of the men who now decide to enter the seminary at a younger age--in their 20s and 30s--would have a reason to wait. Wait until they marry.
But guess what? Once they marry, then they face three huge issues every married person faces:
> Building a good marriage
> Job, career and economic security
> Children
All right, show of hands: who wants to add, to this, the fourth concern: discerning if you are called to be a priest, and then entering seminary and becoming a priest?
Clearly, such men as I describe, who would want to be priests, and who I don't doubt would be good priests, would have huge reasons to wait. And wait. And wait.
This is not hypothetical; this is precisely what happens with married men who are attracted to the vocation of deacon.
We have wonderful deacons, and I'm glad we do. And we have a good number of them. We ordain 20-30 of them every three years. That's a lot.
However, ask them: are you able to be full time like the parish priest?
No; only some of them have a parish-based job. None of them has the expectation that priests do, of the Church providing them a living. That would be a difficult promise for the Church to make to deacons--aside from the added cost--precisely because it would be so different from case to case. This deacon has no children; this one has two, but they're grown; this one has young children; this one has ten children of all ages. Notice: we've had married deacons for approximately 40 years, and this is one of many questions unresolved for the Church. When's the last time you saw any of the bishops talk publicly about how they were going to address this? Probably never!
So picture a scene: a small U-Haul trailer sitting outside the bishop's front door, labeled "thorny problems related to the permanent diaconate we don't want to deal with." It's been there 40 years. What are the odds the bishop wants you to deliver another one, only a lot bigger?
Here's something else. People often say, allowing married men to be priests will mean more vocations. I assume they are right. But I wonder how many of those new vocations will be existing deacons? Will we allow them to be considered? I don't see why not. It would make sense; they would already have some of the needed theological training, and parish experience.
So, great: we get new priests! But we have fewer deacons. It might be a trade-off we can live with, but this is not usually how the promised new vocations is presented.
There are couple more practical considerations:
> Married priests means parishes will be confronted with all the drama and complications that their married clergy are dealing with: basically, every marital and family problem there is.
This is often presented as a benefit: our priests will experience these things first hand. Aside from the fallacies implicit in that sort of thinking, let's stop and consider what this really means.
When Father and Mrs. Jones are having troubles, the parish will have a ringside seat. Imagine the fun on the grapevine! As it is, whenever a couple is pulled apart, family and friends are confronted with the question, "whose side are you on?" Now we can introduce this dynamic into the parish.
Also, consider what it will be like when the priest talks about the immorality of using contraception, and people start counting how many children he has. And, yes, that's exactly what folks will do.
Now consider all the range of parenting challenges--but lived out in a glass house. Here's an easy case study: Father and Mrs. Jones's first two children are doing fine in the Catholic school; but the third child, for whatever reason, is struggling. They decide to shift this child to a non-Catholic school.
Imagine that news getting around the parish.
I can go on--those of you who are parents know about some of the really difficult things you have faced as you raise your children. Would you really want all that to be part of parish chatter?
This is not hypothetical: this is precisely what happens with Protestant clergy.
Speaking of Protestant clergy, there is a special dynamic that happens precisely with married clergy: the question of the pastor's spouse. What's her role in the parish? Is she co-pastor? Does she chair a committee? Hold a job? To whom is she accountable?
If you have Protestant friends who have been very involved in their churches, ask them about this.
As someone said after Mass this morning--reacting, in part, to what I said in my homily--"a lot of folks haven't thought through all the implications." Exactly right.
My assessment is this: if we made that change, we would trade one set of problems for another. While we might like our new problems better, that's far from self-evident.
Finally, a theological consideration.
While it's certainly true that there's no essential barrier to a married priesthood, there are some compelling theological considerations--rooted in the Scriptures, and in the life of our Savior.
Many who advocate allowing married men to become priests simply ignore the strong witness of Scripture, and Tradition, and the Lord himself, in favor of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. As far as anyone knows, Jesus himself did not marry. Taking him simply as a prophet (he's more than that, of course), this is not without precedent. But insofar as he is--in his own words--the "Bridegroom," then it's exactly correct. How can Jesus marry, when his "Bride" is the Church?
When clergy, and laity who are in religious communities, embrace celibacy, they are a sign of the kingdom. If a married man is on a business trip, away from his family, and if someone were to approach him, and perhaps express interest, what does a faithful husband say? "No thanks, I'm spoken for" as he points toward his wedding ring.
That's exactly what celibate priests and religious are saying by their vow of celibacy. And they also say, "I'm waiting for Someone"--that someone is the Bridegroom.
People mistakenly think that the practice of celibacy somehow denigrates marriage--as if the practice of fasting denigrates food! Setting aside the obvious fact that Catholics deem marriage so holy, it's a sacrament, celibacy only makes sense--as a prophetic sign--precisely because of how good marriage is. No one would be impressed by a vow to avoid drinking poison. But a vow to give up something very good is impressive. Why would you give up something? As a sign that your hope is fixed on something even better.
