Great article by a married Catholic Priest

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I thought this was a great article by Fr. Dwight Longenecker…a married catholic priests. What do people think…

https://dwightlongenecker.com/is-it-time-to-end-mandatory-celibacy-for-priests/

Some insightful quotes from the article…
I have learned that for every practical reason in favor of having married priests there is an equal argument against the innovation. Likewise for every practical reason in favor of celibacy I can think of an equal practical reason why it is a bad idea.
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When there were many priests most men lived together in a community of their priest brothers. If they were not actually members of a religious community, they shared a home and life together. Now, with a reduced number of priests, most priests live alone. Is this the ideal? I don’t believe so. St Benedict lived first as a hermit, so he knew the particular hardships and temptations of the solitary life and recommended that the monks live in community. What are those hardships? In addition to the loneliness, the temptation to self indulgence and the obvious sexual temptations…
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Whatever the reality, living in community and marriage (which is the primary way of living in community) can help to counter these natural tendencies and temptations.One of the greatest gifts in my life is having a wife and kids who take me down a peg. In community brother priests and a conscientious superior would provide the same benefit.
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I wonder whether it is time to re-examine our present practice of mandatory celibacy. Would not the formation and support of our priests be better if those who were celibate were also members of a religious community? This is the practice of the Eastern Orthodox. Then would it not be a complement to the celibate priesthood if more tested and mature married men were to be ordained?
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He is not proposing that we “Allow all priests to get married tomorrow”, but he is proposing a different model. Often the arguments on this forum assume somebody is pushing to allow all priests go get married as soon as possible. Really…nobody with any serious or sincere understanding of Catholicism is proposing this.
 
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I’m sure there are some priests out there living alone somewhere (the missions, for example, or maybe isolated parishes in USA even) but I do not typically see priests living by themselves unless they are already quite old; even then they have staff who, if they aren’t living with the priest, are around for enough hours in the day that he’s not exactly an island. The churches I attend usually seem to have two or more priests living in a common rectory (which may be in another parish and the priest comes over just for Mass) or else they are operated by religious communities/ orders and the priests are coming over from their abbey or other communal home to say Mass and hear confession, etc. Also, the priests seem to have fairly busy social schedules involving their extended family, visits to their favorite retreat houses or conferences, etc. on top of interaction with parishioners. I’m sure someone can still perhaps yearn for a special relationship partner despite all of that, but I’m simply not seeing all these totally alone priests.
 
I am not familiar with this priest, I assume he was married as some other denomination as a minster and converted to Catholicism?
 
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He was an Anglican priest and was married while serving in that capacity, as Anglicans permit married priests. There have been a number of cases of married Anglican priests allowed to convert over to married Roman Catholic priests. If you attend an Anglican ordinariate parish, you will see them there, usually.
 
When I think of the priests I know, I actually think they have some of the busiest social lives out there. Always with people doing something it seems like all day long. Very hard to schedule confessions or spiritual direction sometimes as they are so busy
 
I have seen diocesan priests that appear to be alone and live alone. Often in rural areas of the united states you’ll see this. Maybe there are two priests in an entire city if the population (Catholic and Non-Catholic) is greater than 30000. Yes they are busy, but there is a difference between being busy and being part of a community.

Often in very rural areas (in the United States) you’ll have one “young” priest for something like 4 small parishes and a school. The priests travels from town to town…to me this seems like a very isolating and tough life. Often the priests either ask for another assignment or leave the priesthood completely.

What some of the people who responded to this thread may actually be seeing are parishes that are run by orders. For example for many major Universities, the Newman Center/campus parish is run by the Jesuits or Dominicans…and yes the parishes have several priests that provide a vibrant community. The same is true in major cities (e.g. Holy Trinity in Washington DC with multiple priests is entirely a Jesuit Parish). This is exactly what the author is saying, the vibrant priestly communities that people see are associated with orders. That is why they are vibrant communities.

…So really I just don’t agree with the responders here. From what I’ve seen, isolation of priests who are not part of orders in rural areas in the US is common. I found this article very accurate and insightful.
 
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I’m not really a huge fan of Dr Dwight.

However, I like what he says here.

He really seems to hit the nail on the head about the isolation and loneliness. It’s a shame the modern parish priest has to live alone like he does.

Until recently at least, I feel a lot of the defense of the celibate priesthood was just for sake of defending the celibate priesthood. It’s soooo apparently a “Catholic thing” that to think otherwise makes it seem, at first glance, an admission that we’ve “got it wrong.”

But it’s not that. It’s recognizing that the Church must adapt, while still valuing genuine Catholic traditions.

Frankly, I don’t really get why this isn’t being discussed higher up in the church.
 
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The sad thing is, even married priests advocate against priests marrying. Your vocation is either to your family or your flock.
 
Tell that to married Catholic priests.