After Mass, someone asked me this morning, aren't there priests who don't agree with you? Indeed there are. What I've just shared is my own judgment and perspective, and it's worth every penny you paid for it!
But my answer to the question posed by the headline?
I think it's extraordinarily unlikely the pope will change this discipline. If he were even to do it, he'd have to involve all the bishops. Personally, I think such an initiative would be very ill advised. If he ever calls me (you laugh; but he's doing that sort of thing, apparently), who knows? Maybe I'll tell him myself.
For the same reason that priests may not marry.
There seems to be much confusion over this topic. Priestly celibacy is a discipline. Were it to be lifted, married men could apply to become priests. Note the difference.
With regard to women's religious communities, certain communities offer married women the opportunity to participate as members of a "third" order. These women do not join the convent but serve in a different capacity.
WRONG! In some of the Eastern Churches, married men may apply to become priests. BIG difference. Once accepted, should their wife die, they may not remarry.
It addresses the title, “Will the Pope OK Married Priests?”
They already have. Oddly, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists seem to manage married clergy.
Sure, they get the occasional crank, but they recruit fewer pederasts.
because the nuns are lesbians...
ya...one of our Parish Priests is a married former Episcopalian.
Dear shadeaud, I’m glad you're not being sarcastic, because you are really confused! Everything you mentioned in that paragraph is untrue!
The Pope didn't say that "homos won't go to hell" --- that is, if they engage in the sin of sodomy and don't repent, they will (like any other unrepentant sinner.) He did say that if a man just has an unbidden attraction to other men (a homosexual temptation) he won't be "judged" a sinner if he does not give in to the temptation, and does not sin! Make sense?
He also didn't say that you don't have to believe in God. In that much misquoted letter which he sent to the atheist editor of La Reppublica, Pope Francis said "You [the atheist he was writing to] can be saved if you turn to Him with a sincere and contrite heart."
It's possible that part wasn't quoted in whatever garbled version of it you might have read. The secular press tends to cut out that kind of thing.
Third, neither the Pope nor any other knowledgeable person in the Church ever said that "priests will be allowed to get married." That is NOT possible. Once a priest has made a vow of celibacy, he is not an 'eligible bachelor'!
As this article points out, in some of the Eastern Catholic Churches (e.g. the Maronites and Melkites in Lebanon, the Chaldeans in Iraq, etc.) they already have the practice that married men can become priests. In that order: first marry, then be ordained as a priest. But not in the reverse order: priest, then marry. That ain't happening. Nor has, never will!
It aggravates me that the Pope is so much misquoted, and so misconstrued. It means people like myself have to go around correcting the record,
| "This is what he said!" |
| and |
| "This is what he didn't say!!" |
| all over the blogosphere. :`:`sigh:`:` Any questions? Tagline. |
That’s why priests can’t get married.
Roman Catholicism has married deacons. In fact, we have more married deacons in the US (14,000) than we have priests in religious orders like the Jesuits and the Franciscans (13,000).
If a man wanted to have the vows of Holy Orders AND the vows of matrimony, after he was married he could become an Eastern Rite priest or he could be an ordained deacon.
Or, o the other hand, he might have a vocation as a celibate Latin priest. Whatever his calling is (married or celibate, laity or clergy), it is a special gift from God.
It's all a matter of what his calling is from the Lord. St. Paul, who wrote that excellent description of what the qualifications of a bishop should be (in the Letter to Timothy) is also the one who also recommended celibacy:
"It is well for a man not to touch a woman.... I wish that all were [unmarried] as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another (1 Cor. 7:1,7).
That's good Scriptural advice, isn't it?
Excellent. Very well expressed! To compliment your treatise, I would like to point out that the Eastern Churches also have celibate priests. Our pastor initially intended to marry before becoming a priest. In the process of his discernment, he felt a strong calling to live a monastic life as a missionary. That led him to enter the Maronite Lebanese Missionary community and be ordained as a celibate priest. He now serves as pastor in a small Maronite parish in the US.
That quote always kind of puzzles me. Doesn't it mean the atheist isn't an atheist anymore? How else could one turn to Him in whom the atheist doesn't believe exists? I conclude that atheists who remain atheists probably won't be saved but those who do not might well be (in other words, same as what we have believed all along).
And these are the ones people know about.
I suppose a priest could be defrocked, marry, and then become a priest again.
Did Martin Luther do that?
WOW, thanks for setting us straight....the priests and bishops of the first 500 years of Christianity thank you for clearing this up!!!
priests , parish priests, live alone in a (usually) parish owned rectory...house..Nuns, on the other hand, usually live in communities with other nuns....hard to slip a husband in there!!!
The Scriptures say nothing about a priesthood in the Christian church.
wrong
it never fails to amaze me how asinine some people can be....pathetic
scripture also says nothing about a legitimate protestant organization within the Christian chuch either.
Not relevant to the point. There were no priests in the Christian church therefore nothing in Scripture about such a priesthood.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.