Married vocation does not exclude the priestly vocation.
 
There are a few former Anglican priests now married Catholic priests who are vocal about the difficulty of being a married priest. There are many instances they are put in a position to choose family over flock and vice versa.
 
A couple of comments:

According to CARA, the ratio of priests to parishes is right about at 1 to 1. Anyone who finds themselves in a parish with more than one priest should consider themselves blessed. So where there are parishes with 2 priests, out there beyond the suburbs is a parish which has a priest come to say Mass (as in, not in residence).

Most people who have a job surrounded by staff who "if they aren’t living with the priest, are around for enough hours in the day that he’s not exactly an island. "

To anyone who has been married and had a job, they will know the relief of coming home from the chaos (or substituting the chaos of family life), and how the interaction of family differs greatly from the interaction with others at the job.

In the past, if I remember correctly, Fr. Longenecker was quoted as being against a married clergy. Thei letter seems that he has softened a bit on the matter.

Brazil has petitioned the Pope to relax the rule that only celibate men can be ordained. In many areas of Brazil, Catholics only see a priest once every 6 moths to once a year, if that.

Assuming for the moment that the rule should be relaxed, I seriously doubt there will be a wild mad rush of married men to seminaries; see the thread “Are Permanent Deacons Obliged to Observe Perpetual Continence?”
 
And the same can be said for middle managers, small business owners, doctors, lawyers, and CPA;s during tax season. Not sure what the point is, other than life is difficult.

Of course they are torn between family and parish. All the more so as parishes do not have the luxury of several priests to rotate through parish responsibilities. Deacons now take up some of that slack (and they are married, too…).
 
Well the Church has had married priests since the time of Christ, and the Roman rite had them for about 10 centuries. One does not preclude the other.; neither has been an exclusion of the other except for the Roman rite for the last 10 centuries. The same has been said for Protestant ministers complaining of the workload; it is not unique to the Catholic Church.
 
I would like to ask every parish priest I know if they think they would be able to be married and have a family with their current ministry.
 
That’s fine; make sure you also include all of the priests from the 1970’s and 80’s and 90’s who left and (laicized or not) got married. Otherwise you don’t have a fair and accurate sample.

Because of the reduction in the number of priests per parish, you may not have a fair sample. Further, the Church has held for 2,000 years that a priest who is celibate cannot marry and continue in the priesthood, so your question should not be “Would you want to marry” now, as at least some of them if not most are aware it is an impossibility. Not sure how you could take a fair and accurate polling.

And the ultimate question is not whether or not the current priests would want to have a family; it is whether or not married men would want to be ordained. I would suspect that polling would have to be quite large, and I don’t suspect many would - not because of demands of a parish, but because of the lack of a vocation to the priesthood.

All of which is entirely different than asking current priests about a married priesthood.
 
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MiserereMei25 said:
I would like to ask every parish priest I know if they think they would be able to be married and have a family with their current ministry.
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Some days I barely have enough time for myself, let alone a wife! Besides that, while there is a tradition of ordaining married men in the Church there’s no tradition of allowing priests to marry (when I took the promise of celibacy, the Church kind of presumed that I meant it!)

As far as living with other priests is concerned, diocesan priests aren’t really big on community life (some religious orders aren’t either). Even when we do live together it’s not like some religious communities - we each have our own schedules, commitments and preferences so, if anything, it’s more co-existence than community! In theory, at least, the parish is supposed to be our community - which is and isn’t true. Regardless, the people who keep me level are my family and close friends as much as my brother priests.
 
jack63 said:
For example for many major Universities, the Newman Center/campus parish is run by the Jesuits or Dominicans…and yes the parishes have several priests that provide a vibrant community.
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The Newman Center I attend is run by a diocesan priest. He lives a couple miles up the street at the local parish with some other priests.

Please understand that much of the USA is not a “rural area” and we speak from our experiences.

Please also note I said that in “Isolated parishes in USA” priests might be alone. Once again, many Catholics in USA are not in these “isolated parishes” but are in busy dioceses with a lot going on, so even if there’s one priest assigned to a parish, he is not that isolated from either other priests or other people.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
Frankly, I don’t really get why this isn’t being discussed higher up in the church.
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My question would be, is this priestly celibacy thing also a problem outside USA, or USA and a few Western countries?

If it is affecting many countries worldwide, then it is going to get on the Vatican radar screen faster than if it is just the USA and/or a few other Western countries pushing for married priests.

Also, it seems like many vocations these days are coming from traditional Catholic dioceses/ areas. Obviously the traditionalists are not going to be in the forefront of pushing for married priests (corrected my initial error/ typo). If they are producing the most priests, then we would want to look at the retention rate of such priests over time. If these traditionalists are the priests who stay in the priesthood, then maybe there is something other than celibacy that is the issue.
 
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